RANT: Apple Support Deadheads

D

dixonbm

Registered
Tonight I was completely disappointed by Apple's phone tech support. On Tuesday I called because I had been having trouble with my iPod connecting to iTunes or the iPod updater. So after speaking with a support guy he immediately decides it is broken without hearing me completely out and sends a box for it. I get the new one and I still have the same problem. I call up and the guy immediately assumes I have a PC and tells me to click the START menu. I said, "Excuse me, I'm on a Mac." Then he proceeds to tell me I need to uninstall iTunes and reinstall it. I'm thinking, oh yeah I've got a winner here...the problem also occurs with the iPod updater, but I do what I'm told. Evidently none of what he is doing is from training he's reading from a stupid database. At this point I know that I know a hell of a lot more than him. He doesn't have a clue. After reading about problems with connected servers. I think maybe it might be other firewire devices and tell him about my iSight and I try without it. It WORKS! Then he goes on to tell me that it must think that the iSight is a server.....

I am astounded by the pure ignorance and utter lack of traing this man has received. I'm am very disappointed in Apple. In the past I always received. great technical support. But this was completely rediculous.

However I must say he was very nice and courteous, but that doesn't get my iPod working. 2 thumbs down Apple for pure stupidty.

TRAIN your people better!!
 
All tech support is like this -- you have to go through the moronic level 1 techs before you get someone who knows something other than a pre-defined set of instructions. Just do what they tell you to do, be polite, and the tech will run out of options and be forced to bump you up a level. Keep doing this until you reach a tech level that you're satisfied with.

If companies staffed nothing but experts for level 1 tech support, their payroll would quickly put them out of business, or they wouldn't be able to hire enough people to adequately field all the calls that come in.

Also, even though it seems like the level 1 techs are morons, you have to realize that a lot of people that call in with problems are even dumber than the level 1 tech support guys. They have to have a way of "weeding out" the stupid customers so that knowledgable users like you and I can reach a level of tech support we're satisfied with. Otherwise, you'd get exactly zero tech support, since all the knowledgeable tech support people would be busy with the moronic customers who don't know the difference between a FireWire port and a DVI port and complain that their monitor plug won't fit in the socket.

Frustrating, yes, but until someone comes up with a better business model that's actually realistic and profitable (not, "Hey, hire 100,000 senior tech support people who are worth $80,000/year!), we're stuck with this model. It works, but you just gotta climb the tech support ladder slowly.
 
whenver i call somewhere for tech support, i immediatly ask for the advanced tech support, or the level 2 support, depending on what the place calls it. I tell them that i have an open trouble ticket with them. if they ask for the number, i tell them i forgot it. works every time, and the advanced support dosent seem to care. i understand the need for basic support, but i dont have the time or energy to explain to the tech how DSL works.
 
U,U i know what you mean dan. the low level techs can be nice but they don't know a lot. just ask for advanced tech support.
 
It's a 80/20 percent kind of thing. In about 80 percent of calls you get, the solution is simple and can be handled by basically anyone - even without any technical knowledge, by simple lookin' up basic procedure for the product and problem mentioned.

The problem is actually, that many of these level 1 supporters _think_ they're worth level 2 and try to solve problems they simply can't. ;)

At the Cablecom support I was working for (level 1), you as a user have _no_ chance of getting to level 2. Level 2 there means that a level 1 supporter takes your info and passes it on to level 2 in a written message (they don't take calls at all). Then level 2 would solve the problem and give the (hopefully right) solution to the level 1 supporter, who would then call back the customer.

Like ElDiablo said: All tech support works with such levels, and you can't demand companies to let tech-savvy (expensive) people to handle all the morons out there who don't even know that they first have to connect their computer to a power outlet before it will boot.

Now: The _best_ way for a customer to handle level 1 support, in my opinion, is to state the problem as clearly as it is. Do _not_ try and fake things. If a supporter asks you to reboot, _do_ so. It might be a known problem, and even if _you_ think a reboot won't help, just do as he or she says. Because: Once the protocol is over and the problem is _not_ solved, you _will_ get level 2 support.

Btw.: If a level 1 supporter asks you to do something that takes longer than 10 minutes and he wants you the phone back when you're done, all he really wants is to get off the line and take a break, a cigarette or the next customer. ;) (I can tell you, I've done that a few times... "Yes, shut down your computer, take the power from the cable modem and leave it unpowered for at _least_ ten minutes. Then put it back on and wait until it's fully connected. Only _then_ start up your computer and see if it works. If it doesn't call us again. Yeah, I _know_ you already had rebooted your cable modem, but it's important, in this case, that its cache is emptied also.") ;)
 
And always remember that those gals and guys get a _LOT_ of 'bad' calls, i.e. calls from users who are REALLY, really stupid and will consume your time and your energy without getting themselves anywhere... Be kind and you'll get the help you want.
 
…but then there is the 20% that aren't stupid n00bs, who do have a genuine problem and need a solution that doesn't involved reformatting it all and starting again from scratch. Tech support (especially Quark) needs to address the needs of these users, but seldom does.
 
Well, but how would you suppose should they decide what kind of level the user needs support? You can't _ask_ the customer whether he or she is stupid. ;) They'll always say they need 'the good' support...
 
I once worked in tech support for a company where there was only one level of tech support below the programmers who wrote the software. But of course we can't really tell a customer that, so if someone was angry and wanted to talk to a 'supervisor', we just transfered them to another tech support person.

As it happened, I was essentially the 'level 2' tech for Mac questions, because nobody but me knew a thing about Macs...

Incidentally, I think the best tech support I got was from Apple. I don't remember what the problem was, I only had to call them once, years ago (I think it was a problem going from OS 8.5 to 8.6 or something)
 
I especially hate tech support from India. (no offence intended, btw) It's just frustrating to have to interpret the accented English and listen to the scripted "So how's the climate?" crap...
 
Heh... my mother was just telling me the other day that she believes Dell's tech support is now somewhere overseas. She called to get some more ink (Dell printers take only Dell ink, apparently) and she said she could barely understand the guy. She hung up on him, called back, and got another gentleman who was equally hard to understand. I'm sure a third call would yield similar results.

I'm sure if it were the other way around (India outsourcing their tech support to the USA) that they'd be equally frustrated with our attempts to speak their language. I gotta say that most all of them are genuinely helpful and courteous, though... they're not bad tech support -- the frustration I have (and that the tech most likely shares) is the language barrier. Whether that makes them "bad" tech support is relative.

Still, I think, for an American company like Apple or Dell, I should be able to call and get someone that speaks and understands English very well. Finland's tech support is staffed with people who speak the native language, no? France? Spain?
 
get this- my father had a linksys router/access point and Comcast cable.. for some reason it stopped working one day and no matter what I tried it just would not connect to the internet except when the modem is directly plugged into the desktop. So, I called Linksys 24-hour (wow) tech support and a nice indian guy answers the phone; after five minutes of taking my email, phone number, address, etc.. we get to the main reason of why I called... So I told him about the problem and he starts by asking me if the blue cable is connected to the modem and a computer... after taking a deep breath I lied to him because my cable is grey but I am afraid to tell him that in case if he decides that it would not work with the grey one :) .. so we go on and on on endless attempts to restart the computer, the modem the router and etc... nothing works ... we are still not able to connect to the internet... so finally the moment I have been waiting for for the last 45 minutes comes... and he says - Mr. blah blah I am going to transfer you to the next level tech support please wait ... and he puts me on hold... I am waiting patiently for about 15 minutes knowing that my patience will pay off... after 20 min of being on hold I realized that I am not getting anywhere and nobody is going to help me.. oh well, I hang up and dial again this time a nice indian lady answers the phone and I go on explaining her the situation and that I already went through the 1st level tech support. She is very understanding and asks me if she could place me on hold while she is going to check if the second level tech support is available. And guess what? She comes back with a negative result- sorry, -she says- but the second level tech support is not available at all. She offers help and I accept it. After another 45 minutes of the same unsuccessful debugging she finally asks me about the firmware version.. And of course the router's firmware is two versions behind the current one. And she offers to email me the latest firmware and I would have to install it and if this does not help then I should try calling them again..
Needless to say that next day I went to an Apple store and bought a base station that worked perfect right after I finished a five minute set up.
Thank Jobs for Apple.
 
The only encounter I had with Apple tech support was great; probably the best tech support I've gotten for anything. It was a long time ago - something to do with OS 8.6 - so I don't remember exactly what the deal was, but I do recall today how excellent it was.

I think the lady probably was in India, judging by her accent (which was lovely and musical, and not hard for me to understand, but I'd been working with a number of people from India around that time so I was pretty used to it).

D-Link tech support, now... I couldn't (can't to this day) do a traceroute through my D-Link router, so I called up D-Link tech support. Dude didn't know what traceroute was, "do you have to run a program?" I explained to him how it works, which he plainly didn't understand, and what I had tried to do (route all ICMP unreachable messages to my computer, in the router's firewall rules), which he also didn't really seem to understand.

Finally he settled on the idea that the problem was with UPnP - which is completely irrelevant - but he wouldn't help me further until I figured out how to enable UPnP on OS X and on the router, at which point I was to call back. Probably just wanted me off the phone...

Eventually I did some of my own research, and found that it's a known problem, with no solution from D-Link. Probably said so right in his tech support database, if he'd thought to look it up.
 
They may be bad, but they're better then many others. :) Dell tryed to convine me that USB 1.1 was faster then Firewire and 256mb of ram gave my more HD space then a 120gb HD.
 
ablack6596 said:
They may be bad, but they're better then many others. :) Dell tryed to convine me that USB 1.1 was faster then Firewire and 256mb of ram gave my more HD space then a 120gb HD.
Click to expand...

Whaddya expect from PC-wallahs? ::ha::

:D
 
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