In our previous posts we’ve raved on about the extent to which we think Apple support is atrocious. But we’ve recently made a discovery that, as far as we’re concerned, changes everything. And that is that Apple has a chat facility – in just a few minutes we can be chatting with an Apple person, presumably an Apple expert! If you click on this link, you are taken to 8 simple steps, which, if you take them, you are ready to start a chat within 4 or 5 minutes.
(Of course, Apple COULD make this even easier. If you click on this link, you are taken to a website which has the chat facility on it’s home page. Such a luxury! – when you need help or information, you can start typing yourself immediately, and, on the 3 or 4 occasions when we’ve done this with this chat facility someone has starting typing things back within 3 or 4 minutes. And, with this chat facility, within 3 or 4 minutes of the chat concluding, you get an email providing a transcript of the chat which includes links that are ready to use – we’re yet to find out whether this happens with Apple chats.)
Admittedly, we’ve only had one Apple chat so far, but with this once, the outcome was highly satisfactory. As we have more Apple chats, we’ll know more – and we’d love to hear from readers how they’ve got on.
Of course, what’s best is if, when we need help and information, we can email our requests off, and get responses that provide that help and information precisely, but, it seems to us that being able to engage in chats is by far the next best thing.
We’re always talking about something we read once – that, “Whatever technology enables, happens.” And one of the things technology enables is for there to be people who earn a living by providing responses to requests for help and information, about anything, and when they themselves, don’t know answers, they can engage in chats – in other words paying people to do the chatting for us will be an alternative to us engaging in chatting ourselves.
In relation to this, it would appear to be madness for people to be using the consultants at Apple Genius bars when they can engage in chatting. Talking to people at Apple Genius bars involves making appointments, which isn’t always easy, travelling to and from the Apple stores, waiting around if the consultants are running late, dealing with consultants can lack courtesy and who often don’t seem to know what they’re talking about, and never ending up with anything in writing. Yet we’ve heard that, just with the Castle Hill genius bar, 400 people a day do it.