One of the things I miss by reading this post is how empowered CSRs were back in those days. Today, everything is scripted and highly metricized. Going through the customer service line today will get you the run around and lot of toothless solutions. No one can do anything and even "escalation" mostly means handing you off to another powerless CSR to continue the runaround.
This post reminds me of my youth. I had a Mac and the motherboard died. AppleCare told me it was out of warranty. But I had the receipt of the extended warranty we bought from Sears. They wanted me to pay for the repair and send them the invoice. I told the Sears CSR "this is my schoolwork computer and we don't have money like that. Which is why we bought this warranty. Because you told us it would take care of any problem with our Mac." That CSR jumped on a 3-way call with me and AppleCare. I think they did a purchase order but all I remember was it was handled and the Apple repair tech was there the next day.
Just the thought of someone even having that much autonomy nowadays is completely foreign.
It's interesting how rapidly the beancounters quashed CSR autonomy and put everything behind inscrutable ticketing systems.
Even at relatively small companies, with internal tools and support teams this happened pretty rapidly in the 2010s. I've worked at all sorts of small companies with as few as 500 employees where we initially just had a list of "guys" to call for different issues.. and eventually some Big Company MBA Type would come in and kill it. Next thing you know there's 5 different ticketing system queues obfuscating the fact that it's still the same 1-2 guys supporting each queue.
Turnaround time got worse, users were unhappier, support team was unhappier, we had to pay SaaS companies for their ticketing system, and probably hire a Global Head Of __ to run the whole thing. BUT.. we now could measure all the misery! Incredible!
It does seem like Apple and a few other companies still manage to do a half-decent job today. It takes a lot of running around through the phone tree and putting up with people going through the long script of solutions you already tried, but if you can get a few rungs up the escalation ladder you get to people who can make things happen, still.
I've had several opportunities to experience AppleCare+, both remotely and at Apple Stores, and have to say they've all been satisfactory. My most recent repair was after a bunch of things came rapidly together to cause milk to spill on my MacBook Air keyboard. I took the machine in the Apple Store, they dispatched it to the repair facility and took my credit card information to cover the $300 deductible. The machine was in repair for less than a day, and the charge to my credit card was only $100. AppleCare+ is the only extended warranty that's been worth the money.
> this is my schoolwork computer and we don't have money like that
I would prefer to accept this as the baseline and not have to explain why my purchase is important. A large amount of situations involving ownership of a computer are similarly important when it comes to someone being in a pivotal part of their life and not having extra money.
Had similar experience with Apple in 2011. My one of my twin's iMac had an issue that the Apple Singapore service center could not fix and I had the run around from them, including a vertical line on both their iMac screen (assuming both were from the same bad batch).
Frustrated, I wrote the below email to Steve Jobs on a lark. Was not expecting a reply. Surprisingly got a call next day, and Apple arranged for both the iMacs to be replaced with new one.
Not sure if Steve actually read my email, or his EA. But the fact that their APAC regional service head was dealing with me personally to resolve this and replace the units, was quite surprising.
From: xxx <xxx@me.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Smtp-Server: smtp.me.com:xxx
Subject: Your after-sales support sucks in Singapore
X-Universally-Unique-Identifier: 8f59f421-365f-4434-81dc-dd73a17d13e3
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:53:49 +0800
Message-Id: <57BEE16B-94E5-4240-8D2A-568E860439CC@me.com>
To: sjobs@apple.com
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1082)
Steve.
I'm a big fan of Apple products. Have always been one. I have constantly =
bought Apple products since the early days, from the Apple IIe to all =
manners of Apple products since. Heck, I even have a Lisa and a Next =
Cube.
But lately, I have been noticing that while your after-sales support in =
the US is great (what with your Apple stores and the Genius programs), =
but your after-sales support program outside the US sucks big time.
I reside in Singapore and I bought for my 3 kids, an iMac each. One of =
the kids iMac have been having intermittent problems since day one. For =
some reason the iMac shutdowns down itself spontaneously. Originally =
(being a propeller head myself), I thought there was an OS X system =
corruption. So I re-installed the system. But alas, no dice.
I then send it to one of the Apple authorized service centers here. They =
claimed that they fixed it and they send it back. Within 2 weeks, the =
iMac started having the same issues, repeated shutdowns spontaneously. I =
then send it to another Apple authorized service center (there are 2 =
independent apple authorized service centers in Singapore). This time, =
the service personnel claimed that it was a faulty drive and they =
installed a new drive. Again, after receiving it back, the problem =
persists.=20
A few things that I note:
- The Apple 3rd authorized service centers seem to be paid to fix the =
symptoms, but not the root cause
- These service centers don't seem to have any quality control in their =
repair process. They don't seem to be testing the iMacs overnight for =
extended periods to check is if the system fails. They only want to get =
the Macs out the door and charge Apple for the service (i have an =
extended warranty).
- The service personnel seem not to understand simple diagnostic steps. =
If an iMac fails repeatedly, surely you would want to check the power =
supply or the main board as the usual culprit. Instead they focus on the =
drive. Flabbergasting.
I have wasted almost 1 one year trying to get this fixed, while my son =
has been deprived of his precious iMac. I have even bought an extended =
warranty, but to no avail.
I'm writing to you as a last resort to find resolution to get this =
fixed. If I don't hear from you, I will just have to throw the damned =
iMac away and get a new one for my son.
Just to show you how rabid an Apple fan boy that I am, here's a list of =
the Mac products that I own:
3 iMacs (2009 version)
1 PowerMac
2 Mac Mini (one Intel and one PPC version)
1 AppleTV
1 2010 MacBook Pro
1 2009 MacBook Pro
1 1st Gen Macbook Air
1 Cinema display
1 original 1st Gen iPhone
1 iPhone 3G
2 iPhone 3GS
3 iPhone 4
3 iPods (various)
2 iPads
This post reminds me of my youth. I had a Mac and the motherboard died. AppleCare told me it was out of warranty. But I had the receipt of the extended warranty we bought from Sears. They wanted me to pay for the repair and send them the invoice. I told the Sears CSR "this is my schoolwork computer and we don't have money like that. Which is why we bought this warranty. Because you told us it would take care of any problem with our Mac." That CSR jumped on a 3-way call with me and AppleCare. I think they did a purchase order but all I remember was it was handled and the Apple repair tech was there the next day.
Just the thought of someone even having that much autonomy nowadays is completely foreign.