Apple Education Store live chat service discovered
The Apple Education Store has a new, but hidden live chat
service for helping its customers. A reader sent in a link
which opened a text chat with an Apple representative in LivePerson chat. According to the rep, the service is less than a month old. There is no direct Web link to initiate a chat, at least for now. You may be invited to chat if you meet an internal rule while ordering through the Apple Education Store, like entering the wrong credit card number or staying on certain pages too long. The rep said the service is only available to education customers (including college, but not high school students) at this time, but promised that "we will expand as we get to know our customers and their specific needs."
This apparently is not a service for answering tech support questions. The rep said, "We try and steer those to the tech support experts as this avoids any possible incorrect information. . . [the live chat service] is for help with computer questions and order issues, credit card, best choices, education discount, etc."
I think this is a terrific idea. The Apple rep was courteous and gave me immediate, helpful replies. I found it more efficient than wading through phone menus. I also like the idea of having answers in writing. Apple--if you're listening, here's my vote for expanding this service to the entire Apple Store, using it to offer tech support, and making it more accessible. Has anyone else run into this service?
[Thanks Shrimp]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
b3studios said 2:43PM on 3-21-2006
this service was available as far back as January, as I used it when placing an order after the macworld keynote...
they were fairly helpful with my questions
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Alex said 2:44PM on 3-21-2006
I just tried it after seeing your post. Service rep Greg responded within 5 seconds! Great service, too bad I didn't have any problems for him to fix, but he was still nice about it.
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gsf1980 said 2:45PM on 3-21-2006
I recently chatted with an apple tech this way regarding some issues with my 17" iMac Core Duo. He did seem knowledgeable, informative, polite and quick to respond. It was a brief sesson, but it didn't take long to connect or for him to answer my questions.
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Nik Fletcher said 2:45PM on 3-21-2006
I've not discovered this particular service before, however I have had the pleasure of a LiveChat for iPodShuffle support through the Apple website - helped a friend discover they had a faulty iPod. Apparently it's a service offered for iMacs and Shuffles.
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Martin said 3:00PM on 3-21-2006
And after all the discussion about Apple outsourcing more support to India - you know the best thing of all...they can run this live chat from India and no-one in the US will be any the wiser :-)
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Julien Collot said 3:14PM on 3-21-2006
Great service. I just tried it, and service rep Greg also appeared after just a few seconds. He was courteous and helpful... Just what I would expect from a good customer service representative !
Kudos to Apple for the initiative. And thanks TUAW for reporting this !
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Rob Emslie said 3:23PM on 3-21-2006
This shows that Apple could easily add online iChat as a feature of Dot.Mac. I've been hoping for such a feature so I could use my Dot.Mac address when away from my work/home computers. It would be a cheap value-add for Dot.Mac members.
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shrimp said 4:41PM on 3-21-2006
I thought this was cool so I sent it in, it's cool that it was posted!
I got a reply before the java client even intialized! But I didn't know what to say, so I closed it.
I think sales chats are a great idea, unlike phones, they can talk to several people at the same time, and quickly, too.
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dtm said 9:03PM on 3-21-2006
i recently spoke to service rep Ted and he gave me buyers advice on a powerbook a friend is selling and got alot of information for me i could have never found
great feature i wish would be openly accessible for everyone on the apple homepage
dtm
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kkms said 3:14PM on 3-27-2006
I liked the chat so well I bought the softwarecompany, LPSN
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Dan Pritchard said 2:50PM on 3-29-2006
to Rob Emslie above:
Have you ever tried Meebo.com? Your .mac member name is just an AIM screen name, so you can just use it there as such. Meebo is an awesome, ajax-based IM client for all the major services.
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Jagadeesh said 6:06AM on 5-16-2006
Hi, how to capture the unload event in safari browser.
I need to execute some function before closing the window. I tried with different ways, but i failed to capture that event. So please help me on this. Or any other event is there, that fires when window si closing.
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Jagadeesh said 6:21AM on 5-16-2006
Hi, onUnload event is not firing in Safari browser. I tried with different ways to capture that event but i failed to capture that event. So please help me on this, give suggestions to capture that event. Or any other event is firing when window is closing. Actually, i need to execute when window is closing. But in Safari the window is closing without firing of any events.
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