While we are on the topic of Macs I thought I'd share my unfortunate experience at Apple's Genius Bar.
I've been having some problems with my iphone charging and so tonight I went to the Apple store for guidance. I don't think I uttered a complete sentence the whole time. The Mensa Member behind the counter kept interupting me to ask questions he apparently already knew the answer to. My side of the conversation went something like this:
It doesn't seem to be charging because when I . . .
Yes, but it doesn't . . .
Kind of--but when it . . .
Well, what happened is . . .
No, I don't think . . .
But it's OK. Clearly we where past mere words. --One heart and one mind-- He restored my phone to it's original state and reinstalled all the software. He told me to come back if I continued to have problems.
Thanks??!
I was pretty disappointed. I like Macs (and their commercials). I hope this evening wasn't reflective of Apple tech support in general. Maybe the guy was just tired and anxious to finish his shift. Maybe he was late for a meeting or something.
8 comments:
Where've you been? The only solution to every computer or tech problem has always been to reboot, reset, or wipe it out and reinstall. But you never want to do this without asking a bunch of impressive questions to give the client the feeling you know what you are doing. It surprises me that they don't wear a scientist’s white lab coat with a bowtie to add to the effect.
True Brickman, so true. It seems like no matter what is wrong (and it's not just computers. TV's phones, everything) they have to take you through some 'tests' in which you plug, unplug, check settings, etc. You can't deviate from their script and then in the end, they say we need to reset, start over, etc. Meanwhile you've spent hours on the phone, or in the store, feeling frustrated!
What was even more interesting about this occurrence, is that it is by no means isolated to this "Genius" alone. This has been the case every time I have taken my product in for warranty work; mostly because I want a replacement, not because I need help in rebooting the product. What Anna didn't mention was that he began to tell her why her phone was doing this, before he went through the simple processes that we can do from home, like rebooting. His statement went as follows, "It is because the 3G iPhones require more battery life. She got in this statement which I guess did silence him, if only for a few seconds while he rebooted his arrogance. "Sir, my iPhone is not a 3G... Zing! This would have also been my advice as well, Windows users have known this trick for years; reset, reboot, repeat.
ok, so, this audience probably can't fully empathize with this, but it's hard for someone like me to go in and get help because they refuse to dumb it down for the civilians. they're all, "well, it might be that your java syntax needs uploaded and isn't communicating with your complex binary." ok, i totally made that up, but it's something LIKE that and in the end I'm all, "so next time, i should hold that button down and it will reset?" "yes, exactly." hmmm.
I can relate. I don't think they always know what they are saying. They probably take a class on what words to use to make the client feel dumb and discourage them from making any more calls. Knowing the whole time all you need to do is take a pin and push it in the reset button.
When I worked in tech support the first rule was to assume the person on the other end was a complete idiot and if they used hi-tech words assume they overheard it and are using it as a buzz word. Unfortunately that advise worked really well. Was the other person a complete idiot, no, calling in to tech support does something to your brain. I know this because I have the same problem when I call in to tech support.
My favorite is that usually by the time someone got to talk to me something happened and things started working again especially as soon as they would show me "the problem." Here's where it gets funny, they'd say "of course it works now that I have you on the phone" to which I would reply, well they give tech support a secret password that I put in your system and it fixes it" which they would reply, "REALLY?!?!?" Like I said, calling in does something to your brain.
I went to WalMart to buy a BluRay DVD player. I asked the clerk if he had any true BluRay players or just HD format. He said, "Sir, do you really know the difference or are you just repeating something you heard!" After biting my tongue and sucking down a pint of blood, I said: "Son, I want to make sure you don't show me outdated technology like HD or try to pass off an ordinary DVD player with upconvert technology. Does that help." "Oh!" he said, "I see you do know what you are talking about." I just chuckled.
LOL, I love the term, "Son". Go buppa... I also just realized I posted a comment in regards to Andy's in the wrong blog...oops! Not very tech savvy am I. I will paste it below.
In regards to tech support, Andy's comment does not surprise me at all. During my IT days, I found that anytime I would get calls with "emergencies", I had to really start thinking like they did not know what they were talking about... which they didn't. Back when I was managing a retail chains software and network I would get calls as follows.
Hi, Jonathan the register is frozen. (I had to learn to not panic, and believe that the register really was frozen)
I would respond, "What exactly is it doing"? As it seemed to always turn out, the registers were never really frozen; they were just using the term “frozen” incorrectly. Basically something was not responding and they considered the whole pc frozen. The registers were Dell PC's running windows XP pro, which I might add, never froze. I would ask what they were trying to do, and then diagnose from there. I think the award for lamest retail clerk would go to the one who called claiming that the computer was frozen. I asked, "What is it doing"? And after much digging, I found out they were unable to enter their password to log into the register software. I also learned that they were able to enter their user name however. This, for a moment, stumped me. Then, it hit me, and I asked the clerk, is your password all numeric? They replied, "Yes it is all numbers". I replied, "Your number lock is turned off". That still cracks me up today!
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