“In what is sure to become more fodder for Mac vs. PC ads, Consumer Reports’ latest tech-support survey shows that Apple has the best help-desk support for both laptop and desktop systems,” Brad Reed reports for Network World.
“According to the survey, which polled Consumer Reports’ subscribers for their experiences with 10,000 desktop and laptop computers, Apple’s help desk staff far and away had the highest success rate among computer manufacturers,” Reed reports. “Apple’s tech support team helped their customers solve problems with their computers more than 80% of the time. Industry-wide, help-desk teams from all companies solved their customers’ problems around 60% of the time.”
“Additionally, the survey ranked the best places and methods for consumers to get help for their computers. In-store walk-in tech support for Macs provided for free in Apple stores offered the most effective troubleshooting, the survey found, with user problems getting solved 90% of the time,” Reed reports.
Full article here.
Good for the costumers…
you gotta wear a costume to get help at the genius bar now?
news to me.
And those of us in the U.S. get to speak to someone in North America instead of the Philippines or India or wherever the HPs and Dells of the world can find the cheapest labor.
Apple’s tech support goal is 100% resolution of all issues. Excluding issues with 3rd party applications and products. At 80% and 90% respectfully i’d say they are getting darn close, as customer that call Apple Tech Support expect the issue to be resolved even if the issue is with MS Word which Apple Support aren’t really permitted to mess with too much.
Apple has both on-shore (US) and off-shore support. Support for the professional products like the Xserve appeared to be domestic, and those folks are top notch. The only ones that would compare were the folks I used to dealt with at Sun.
BTW, a former colleague who used to consider me one of those deluded “Apple guys” tried to resolve a problem with his Windows box. After four hours with a guy in India, he ended up with a notebook that wouldn’t boot. That was it for him. He’s now the owner of a 24″ iMac and he loves it!
I think it’s because Apple know how their OS works, so it is easy to troubleshoot…
…On the other hand NO ONE knows how Windows works, not even Microsoft themselves, so the best advice is normally to defrag or run a disk check.
This is a major reason. If something goes wrong with a mac I’m looking after, I can effectively diagnose the problem. On a PC, it’s hit and miss, most of the time resulting in a miss.
My $0.02
Surprisingly, however, CR also rated Apple worst when it came to repair history. They were all very close, though. Lenovo was rated best with 20% of users needing repairs and Apple was worst with 23% needing repairs. Personally, I find that hard to believe.
They were rated best for desktops though, with only 12% needing repairs.
a coworker of mine has been having issues with his new notebook . . . it started off with XP, but he got the free “upgrade” to Vista . . . well the computer has crahsed, he’s called tech support multiple times, had another coworker look at it, reinstalled software, ran the whole gamut of options . . . it’s going o four months since his computer worked. I’m sure he’d ask me to look at it, but he knows what my response would be . . .
Get a Mac.
Surprising little nugget I discovered, Apple desktops seemed to fair the best with the least amount of repairs while Apple laptops ranked worst in amount of repairs needed. Wonder what that is about
Not to diminish the praise Apple’s customer service is getting, but the reps’ jobs are made much easier by the fact they’re troubleshooting Apple products. Even with well-trained, courteous service reps on par with Apple’s, I don’t think Dell or HP would fare any better in CR’s evaluation.
I think I posted this info in reference to the article”BusinessWeek: More office workers are demanding Macs. Is business ready? Is Apple?” This phenomenon has been going on since Steve returned to Apple, pared the product lines and regrew the business. This is nothing new. Bravo Mr Jobs I know you will not disappoint.
Well, I’m waiting for my MBP replacement for 50 days now… calling customer relations every 2nd day for last month. They finally shipped it last week and choose the cheapest option possible, so instead of 3 days I’ll be waiting 14 work days… Europe, DK, customer support doesn’t care much about the customer, even after the complaint.
Tough luck eh?
@Jim – TIV
No, you don’t. Mac+ must have said that because “costumers” use Macs to create their costume designs, so getting good tech support is important. Costumers make or design costumes, they don’t wear them.
*grin*
Krioni, the ones my son has dated all wear their own works. As do many of those he hasn’t dated, like Rae Bradbury. (no, not the author) However, even the Mac users in the group tend to design with pencil-sketches. My wife, OTOH, just drags me to the basement where we pick and chose from among her collected bits and pieces, tacking in this here and that there. We don’t even count as amateurs, but have won Hall Costume prizes and many admiring glances.
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Aren’t you glad I knew that?
@ vague nomenclature, quite correct. Apple selects quality vendors and sets more rigid standards for components than the rest of the industry. The business model of the other vendors is to have their purchasing department beat down the lowest bidder of components and have them drop ship to a low cost assembler overseas.
On two separate occassions since owning Apple laptops I remember having RAM requirements for after market installation be of a higher speed and quality than the rest of the industry. It may cost 30% to 50% more but it is worth it. I recently decided upon purchase of my last laptop to increase the hard drive by purchasing a 160 GIG 4500 rpm of the Hitachi brand.
Much to my dismay the hard drive crashed after 4 Months and I had to pay $1100 to retrieve 84 GIGs of my data. The Hitachi Drive was under warranty but data retrieval costs were not covered. I sent the damaged drive back for replacement but in the mean time I installed a Western Digital 160 GIG drive with the same software sense and lock that Apple provides on all of it’s protable products with hard drives.
A costly lesson learned by me but it explains why Apples quality and costs are higher than the rest of the industry’s and why they have to charge more to maintain margins. So for all you whiners pineing for a cheap Mac Mini (Mac+ for one), take heed get a PsyStar and experience what would happen if Apple followed your advice.
MBP hard drive died Monday. Took it into Glasgow Store 4 pm yesterday. Genius Bar guy quoted me two to three days to sort it. Phoned me 90 minutes after I’d left the store to say it was ready to pick up. And people wonder why people love Apple.