Ready
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
I rarely purchase extended warranties when I buy electronics because they tend to be overpriced and the products tend to become obsolete long before they show signs of any hardware malfunction. It was a rare exception when I purchased AppleCare last year on a Macbook Pro Retina Display laptop. It was my first Mac, and they were quite expensive (around $2500), so I figured it was worth it to extend the hardware coverage from one year to three years for an extra $250.00.
This week I began to have some erratic behavior on my Mac which was making it unreliable. I scheduled an appointment at the local Apple Store Genius Bar, and they told me I had a corrupted operating system and they would have to wipe the laptop clean and reinstall it. I do backups on a Time Capsule but they suggested I reinstall applications from scratch to minimize the possibility of restoring the corrupted files from the prior backup.
I knew this was going to be time consuming, but I had no idea how many problems I was going to encounter trying to rebuild applications, retrieve data from the Time Machine, and get everything back to normal. I am also fairly new to the Mac, so I don't have the same level of expertise that I've had running Microsoft operating systems for 20+ years. Sure enough, I struggled with issue after issue trying to rebuild everything. When I realized I was in over my head, I figured I better call the AppleCare tech support line and ask for help. Based on my prior experiences with computer tech support, I was not looking forward to this.
I was quite surprised when I made the call. I gave them my serial number, they confirmed I had tech support (you get three years of tech support as well as hardware warranty when you buy AppleCare for a laptop), and within about three minutes I was speaking with a technician. What was even more amazing was the technician spoke English, and was not in India. In fact, he was in Portland Oregon! And, he was really knowledgeable on Macs.
Over the course of the next two days, I needed to make about six more calls to tech support, and spent collectively over 8 hours on the phone as they walked me through everything. Never once did they rush me off the phone or suggest that I was asking for too much support. In fact, each time they ended the call they asked me if I would like a follow up call a few hours later just to check in and make sure everything was OK. And when I said I would, they called back consistently each time.
They also emailed me their email address and direct phone line to Apple. And when I needed additional help, I emailed the senior tech that was assigned to my problem, and within five minutes he called me up to continue trouble shooting. After two days, I finally had my Mac back to where I needed it to be.
While I was doing this, I also needed help from Parallels. When I called their tech support line, I was immediately routed to India. You can guess how that went. I also learned that when you wipe out a Mac that has Windows running on it, you can't reinstall Windows using the same product key, because it still thinks you are running the old version and thinks you're trying to get an extra copy for free. It took me 30 minutes on hold to speak with someone from Microsoft in India to clear up that problem as well.
Having spent much time over the past two decades speaking to computer tech support, I have to say I have never experienced anything like what I saw at Apple. Almost everyone has moved their support to India, where their job is to confirm that you don't know what you're doing and whatever you need from them is not covered by support. I don't think I ever would have figured out how to get this computer back up and running without their support, and now that I've experienced it, I will never buy another Mac without AppleCare. And for that matter, I will never buy another Windows PC, because I am not aware of any Microsoft based PC company that offers this type of support.
Just thought I would share this for anyone who has struggled with trying to fix a tough PC problem at home and wondered if there are any better options that calling India and being told that there is nothing we can do for you.
This week I began to have some erratic behavior on my Mac which was making it unreliable. I scheduled an appointment at the local Apple Store Genius Bar, and they told me I had a corrupted operating system and they would have to wipe the laptop clean and reinstall it. I do backups on a Time Capsule but they suggested I reinstall applications from scratch to minimize the possibility of restoring the corrupted files from the prior backup.
I knew this was going to be time consuming, but I had no idea how many problems I was going to encounter trying to rebuild applications, retrieve data from the Time Machine, and get everything back to normal. I am also fairly new to the Mac, so I don't have the same level of expertise that I've had running Microsoft operating systems for 20+ years. Sure enough, I struggled with issue after issue trying to rebuild everything. When I realized I was in over my head, I figured I better call the AppleCare tech support line and ask for help. Based on my prior experiences with computer tech support, I was not looking forward to this.
I was quite surprised when I made the call. I gave them my serial number, they confirmed I had tech support (you get three years of tech support as well as hardware warranty when you buy AppleCare for a laptop), and within about three minutes I was speaking with a technician. What was even more amazing was the technician spoke English, and was not in India. In fact, he was in Portland Oregon! And, he was really knowledgeable on Macs.
Over the course of the next two days, I needed to make about six more calls to tech support, and spent collectively over 8 hours on the phone as they walked me through everything. Never once did they rush me off the phone or suggest that I was asking for too much support. In fact, each time they ended the call they asked me if I would like a follow up call a few hours later just to check in and make sure everything was OK. And when I said I would, they called back consistently each time.
They also emailed me their email address and direct phone line to Apple. And when I needed additional help, I emailed the senior tech that was assigned to my problem, and within five minutes he called me up to continue trouble shooting. After two days, I finally had my Mac back to where I needed it to be.
While I was doing this, I also needed help from Parallels. When I called their tech support line, I was immediately routed to India. You can guess how that went. I also learned that when you wipe out a Mac that has Windows running on it, you can't reinstall Windows using the same product key, because it still thinks you are running the old version and thinks you're trying to get an extra copy for free. It took me 30 minutes on hold to speak with someone from Microsoft in India to clear up that problem as well.
Having spent much time over the past two decades speaking to computer tech support, I have to say I have never experienced anything like what I saw at Apple. Almost everyone has moved their support to India, where their job is to confirm that you don't know what you're doing and whatever you need from them is not covered by support. I don't think I ever would have figured out how to get this computer back up and running without their support, and now that I've experienced it, I will never buy another Mac without AppleCare. And for that matter, I will never buy another Windows PC, because I am not aware of any Microsoft based PC company that offers this type of support.
Just thought I would share this for anyone who has struggled with trying to fix a tough PC problem at home and wondered if there are any better options that calling India and being told that there is nothing we can do for you.
