While Apple’s tech support line isn’t the nightmare of most automated phone systems, it’s tarnishing the Cupertino, Calif. company’s sterling reputation with customers. That’s the finding of a study showing HP and Dell service calls are catching up with the tech giant.
“Apple used to be well ahead of the pack in tech support,” Peter Leppik, CEO of Minnesota-based Vocalabs, said. “Now it would be safe to say that they are merely in front of the pack.”
After interviewing customers immediately following tech support calls, 58 percent of the people reported during the first half of 2011 being “Very Satisfied” with the experience, down 15 points from a year ago. HP customers reported 53 percent were “Very Satisfied” while Dell customers responded with 47 percent, according to the research.
Of note is the vast difference in how satisfied Apple customers are with the calls’ automated versus agent support. Only 24 percent of customers were “Very Satisfied” with the automated portion, landing in third place behind HP’s 40% and Dell’s 36 percent. In the surveys conducted between May 2008 and June 2011, 40 percent of Apple customers experienced a problem during the automated portion of tech support calls.
A bright spot, however, is Apple’s tech support agents are rated vastly higher than rival computer makers. The human portion of Apple tech support calls received a 77 percent “Very Satisfied” rating, compared to 61 percent for HP and 56 percent for Dell.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
38 responses to “Customer Satisfaction With Apple Tech Support Hits The Skids”
Ed, with Apple’s live support reps at a 77% “very satisfied” rating, this is 180 degrees opposite to your headline of Apple’s support “hitting the skids”. Look, I understand the need to create interesting headlines, but at least try to make them match reality just a bit. 77% is HUGE! When I think of tech support I think of talking to a rep, and I’ve experienced a 99% “very satisfied” level with my own tech support calls.
I must say I agree. While Apple is fabulous, their phone support is a nightmare. But then, I hate the phone anyway so I might be biased.
I was laid off in 2008, that being said. I have been an Apple fan since 1997. I was given Lion as a gift read though the Apple website about Lion. I run Logic 8 to help me de-stress and to take my mind off of being unemployed. I tried to open Logic 8 and found that it is not compatible with Lion. Nowhere on the Apple website states that. I just got off the phone with Apple and that said either upgrade Logic or I’m SOL.
UPDATE:
open /Applications/Logic\ Express.app/Contents/MacOS/Logic\ Express This is the command to enter into terminal to get Logic 8 to work in Lion. Apple disabled it so you would would have to upgrade to the latest version of Logic.Great way to do business with you customers .
I’ve had some really bad experiences with Apple phone support. One example was when I called regarding my son’s iTouch which had a broken screen in February. It was a Christmas gift I given him at Christmas, however I purchased the unit online in early November in order to ensure I wouldn’t run into holiday shortages and miss getting him the one gift he really wanted. Problem is the 90 day phone warranty service ran out based on the purchase date, not the ‘in service’ date which was Dec 25th. Live and learn I guess – no one would talk to me about how to repair or replace the unit. I was more than willing to pay for the repair but Apple wouldn’t talk to me because I didn’t buy the Apple Care extended warranty. I was VERY frustrated with this lack of service – I finally took the unit into the Toronto Eaton Center store and waited to talk to a manager – the non apple store retailers couldn’t help me because I bought it online. Rating 1 out of 10!
http://tinyurl.com/3ct3pn6
I think that success is starting to strain Apple tech support. Four years ago they seemed more helpful. They still are very capable and helpful, but the last couple of times I called something seemed to change. For some reason AirPrint failed on my iPad2. The only recent change I made in my system was to install Lion on my iMac. I had Apple Care on my iMac, but the 90 day warranty on my iPad had elapsed. The tech service person insisted that the failure to use AirPrint was entirely an iPad problem and that there was nothing Apple could do but repair the iPad. That was all the help that was offered.
The nearest Apple store is 100 miles away so I decided to try going to my iMac and mess with Sharing. I removed the existing printers from my sharing list and reattached them. After that I found that AirPrint suddenly started working again on my iPad. It turned out that the fault was, indeed, on
my iMac which was covered by Apple Care and not with the iPad. The tech person at Apple completely discounted the iMac theory entirely and consulted with no one else at Apple. I lost about two hours thrashing about.
Apple’s tech people used to be more helpful and understanding, but I am beginning to sense that a less than helpful attitude is creeping in. I hope it’s only temporary. one of the main reasons I started buying Apple products was the good tech service.
I just paid $23.86 for an iPhone and my girlfriend loves her Dell laptop that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 42 inch LED TV to my boss for $665 which only cost me $62,81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabPenny.com
The last time I had to deal with AppleCare Support was back in 2008. I bought myself and good friend of mine the New 24″ iMac’s both identical and both arrived at the same time. the problem I didn’t discover and now I do every time I open a new computer – was about 3 months later i wanted to wipe my iMac and stat over fresh. Problem? The discs I discovered that you use to restore the OS and the apps were not the discs I needed. I had two copies of Disk #2. So, i get on the phone with AppleCare and explained to them 4 times what I was in need of. And what happens I received my discs in the mail but they where for a MacMini. Called back again, they tried to tell my my iMac serial number dated the Mac as one used OS X Tiger – huh? it shipped with Leopard on it. So, another few days later I got my discs alright this time it was for MacBook Pro. So, another call to AppleCare. After being frustrated to no end. I remember where it was posted that some people had luck sending an email to SteveJobs or [email protected] something like that it’s been awhile the very next day I received a call from Steve’s personal assistant. He asked me to tell him what I was trying to get taken care of and the results. I told him all I wanted was the correct disks that should have shipped with my then iMac. the very next day I had a FedEx shipment from Ai It was the full retail versions of Mac OS Leopard, iLife and iWork. So, i am not sure what is going on with AppleCare these days but at least after I was ready to go through the phone rip someone’s face off – It was Steve’s assistant that took care of me not Applecare. Further this year, I wanted to sell a MacBook Air and transfer the Applecare to the new owner… It was then I read the documentation and found out that Applecare although named Apple care is actually contracted to do fulfillment for Apple but is really not Apple.
I disagree. That headline wasn’t sensationalist. Have you been to Giz lately?
That pretty poor cs. Thanks for sharing.
apple sucks, i’m not surprised. iOS is waaay behind the pack in terms of innovatio
Really? I assume that Google is innovative? Or Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, maybe you were referring to Sony, Nintendo? Or is it Motorola, Asus, Nokia, Samsung? Of course all of those mentioned are WAY behind Apple in almost every category from innovative design, innovative config, innovative packaging, innovative performance, innovative experience, innovative adoption. The only thing the other are innovative is new ways to copy Apple.
The last two times I’ve called Apple for help, they couldn’t help me. I am very satisfied at how easy it was to get someone on the phone – especially how they call me instead of me calling them. I also like that they all speak perfect English and appear to be based in America… And they all seem young and enthusiastic to help. However, if they can’t solve the problem, that’s a whole different story.
Go Away troll.
What the hell is an iTouch. Apple doesn’t make an iTouch.
Check out this great Apple blog for all the latest Apple news
http://applefanboynews.com/
Innovatio? Yeah, no one is even going to bother with your comment if you can’t type words correctly.
And no, iOS 5 isn’t shit.
That would be an iPod Touch… but I guess you couldn’t figure that out. Work for Apple do you Brian. Paid to attempt to discredit valid complaints about Apple’s products and services.
That’s weird, I though you get a year. Where did you say you purchased it?
There’s not such thing as an iTouch. that’s probably why they couldn’t help.
In case anyone else runs across this. Airprint is only with supported computers, and is not supported to a printer shared by a Mac. If it did work, it was because of 3rd party software enabling it, and is not officially supported by Apple.
good caution for all users, Double-check before updating, and make sure you have backups, so if needed you can revert to an earlier version if things don’t work correctly with the new OS version.
This specific issue – the original install disks missing – is handled by a process called fulfillment where a 3rd party basically prints up the disks or other missing documentation and ‘fulfills’ it to the customer. Having worked in AppleCare I can tell you that the vast majority of support is competent but this particular process is notorious for foul-ups. It’s just one of those things that’s been entrenched forever in their business and they don’t have any priority on replacing or fixing it really.