Apple's Technical Support Is the Best, Survey Finds

[onehandle]

Source: Yahoo News/Newsfactor

Calling computer tech support is generally not a happy way to spend an afternoon. Except, apparently, when calling Apple.

Consumer Reports' annual reliability survey put Apple's tech support head and shoulders above the rest of the consumer PC industry. Apple solved desktop woes 81 percent of the time and laptop problems 83 percent of the time.

"Apple is again at the top of the heap with tech support," said Donna Tapellini, an associate editor at the magazine. The survey, conducted from September 2006 to January 2008, represents more than 10,000 desktops and laptops.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20080506/tc_nf/59625

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. the few times I've had to call them, they've been great. n/t

[Hissyspit]

2. Yup.

[Tesha]

20. We've also found that their web-posted Tech Support articles head-off a lot of calls to tech support

We just bought a new MacBook Pro and let the Apple software
automagically move everything (users, settings, applications,
and files) from the old machine to the new machine, and that
all went swimmingly (and was done in about ten mouse clicks).

But the latest Apple system software ("Leopard") has switched
from using a 1.x version of the Apache web server to the 2.2 (?)
version, and this caused some changes in the default behavior
of the web server. A few minutes with Google, though, called
up an Apple tech support article that explained exactly what
we'd have to do to restore the behavior we desired. We were
glad phone support was available, but didn't need to use it.

All in all, the ugrade from the old machine (a seven-
or eight-year-old PowerMac G4/500) to the new MacBook was
exceptionally smooth and easy. The only glitches we encoun-
tered along the way were with the Adobe Creative Suite, which
decided it needed to be re-licensed (because the System ID
had changed from the G4/500 to the MacBook Pro). But rather
than messing around with the licensing, we just bought the
Intel-capable upgrade to CS3.

If you place any value on your time and efficiency, there
are huge advantages to working within an Apple environment,
and this upgrade proved it to us.

Tesha

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. I love being able to take my laptop into the "Genius Bar" and have

a friendly young person talk me through how to do things.

[DaveJ]

4. Maybe they are young and happy...

...because their parents are rich enough to buy them Macs, which probably is a prerequisite to getting hired.

Just speculating though...

Perhaps Apple buys all their employees Macs and trains them on them. If so, that would be great. Otherwise, I'm not so impressed.

[quiet.american]

5. In one store visit, they replaced my ailing iPod completely gratis.

Since I'd won the original iPod in an office raffle, this was the cherry on top. Experienced great service over the phone for a question on my Mac, too. Oh, and their stock has at times treated me very nicely as well. Yeah, I'm a convert. :)

[Corkey Mineola]

6. another happy customer here too

Just dropped my macbook with a cracked facing (near the keyboard... it sort of popped on its own several months ago...) off at the Genius bar in SF on Sunday. By Monday I had it back with a shiny new keyboard. I'm happy. Plus it has that 'new mac smell' that I love so much : )

[laconicsax]

7. Sorry, stupid question here...

If Apple's products are flawless machines that work perfectly 100% of the time, then why does Apple tech support even exist?

[jmowreader]

15. Because there's no such thing as a flawless machine?

This rates right up with the old question people ask skydivers: "Why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?"

I know the Golden Knights, and they get asked this all the time. One guy carries the latest US Parachute Association fatality statistics, which indicate that "crash of jump plane" is the leading cause of skydiving fatalities, with "auto accident on the way to or from drop zone" a close second.

[Javaman]

27. or more likely, there is no such thing as a flawless human. LOL nt

[Lennon]

8. Get a Mac

And get hacked In 2 minutes.

Gone in 2 minutes: Mac gets hacked first in contest
http://www.macworld.com/article/132733/2008/03/hack.html

It may be the quickest US$10,000 Charlie Miller ever earned.

He took the first of three laptop computers—and a $10,000 cash prize—Thursday after breaking into a MacBook Air at the CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest.

[ben_meyers]

9. Maybe because Apple owners

are elitists that won't admit that Macs have problems too.

[tomhayes]

10. Yeah , elitist!

Stupid late drinking, homosexual liberal mac users. Smug little liars , all of them.

:sarcasm:

Maybe Apple won becuase they offered superior technical support?? Just maybe???

[Nihil]

14. Let's face it, Apple Tech Support have an easier job ...

... Think of the difference in call volumes for a start!
:hi:

[WillyToad]

22. Apple won because all MAC owners voted for them

Whereas PC owners had perhaps 10 major manufacturers and a hundred minor ones to choose from.

[RayOfHope]

16. Yeah, that's it.

:eyes:

[onehandle]

19. I admit that Macs have far, far fewer problems than PCs.

How's that?

I use both side by side and would know.

[WillyToad]

23. That is because they only use one set of hardware,..

thus eliminating driver problems. And they are on free BSD unix.

[Tesha]

25. Well, "NetBSD". And the hardware situation isn't quite as straight-forward as you suggest.

They now support both PowerPC and Intel-based platforms.
And within each of the major architectures, there are
still many, many variations (hardware implentations).

But Macs are definitely easer to support than PCs.

Tesha

[devilgrrl]

26. And what problems do Macs have?

Do share with us!

:popcorn:

[jonnyra]

11. Not a rich elitist here

Just someone who saw how ridiculous the windows operating system was, did not want to have fuck with anti virus software, get better hardware and better service. Been running Macs since 2000...no disc fragmentation, no virus attacks, no anti virus software...no problems...NONE. In 8 years with 2 Macs...one for me one for the kids. Zero problems.

Trust me...by the time your done with a shitty windows system you will have paid just as much if not more in money, time and frustration than if you had just just bought a Mac.

[Sherman A1]

13. Well Said!

I have had 4 macs through the years and all have been great. Starting to think about #5, but that will come in time.

[RayOfHope]

18. Absolutely. My (repub) dad ALWAYS gives me grief about being a mac owner

however, he (and that side of the family) have all had to get a new computer at least once because a virus wiped out their old ones. We had a a purple imac that lasted from 99-04, and the emac I am on now has been going strong--no problems since 04.

[KillCapitalism]

12. M'eh, who needs tech support? n/t

[Magleetis]

17. Apple users

need tech support? No way.

[WillyToad]

21. Micron PC has the best support...

Gateway the worst, Ironically, Micron just bought Gateway Apple is pretty good, but no waiting with MPC.

I deal with them all on a daily basis at work.

[onehandle]

24. So you're a survey of one? Charts --->

Based on 4506 people.




Based on 5593 people.