4 ms·

That sounds like a pretty dismal support experience. My own experience is that I've had good interactions with apple support, but mainly because I knew what I w

by swombat 14y ago

That sounds like a pretty dismal support experience. My own experience is that I've had good interactions with apple support, but mainly because I knew what I wanted and I was willing to push the "I'm not happy" button, which I understand is hard wired into all Apple Geniused at the factory in China, and automatically flicks them into "maximum helpfulness mode". But if you don't know about the magic button, it can be a bit tricky, I guess!... This is certainly something Apple should look into. Their main customer base is the mass market of tech-unsavvy consumers, people like my parents, who don't know how to find that button and believe, rightly, that Apple stores are full of condescending youngsters who treat them like idiots and give them bad advice.

rdl 14y ago
The Apple Stores in the Bay Area are great, in my experience, if you schedule an appointment, show up on time, and are pretty clearly competent -- "I've already backed up this machine, these are the specific symptoms, ...". "I'm a developer" also helps. The Geniuses have wide latitude in what they can do, so being friendly, polite, and easy for them to serve goes a long way -- I've gotten a MBP3,1 fully replaced, 3 replacements of my new iPhone 5 in the days after launch to solve a not-fully-understood-by-Apple WPA2+AES wifi problem, fixing machines where I'd replaced the HDD+ODD with SSD (but the problem was unrelated), etc. (I really should just do the $300 certification to become an AASP so I can fix my own stuff with Apple-provided parts, though.) That said, their tier-1 phone support is horrible. Doing whatever is possible to get bumped to 2/3 as soon as possible is essential. (it's all contracted out, actually). I wish there were an easy way to pay a one-time or annual fee to get bumped automatically to tier 2/3.

4 ms·

That sounds like a pretty dismal support experience. My own experience is that I've had good interactions with apple support, but mainly because I knew what I w

by swombat 14y ago

rdl 14y ago
The Apple Stores in the Bay Area are great, in my experience, if you schedule an appointment, show up on time, and are pretty clearly competent -- "I've already backed up this machine, these are the specific symptoms, ...". "I'm a developer" also helps. The Geniuses have wide latitude in what they can do, so being friendly, polite, and easy for them to serve goes a long way -- I've gotten a MBP3,1 fully replaced, 3 replacements of my new iPhone 5 in the days after launch to solve a not-fully-understood-by-Apple WPA2+AES wifi problem, fixing machines where I'd replaced the HDD+ODD with SSD (but the problem was unrelated), etc. (I really should just do the $300 certification to become an AASP so I can fix my own stuff with Apple-provided parts, though.) That said, their tier-1 phone support is horrible. Doing whatever is possible to get bumped to 2/3 as soon as possible is essential. (it's all contracted out, actually). I wish there were an easy way to pay a one-time or annual fee to get bumped automatically to tier 2/3.