dr@ski.UUCP (David Robins) (04/04/85)
Recently, I foamed at the mouth (on this group) about the apparent
move by Apple Computer to eliminate its Customer Tech-Support Line.
In fact, this month's issue of CALL-APPLE hadd a letter from a
similarly irate user.
Well, this week at the 10th Computer Faire, held in San Francisco, I
got to talk to someone from Tech Support Communications. He assured
me that Apple has no intentions of eliminating support for its
technically-minded users (read: hobbyist). He said that Apple was
*EXPERIMENTING* with alternatives to the ballooning Tech Support
problem. San FRancisco was chosen as the first test region.
I was told that there are some 192 engineers around the country who
answer the Tech Support phones, each answering 40 - 50 calls/day.
In addition to their salary, there is the expense to constantly
re-educate them. The cost apparently runs into the millions.
In additon, customers as well as dealers had much trouble getting
through to the swamped phone lines. Plus, much of the support was not
truly demanding the time of an engineer; much was "trivial" and could
have been answered by even the kind of secretaries who now staff the
typical Apple dealership.
Apple dealers, and certified registered Apple developers are now the
only ones (in the S.F. area) who can contact Apple Tech Support.
Apple dealers have the Apple Link, a Macintosh-based Email system,
complete with password, to send questions to Apple. Of course, the
answers are not in real time, and they/you cannot converse with the
engineer. I don't know how developers are handled (voice or Email).
I assume the dealers could call (voice) if they needed to. However,
can you imagine badgering an Apple dealer to Email something, thus
involving typying, about something he can hardly comprehend? An the
answer will come back the same way. My dealer barely has time to
answer the phone in incoming calls!
I made my views known to the Apple person I spoke to. We'll have to
wait and see how Tech Support evolves.
--
David Robins, M.D.; Smith-Kettlewell Institute of Visual Sciences
2232 Webster St; San Francisco CA 94115
415/561-1705
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