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Apple Gets Top Marks on 'Tech Support Showdown' List
Apple continues to dominate when it comes to customer support, according to Laptop Mag's annual tech support showdown, which is designed to help customers determine which companies are offering the most reliable customer service in the tech industry.
Apple received an aggregate score of 91, earning 54 points for its web-based tech support and 37 points for its phone-based tech support. Laptop Mag says that Apple's support staff are among the "fastest and most knowledgeable," offering up "accurate answers" to Mac questions across live chat, social media, and the phone.
In a more in-depth breakdown of Apple's score, Laptop Mag says its editors queried Apple about Dark Mode in macOS Mojave, disabling automatic updates, and turning off the webcams (something not possible).
Live chat was determined to be the best Apple support experience, and it took between 4 and 9 minutes for live chat staff to walk Laptop Mag through answers to its queries. Phone support was also quick, thorough, and helpful.
As always, Laptop Mag arrived at these scores by posing as everyday PC and Mac users to get answers to three questions from major laptop manufacturers. Both the online and telephone support systems were tested. 100 points total were possible, 60 from online support because it's a more popular way to get help, and 40 from phone support.
Apple received an aggregate score of 91, earning 54 points for its web-based tech support and 37 points for its phone-based tech support. Laptop Mag says that Apple's support staff are among the "fastest and most knowledgeable," offering up "accurate answers" to Mac questions across live chat, social media, and the phone.
In a more in-depth breakdown of Apple's score, Laptop Mag says its editors queried Apple about Dark Mode in macOS Mojave, disabling automatic updates, and turning off the webcams (something not possible).
Live chat was determined to be the best Apple support experience, and it took between 4 and 9 minutes for live chat staff to walk Laptop Mag through answers to its queries. Phone support was also quick, thorough, and helpful.
Larry was surprised when I told him I wanted to disable the MacBook Air's webcam. After saying he typically just puts tape over his webcam, Larry asked me to wait for 3 to 5 minutes while he checked to see if anything else were possible. Two minutes later, Larry was back on the call to walk me through the System Preferences app and show me how to disable webcam access, app by app. He also noted there might be a "fancier" way to disable the webcam via the Library (it's actually in the Terminal program), but that this was easier.Few companies even came close to beating Apple's score of 91 in the Tech Support Showdown, but Razer, the number two company, scored an 88 and Dell scored a 73. Apple competitor Samsung earned a score of 73, while Microsoft got a 64.
As always, Laptop Mag arrived at these scores by posing as everyday PC and Mac users to get answers to three questions from major laptop manufacturers. Both the online and telephone support systems were tested. 100 points total were possible, 60 from online support because it's a more popular way to get help, and 40 from phone support.
Tag: Apple Support
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Top Rated Comments
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22 weeks ago
I would have to say, I agree with this 100%.
I have only reached out to them a few times ....For some reason I prefer searching thru forums to fix things myself. ;)
But when I have contacted them, they have always been pretty knowledgeable and very polite.
I have only reached out to them a few times ....For some reason I prefer searching thru forums to fix things myself. ;)
But when I have contacted them, they have always been pretty knowledgeable and very polite.
22 weeks ago
The few times I’ve reached out to Apples support they’ve been very professional and polite; always solved my issues.
22 weeks ago
Hilarious chart, Razer and Dell? epic troll. Also, Apple's service is very inconsistent when outside of the U.S.
22 weeks ago
Then Apple customer service should be required training course for all Customer service reps. Especially Comcast.
22 weeks ago
Seriously? Personally I felt the customer service has went way down these years.
I had an iCloud storage issue(miscalculated storage size), and it took me 6 months, went through 7-8 reps(because most of them cannot do anything), and about 40 hours on phone. In the end, I helped them to solve the problem, and they will not refund the money I wasted on iCloud storage plan because of the miscalculation.
And I feel the Apple store is also getting worse. Recently I bought an iPad pro 11 inch with apple pencil and keyboard, they gave me an 10.5 inch keyboard..
These are just few cases, the problem I have met using Apple product recently has increased a lot.
P.S. I heard razor’s quality control is pretty bad, have no idea of customer service. Anyone with experience with razor would maybe tell me is their customer service really that good?
I had an iCloud storage issue(miscalculated storage size), and it took me 6 months, went through 7-8 reps(because most of them cannot do anything), and about 40 hours on phone. In the end, I helped them to solve the problem, and they will not refund the money I wasted on iCloud storage plan because of the miscalculation.
And I feel the Apple store is also getting worse. Recently I bought an iPad pro 11 inch with apple pencil and keyboard, they gave me an 10.5 inch keyboard..
These are just few cases, the problem I have met using Apple product recently has increased a lot.
P.S. I heard razor’s quality control is pretty bad, have no idea of customer service. Anyone with experience with razor would maybe tell me is their customer service really that good?
22 weeks ago
Razer is a company that continues to impress me with their taking of Steve-era Apple concepts and applying them to the PC world.
Their hardware is well-thought out, and the most Mac-like of PCs (although lately they've been moving away from Apple's design aesthetics).
To hear that their customer service is good is one more thing to tempt me away from Apple, since their laptop hardware is top-notch, repairable, expandable, powerful, and reasonably priced for what you get.
Too bad they're Windows only, but I think I can live with that nowadays, even if I don't really want to.
Their hardware is well-thought out, and the most Mac-like of PCs (although lately they've been moving away from Apple's design aesthetics).
To hear that their customer service is good is one more thing to tempt me away from Apple, since their laptop hardware is top-notch, repairable, expandable, powerful, and reasonably priced for what you get.
Too bad they're Windows only, but I think I can live with that nowadays, even if I don't really want to.
22 weeks ago
Laptop Mag says that Apple's support staff are among the "fastest and most knowledgeable,"
Wow... Just a week ago I was on with Apple support and the guy couldn't even figure out which country I was in... This after I provided my account info... nor was he able to provide any actual help. I was put on hold repeatedly. Once for upwards of 10-15 minutes. At the end, he provided a web address to Apple's support site for my country because he didn't know the out of warranty cost for the product.
But sure, best-in-class. :rolleyes:
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