Standard tech support for a while, then educational tech support. I was there for about two years total, about 2 years back. Worked out of the Elk Grove CA center. The biggest thing we had to push was the APP, (Applecare Protection Plan) which was their extended service plan. I can't imagine any way you could have called them and not had them try to push one of those on you at the very least. We had minimum amounts of those we had to sell monthly just to keep our jobs. If we were only selling those though, management would start getting on us for not selling other things too.
My biggest problem when I worked at Apple (tech support, then educational tech support) was that the only thing that mattered ever was sales. I was a good tech, but I'm not at all a good salesperson. I never once claimed to be a good salesperson... I'm terrible at it, don't like trying to sell things to people, and frankly just dislike salespeople in general. When I was hired on, we were told that there was only a little bit of minor sales involved, such as being able to sell someone an adapter or disc when they asked for it. If that was the case, then no problem, I can do that.
This turned out to be a lie.
All of the tech support agents have sales quotas. They must sell, or they may lose their jobs. The actual sales department got commission on sales. The tech support department just had their job threatened if they didn't sell $X in product per month. If you called in simply asking for help getting your month-old iBook to boot, I was expected to get you to buy something during that call... OR ELSE. For a while my supervisor made me keep a record of every call that I did not sell something on, and I had to have a good explanation as to why I didn't make a sale, or I would be written up.
All bonuses, awards, and recognition was given out for sales numbers, and nothing else. It did not matter if you were a good tech or not, if you were good at customer service or not, it only mattered that you could sell product to people who called in just wanting support on the stuff they already bought.
That's why I'm no longer there. (in the end, it was not my choice to leave) I like the products, I like the company, but I hate the practices of the AppleCare secion of the company so very much.
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Standard tech support for a while, then educational tech support. I was there for about two years total, about 2 years back. Worked out of the Elk Grove CA center. The biggest thing we had to push was the APP, (Applecare Protection Plan) which was their extended service plan. I can't imagine any way you could have called them and not had them try to push one of those on you at the very least. We had minimum amounts of those we had to sell monthly just to keep our jobs. If we were only selling those though, management would start getting on us for not selling other things too.
My biggest problem when I worked at Apple (tech support, then educational tech support) was that the only thing that mattered ever was sales. I was a good tech, but I'm not at all a good salesperson. I never once claimed to be a good salesperson... I'm terrible at it, don't like trying to sell things to people, and frankly just dislike salespeople in general. When I was hired on, we were told that there was only a little bit of minor sales involved, such as being able to sell someone an adapter or disc when they asked for it. If that was the case, then no problem, I can do that.
This turned out to be a lie.
All of the tech support agents have sales quotas. They must sell, or they may lose their jobs. The actual sales department got commission on sales. The tech support department just had their job threatened if they didn't sell $X in product per month. If you called in simply asking for help getting your month-old iBook to boot, I was expected to get you to buy something during that call... OR ELSE. For a while my supervisor made me keep a record of every call that I did not sell something on, and I had to have a good explanation as to why I didn't make a sale, or I would be written up.
All bonuses, awards, and recognition was given out for sales numbers, and nothing else. It did not matter if you were a good tech or not, if you were good at customer service or not, it only mattered that you could sell product to people who called in just wanting support on the stuff they already bought.
That's why I'm no longer there. (in the end, it was not my choice to leave) I like the products, I like the company, but I hate the practices of the AppleCare secion of the company so very much.