Apple Tops Consumer Reports List

memoryhole writes "It seems Apple has come out on top in recent Consumer Reports surveys regarding technical support and hardware failure. Way to go Apple!"

Comments

Beats Dell in my Opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's response to my bitching about not getting iLife with my new 12" PB was to send me 3 copies immediately.

Dell's response to my having to unplug a new harddrive to get XP to install to a "c" drive on my new Dell was, "it's an OEM version of XP, that's what you'll have to do".

Last Dell I'm buying. Last Windows machine.

Apple's customer base wont settle for poor service

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked repairing Toshiba, Compaq and Apple laptops.

customers who have problems with their Tosh. or Compaq laptops are by far more laid back about delays in service and rarely complain about cost of repairs.
where as when anything goes wrong with an Apple laptop it's far more frequent to get a customer that'll complain like their throats ben cut.

it's quite funny sometimes when they get all riled up and resort to the old "I'm gonna trade it in for a PC" line. when I know the service procedures for other manufacturers is nowhere near as streamlined as Apple's

I agree, most of the time.

[chasingporsches]

I have been a mac user for years and their customer support has been very good, until now. I go to buy a 15" powerbook last week and i find out that i am not qualified to receive anything out of AppleCare because i am (a) a student and (b) a resident of Florida. The guy couldn't explain to me why, but thats what he told me. He told me i am unqualified to receive support from apple because i'm a floridian college student. WTF? Does anyone know about this? I thought they had good customer service before. But now i'm not so sure. Why they would say "yeah, we'll give support to this child in new york, or this parent in washington state, but forget those floridian college students"?

Now THIS is Killer Support

[zonker_rob]

I got a Pismo PowerBook (my 2nd) off Ebay and it arrived with bright blue lines in the screen For those who don't know, a screen swap is $1050 and up. The Seller, Ebay, Paypal, Trust-E, all offered nothing -- zero help from any of them. Insurance I paid for on the shipment was denied by the carrier.

I was so bummed I thought I would call Apple, just to learn if I had been ripped off by the seller, or if the multiple verticle blue lines in the display could have in fact been a shipping issue.

I called Apple and talked first to a CSR who chuckled when she looked up my name because of the many Macs I own. Then she forwarded me to a tech, who spent 45 minutes explaining the details of how my problem could have possibly been caused in shipping, but was not a certainty. But, since I did not buy it from an authourized reseller, I was SOL on warranty work. I told him he blew my mind with his kindness in speaking to me for so long for free. Then we hung up.

20 minutes later the tech called back and said they would take a look at it "just to see" if it was an Apple problem, and I would see a pre-labelled post-paid return shipping box in the mail tomorrow. I sent it in and FOUR DAYS LATER had my Pismo back in hand with a brand new screen at no charge.

My next computer? Guess.

Re:Now THIS is Killer Support

[rfovell]

...20 minutes later the tech called back and said they would take a look at it "just to see" if it was an Apple problem, and I would see a pre-labelled post-paid return shipping box in the mail tomorrow. I sent it in and FOUR DAYS LATER had my Pismo back in hand with a brand new screen at no charge...

I've had nothing but good experiences with Apple Support. Of course, the best thing has been that I haven't needed much support :-)

Remember when the Wallstreet PowerBook G3 AC adapters were being recalled and replaced? I had to replace one on my own a few months prior to the recall. I bought the exact same adapter that Apple had just started shipping in the recall program. It made for a tight fit in the AC adapter plug, but it didn't seem too bad.

After a few months, tho, the wear and tear owing to that snug fit broke whatever board the adapter plug is attached to. This was just as the recall program had gotten into full swing. My PB was long out of warranty, so when I called Apple to explain the problem, I wasn't looking for any service. I called to warn them they were looking at a looming issue. The guy who fielded the call passed it to a supervisor who (to my astonishment) offered to fix my PB for free.

That's not all. The supervisor called back several hours later, asking me if I would mind shipping my PB to Apple HQ rather than the repair center. I would not be getting the PB back, tho. On receipt, they would ship me a brand new TiBook. I did, and had the TiBook the next day.

Soon thereafter, Apple started shipping a replacement for their replacement adapters. These didn't fit as snugly.

Part of my story is luck and timing. The rest is explained by killer support.

Re:Apple vs Dell

[klui]

I think Apple's QC efficiency is higher is due to them not having to account for the support for every possible piece of hardware that's out for x86-based PCs. You would get crappy drivers, bad or marginal hardware, the whole works. I tried a Dlink RealTek-based 100-baseT ethernet card in my Mac and I could transfer one way reliably. Put the POS onto a PC running Windows and it's fine; put a DEC-based card in my Mac and things are fine.

Would QC efficiency be higher if you make more products? I really don't know, and I don't care as long as I'm not within the percentage who are hit, regardless if it's Apple or Dell.

My experiences

[mrpuffypants]

I got an iBook in May 2002 for Graduation from my parents. I used it everywhere.

Around December I was sitting in my dorm at college and leaned the chair back on the power plug (the part that goes into the ibook with the colored ring) and squashed it. I tried to make it circle again and it fit with some pushing. I got home for xmas break and one day went to pull out the power adapter from the ibook. The bare leads ripped out of the adapter, beckoning me with certain death at the hands of Apple.

I called AppleCare, as I was still under my 1yr factory warranty. They sent me a brand new adapter in a postage-paid returnable box. All was well.

Around March my new power adapter stopped working on me. I did the same thing and got a brand new one in the mail. Soon thereafter my batter y started holding no more than about a 20 minute charge. After calling AppleCare and talking with some awesomely helpful techs I got a brand new ibook battery for free in a postage-paid returnable box.

Finally, last month my hard drive started making a "clicking" noise when I tried to edit this one song in iTunes. I called AppleCare and they advised me to bring it to the Knox Street Apple Store to get it looked at. I brought it in and they told me that the hard drive was on its last legs (which I already figured out by the clicking, but wanted to be sure) It was sent off on Friday, May 2 right before the big iPod party. I got it back on the wendesday the next week.

I looked at the work order attached, and not only had they given me a new hard drive, but also swapped me out a new logic board...just to be nice :)

Conclusion: I rave about Apples and how they work so great, but one of the best parts is that when they don't work, the support is a dream.

Re:Apple vs Dell

[Cokelee]

The hardware problem is Dell's fault. Not in your case with the DLink NIC, but with the hardware THEY sell. Everything made for them is made to certain specifications-- you're not getting the retail equivalent!

Michael Dell wants CHEAP hardware, and he gets it, at a cost to his cutstomers. Much like FORD has done lately, they've been trying so damn hard to save a nickel they're losing customers left and right because of producing poor quality (of course now they're trying to drastically change all that).

To your last comment: I've been the statistic you're talking about. 6 times out of 30 Dell machines. 20% failure. So the percentage matters when you're buying more than one machine.

Re:Apple vs Dell - listen to this iBook / G4 story

[blakespot]

I managed to drop my 4 month old iBook 700 (with the nice IBM "Sahara" G3) onto a tile floor which cracked the lid casing and opened the main case a bit. Took it to the Apple store and they gave me a fix cost and send it off. Told me it would be back in 5 days.

Two days later I got a call saying it was back and ready to pick up. They had to replace part of the case but also replaced the motherboard, which knocked up the cost of repair. The fellow at the Apple Store noted that a call was not put thru to me to ask my "ok" on that (since it was more than we orig. asked) and crossed off the additional charge, without me even raising the issue.

Better than that, perhaps, is what happened a month or two earlier. I had bought a Dual G4 800 right when it came out, summer of '01 and got it with a combo drive (DVD player / CD-RW). It had trouble reading some discs on occasion, so I put off getting it serviced. Almost a year later I was 2 weeks out from warranty expiration so I took it in to Apple Store, showed them the prob and they said they'd get it replaced. Machine was serviced on sight and ready the next day...and indeed a working drive had been swapped in...

A working SuperDrive.

...perhaps I should've pointed it out like a truly honest lad, but instead I just bought a pack of DVD-R's and had some fun at home.

I love Apple. I will never willingly stray. Never.

blakespot