Apple slipping, but still leads Dell and HP in tech support satisfaction
According to the National Customer Service Survey report by Vocalabs, which compares the customer service quality of different companies in the same industry using call statistics and survey data collected from over 2,100 users immediately after they place a service call, Apple's customer service remains the best in its class.
However, the percentage of Apple's customers reporting that their problem was solved on the call dropped 7 points to 60 percent over the second half of 2010. Additionally, the number of customers reporting satisfaction with Apple's automated call handling also slipped.
Vocalabs' calculates a "nuisance factor" for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, the industry term for automated telephone systems, which figures in customer reported problems such as irrelevant or repetitive steps or difficulty reaching an agent.
By that metric, 35 percent of Apple customers in the second half of 2010 reported issues, compared to just 21 percent a year ago, or 31 percent in the first half of 2010, a drop of 4 percentage points within 2010. In contrast, both Dell and HP improved by 9 and 7 percentage points, respectively, over that same period.
Their improvement wasn't enough to catch up, but it did narrow Apple's lead. Last year, Apple's "Nuisance Factor" was less than half that of Dell's, while the most recent survey numbers indicate just an 11 point lead.
In general satisfaction rankings, 66 percent of Apple's customers reported that they were "very satisfied" with their call, while only 51 percent of HP callers and just 49 percent of Dell's customers said the same.
38 Comments
That's what happens when you start getting big time into the masses.
Some people will never be satisfied. And some people are just too dumb to navigate automated phone menus.
I can't comment much about the personal support service with Dell, but when it comes to supporting our racks of Dell PowerEdge servers, their support (5+ years) has always been first-rate. They even continued supporting us over the phone on equipment that was no longer covered. Before that, they were pretty bad when they outsourced everything overseas.
I often try to guess at who wrote the article by the title.
DED?s titles are usually a dead give away. But not this time. And the article stayed pretty much to the facts also.
Well done.
I often try to guess at who wrote the article by the title.
DED?s titles are usually a dead give away. But not this time. And the article stayed pretty much to the facts also.
Well done.
Minus the fact that this story is full of BS.
... According to the National Customer Service Survey report by Vocalabs, which compares the customer service quality of different companies ... immediately after they place a service call, Apple's customer service remains the best in its class. ...
It seems like a gigantic flaw in this survey that it only included telephone service. It appears from the way this is worded that it doesn't track IM or email based support.
I don't know about down in the US of A, but in Canada, Apple's phone support is some of the worst I've ever experienced. Huge wait times, hold "music" that is just high pitched static (and amazingly it's been that way for years!), rude representatives, hang-ups, etc.
For that reason I *always* try to deal with support issues using IM or email, which I would rate as "fantastic" and "good" (respectively).