Apple’s exemplary customer service takes a dive, report claims

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Apple Support
Apple Support has a few areas it could improve on.
Photo: Apple

High quality products aside, Apple’s customer service has always been one of the company’s best assets.

That asset took a tumble in Q2, however, according to a new StellaService report which suggests that Apple’s customer service has gotten worse over recent months.

The major criticism involves Apple’s phone, email and chat problem resolution scores. While Apple typically ranks highly in this category, this quarter the amount of time customers had to wait to chat to an Apple rep increased from 34 seconds to 63 seconds. This is 20 seconds slower than the sector average.

Even when people do get to chat to someone, the successful chat resolution rate — referring to the questions answered satisfactorily — fell from 97 percent down to 94 percent.

Customers also had to wait longer to speak to a person on the phone. Wait times increased to 121 seconds, although the resolution rate was much better, at 99 percent success.

All in all, the news isn’t as bad as it first seems. Apple’s shipping fulfilment times fell from 3.1 days in 2014 to 2.6 days this year, while same-day shipping has been consistently good. Apple also scores highly on refunds — returning money to customers twice as fast as other electronic and media companies looked at by StellaService.

A part of the problem is that StellaService has changed the way it ranks companies, while the arrival of the Apple Watch has additionally put strains on Apple resources. The net result is Apple falling from 3rd to 25th place on the customer service rankings between Q4 last year and now.

Have you personally noticed Apple’s customer service getting better or worse recently? Leave your comments below.

Source: StellaService

Via: Apple Insider

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