Good customer support is tricky…

September 4th, 2008 by Hang

But it’s not rocket science. I’m having a problem with my iPhone, it keeps on alternating between 5 bars of signal and “No Service”. A quick google reveals resetting the network settings works for some people but it’s not working for me so the only other solution seems to be to contact a service representative.

I normally dread customer service calls but given Apple’s reputation, I’m interested in how this will go. Luckily, I have a spare phone so I exchange SIM cards and find the apple phone support number (not easily accesible from their main site, found via google).

Once there, I get an annoyingly designed, overweeningly clever voice activated assistant who… get this… asks me to restart my iPhone. Now, luckily I was calling from another phone and I had already tried to restart several times but I can’t imagine what the user experience would be for someone who’s calling up Apple from their iPhone and is being told that “It should take about 30 seconds, I’ll wait for you to be done, say done when your phone has restarted”.

I’m still on hold right now but if it’s not fixed tonight, I’ll figure out how good Apple’s vaunted “Genius bar” is tomorrow.

| Comments (1)

  • http://mousemechanics.com/contact/ apple tech support number

    Many Companies that are able to be agile and quickly adapt succeed, those that do not fail. RIM is a great example of this shift, they got in on the previous level when people wanted smartphones, and are now failing as consumers want mediaphones. On the other hand Apple for years is a great example of a company that succeeded, then failed spectacularily to levels of ineptness that were unheard of, and has only pulled itself out of the dirt because of their iPod brand and iPad and a demand for media phones . So really Apple is a company that can quite easily become the next RIM in a few years when the market shifts again because they have no diversity in their products and a poor foundation for their house of cards.