Survey: Apple's lead in tech support satisfaction is slipping

Yes, their service sucks! Thank you for noticing. Gone are the days when they would give you the individual technical support you deserve for buying a machine that hates it's operating system and innards.

Oh no! Apple tech support is becoming slightly less than above perfect?

Apple support is not much more than someone with 1 week of Apple training, then they are cut loose with bookmarks and resource links. Blow some smoke up the customer's behind and you get a "Very satisfied"...sick, no?

Honestly, I haven't been impressed with Apple's tech support whatsoever. My girlfriend's Powerbook G4 has had many issues, and the Apple support techs' recommendations have been STUNNING (badly so).

Jan 2007 - her 18 month old PBG4 won't boot. Three beeps, then it shuts off. We call support, they don't know what it is. I whip out my smartphone, Google it, turns out the PBG4's were prone to a Logic board failure in one of the memory slots. To the Apple Store we go. I explain what's happening. They tell me this isn't covered by AppleCare (which at the time, I knew nothing about). I explained the issue as something I've read as prevalent online. The genius bar employee says "I'll be right back", and hands us a once again humming PBG4. They explain that they swapped the DIMM to the other socket. No fix offered. We asked for a logic board replacement, and were told that since the PB is now working, there's nothing else more that they will do. Good enough, we left.

Summer 2008 - The PBG4 smells of burning. As I go to unplug it from the wall, sparks shoot out from the power connector on the laptop. Off to the Apple Store. Once again, I've read less than stellar things about the PBG4 PSU and chargers online, but I keep my mouth shut. The genius bar tells us that there must had been "undue stress" to the power connector, but, as a "special exception", they will replace the power cable. Needless to say, my girlfriend isn't happy about being told what she feels is: "this is your fault". Meanwhile, the PBG4, which now has scorch marks on the connector, is left alone. Applecare ends shortly thereafter.

January 2009 - Another charger meltdown. Left charging overnight, we smell something hot in the morning, the laptop fails to charge. Off to the Apple Store. We're told that since AppleCare has expired, they're willing to sell us a PBG4 charger for $89. Again, we're told "undue stress". Girlfriend is pissed, but politely leaves. She buys an aftermarket one, and has no additional charger issues.

January 2011 - Hard drive death. Again, no AppleCare. We're told to buy a replacement hard disk and to use the restore CD that came with the PBG4. It turns out that it's long gone, so she asks if she can just buy a copy of OSX in the store. Unfortunately, there are zero copies of Leopard in the store, she's told to "look online".

But in spite of that, our house has a 24" iMac 09, 2 iPods, and iPhone and an iPad. We love our Apple stuff, and will keep buying Apple stuff that we like, but we know that the tech support is going to be more than rough.

Nice way to linkbait the news. Headline says Apple support is slipping, but when you dive in the lead says that satisfaction with Apple's "phone-based" support is slipping. Two different things.

Just so you know, my satisfaction with TUAW article quality is slipping...

I hate to say this, but as much as I love Apple, this is true. Phone support and even email support seems to be deteriorating. I think that they are out sourcing it and the people that give support seem to be lacking enough knowledge. I hope it is not the beginning of the down spiral !!

I didn't even know they had phone support. But if a company has more than two tiers of automation, people (myself included) get pissed off!

I had to call Apple for my 4th Generation Airport Extreme. The router would disconnect all wireless devices at random whenever the guest network was enabled. Their solution? Don't use the guest network. I was not impressed.

The store support has never let me down.

I understand how they can be slipping but I'm going to equate that to a much larger install base and consequently a lot more whiners. HP making gains might just mean they've upped their game slightly but Apple have never been too great with the hands off tech support.

I don't remember the last time I called Apple tech support. If I can't solve a problem with about 30 minutes of googling, I book an appointment with the local Apple Store Genius Bar, who have never failed to help me in a fast and friendly way. (Although I understand that there are still lots of places without Apple Stores nearby)