Working in AppleCare

It's back up now, along with two stories to explain it...

it looks like adam took the text of his post down. does anyone know a link where i can read it? i came to this discussion a little late but i'd love to see what he wrote. thanks!

I think most jobs are dead-end. Generally the only way to get a raise or expand your horizons is to leave.

Understanding the difficulty of training and retaining qualified support personnel, I believe it would be in Apple's best interest to make more of their training materials available for FREE.

I often tell people that the .Mac Learning Center is worth the price of .Mac alone.
Those video tutorials if made widely accessible to every Mac user could save Apple millions of dollars in support costs. When you buy a new Mac there should be a training DVD in the box that includes the hundreds of training videos found on .Mac.

Not only would Apple have fewer support costs but their users will be able to use their computer to a much higher degree. Win-Win

I had the same experienced as you did Pinoy Mac Lover. I was having issues with my MacBook Pro, as many of us have had and I contacted apple. They promissed me something that later was confirmed to be untrue, meaning I was lied to. I called the representative numerous times and sent him several emails, but never heard from them again. Since then I have sent my MBP in 2 times! It's almost fixed though. I have to send it in for the third time so they can do something about the ac/dc switch or somethinb because it sounds awful! Anyway, tech support can sometimes be annoying, but if you have patience, then your problems will be resolved.

Nice essay. Very true from what I've heard and can imagine. Hope his business risk pays off.

The first time I had to call Apple Care (customer care to be specific as my issue wasn't a technical one), I ended up getting very disappointed. I was asking if they could do something about the status of my brand new iMac G5 which had been in the service center for over a month! The lady on the phone (who was actually rather pleasant) told me that she had talked to the reseller already and was trying to work on getting me a replacement unit instead. I was happy at first, but after that call, she never bothered to get in touch with me again (making me think that she only said to get me to hang up). I contacted her again after a few days but she never returned any of my messages. My Mac was eventually fixed (logic board was replaced) and I didn't have to pay a single cent because it was still under warranty so it wasn't a complete nightmare. But, needless to say, I was utterly disappointed at how their customer care agent handled my problem. But in the end, you can't really generalize as to whether a company's support service is horrible or not. People will have different stories. It all depends on many factors such as the nature of your problem, and even the specific support agent who answers the phone (some are better than others, some are rude while others are corteous). Fortunately, I've only had that one major problem with my Mac so I just do what I can on my side to keep my machine running smoothly. Hopefully it will be a loooong time before I have to call any of them again.

To Onger- If you bought your laptop outside Japan, then yes, stay away from Sony, but if your laptop is made in Japan (if you buy it from Japan), then there should be no problems like you had with their US support. I took avantage of the trips to Japan I have to take every so often to get a laptop, get accessories, get it fixed, and etc, because of the problems I had with US support. Now, it sounds like you are outside Japan, with your horrible description of Sony's service, so if you do go to Japan, and get a Sony laptop there, then you can say something about what I mean (I am sorry that I implied that I thought that their support was great across the board the first time.)

Sounds like the joys of technical support work to me, you get good at your job and it becomes boring, and telling people 12 times a day how to do the same menial task makes you jaded. You move on to something different. Happens to most support personnel after long enough, doesn't matter what company.

To Jamar:
I don't know about ApleCare but I received a Sony Vaio as a gift 2 years ago and promptly registered it at the Sony site that day. Next week, the A drive stopped working, and verified its condition with the tech support over the phone. (I had to wait several minutes to finally get through.) I was asked to send in a copy of the receipt in order to receive a new A drive. Naturally, the giver did not have the receipt by this time. I again called the help line, who was told by his supervisor that they could not help me. So now I am stuck having to buy an A drive even though the PC is supposedly under warranty. I keep on thinking "What if it were something else that was defective and more expensive?" What use is registering the computer if I cannot get help, other than giving Sony my personal info, like age, occupation, address, etc. I have had problems with other Sony products, and now this lack of support just confirms what a poorly run company this is. I will tell my friends and people at work, where I have a lot of influence about purchasing, never to buy Sony products.