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Three interesting topics were kicked around in Apple-minded blogs this week.
Entirely unsurprisingly, survey results show that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) tech support kicks butt in the PC industry at large. Also, AT&T (NYSE: T) is forbidding vacation time to hapless iPhone salespeople, and it appears Macs have gotten a foot in the door at work.
Apple Tech Tops
Consumer Reports is one of the most respected product and service reviewing publications in the U.S. The magazine recently surveyed its readers and ranked the best tech support in the PC industry. Basically, Apple spanked the competition. Desktop technical support, for example, came out with scores of 81 for Apple ("very satisfied"), while Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Gateway (NYSE: GTW) had scores of less than 60. In notebooks, Apple nailed an 83, while Lenovo limped in with a 66 and Dell came in third with a score of 60. Industry powerhouse HP (NYSE: HPQ), by the way, received low scores for its technical support staff.
Speaking of Apple, Cnet's One More Thing blogger Tom Krazit noted, "The company solves problems quickly, especially for customers who take their Mac to one of the company's retail 
stores for service. But if you don't live near an Apple Store, the company offers the shortest amount of free telephone support of any of the PC companies."
To get additional support, most customers turn to AppleCare, an add-on product by Apple that extends warranty and tech support coverage out to three years. The service is expensive, however, at least on the surface. A MacBook that retails for US$1,099 can come with AppleCare coverage costing an additional $249 -- nearly 23 percent of the original purchase price.
Experienced Apple lovers and the kinds of readers who tend to frequent Apple-related blogs aren't always so quick to praise AppleCare and Apple's tech support.
"The thing to remember is that CR does two kinds of reviews, customer opinion and their own evaluations. This is an example of the former. The fact that Apple users think highly of AppleCare and the Apple Store 'Geniuses' isn't surprising," noted Matthew_Maurice on the One More Thing post on the subject.
"I'm a mac guy and long-time tech support provider, but I'm less than impressed with them. Their customer service is fairly good, but in my experience their tech knowledge is mediocre at best," he added.
As for in-person care, the Apple retail stores may be paying off in more ways than the cash register. "Try a company like HP or Dell. It's all relative. I think one thing that Apple does well is replace stuff at the Apple store. Keyboards, keyboard keys, ipods, etc. They are really good about it, and this likely impresses people," amandachuck added.
Overall, most of the posts vacillate between relating a bad customer experience to those that had fantastic experiences. One blogger, Sven Rafferty, founder of hyperSven, an IT and Web solutions company, posted his own experience with AppleCare over an expensive Mac Pro that had a hard drive that wouldn't stop spinning.
"After not getting anywhere with the first tech, I was sent to the second level. I defeated Level 2 as well. No answers. No wait, reformat and install was a suggestion which I had already tried prior to the call. So I lived with the spin for nine months," Rafferty wrote on his SvenOnTech blog. The answer, it turned out, came after he added two more drives to the Mac Pro, and in doing so, pulled out the two existing SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) hard drives and sprayed out the innards of the Mac Pro with a can of air -- spring-cleaning, so to speak.
While Rafferty isn't sure what fixed the problem, when he reseated the drives and closed everything up, the problem was fixed, leading him to believe the original drive wasn't seated properly in the first place. Either way, Rafferty is a knowledgeable IT guy -- what's he really think of AppleCare and Apple tech support?
"I rely on AppleCare mainly for the extended support on the hardware. If I do run into an issue I cannot resolve, I go with the back-up, AppleCare," Rafferty told MacNewsWorld.
"My calls to AppleCare have been low, and thus the success rate very low -- I solve my problems more than it does; however, that all aside, AppleCare is premium support. They have easy-to-understand, English-speaking customer care representatives that seem to know a bit more about the product than a PC tech just looking at a script on some LCD screen in some foreign nuclear nation before their blank faces," he explained. "You can hear genuine excitement in the AppleCare representatives' voices when you call. They don't just want to answer your call, they want to help you resolve your problem on that call. I've never felt like I'm in an endless and hopeless loop with AppleCare while on the phone."
AT&T Cancels Summer Vacation
Meanwhile, in the land of the iPhone, AT&T has reportedly sent out an internal letter that bans salespeople from taking vacations from June 15 to July 12. The reason? To "support an exciting new promotion/product launch."
Most likely, this memo refers to the expected release of the 3G iPhone. AT&T sent out a similar letter banning vacation near the original iPhone's launch last year. The Boy Genius Report published a copy of the AT&T memo, which noted, "We'll meet the challenge 'head-on' by providing an exciting Summer Promotional Launch to enable your sales to soar. We again anticipate heavier than normal customer traffic in our stores, providing an excellent earning opportunity for every front line retail sales consultant (RSC) in company-owned retail stores."
The news generated lots of posts, but little in the way of new insight. What is interesting, however, is the iPhone effect: Has any other cell phone in the history of cell phones resulted in long lines of customers waiting to buy one and sign two-year service contracts? Has any cell phone, even those that have sold millions of units like the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Razr, actually created serious first-day demand?
Telecommunications industry analyst Jeff Kagan didn't know the answer for sure, but his assumption is that no other phone has created any sort of widespread first-day launch lines and buying frenzy.
"The reason this is happening is ... it's Apple. Cell phones, even the hottest cell phones, have never required canceling vacation days," Kagan told MacNewsWorld.
"But with Apple, you've got customers who know it's coming, and as soon as it gets out, they will form a line. The iPhone is successful, but the demand is a little over the top," he added.
Macs Go to Work
BusinessWeek's cover story, "The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit," also had Apple-focused bloggers buzzing. The basic premise of the article is that Mac-loving consumers are creating demand and interest in using Macs at work -- and IT decision makers are cracking open the corporate doors.
"Sales of the iPod goose home sales of Macs, and once you've got a Mac, you never want to work in Windows again," Pete Mortensen noted on the Cult of Mac blog. "This may be a sign of hope for all of us Mac users-in-exile. I work in an all-ThinkPad office, and dream of getting to live an all-Mac life. But since we're consultants, we use the same machines that our clients do. What does that mean? Buy more Macs, corporate world! Then we can ditch Windows for good!" he added.
Commenter Jax Diamond responded, "Like most Apple owners, I also have a PC. I am not anti-PC, but I am Pro Mac. I find myself using and doing more on the Mac. My Consulting practice is growing, and I always carry and use my powerbook. I have noticed that resistance is no longer there when I set up the mac. I have been telling my clients that my mac will do anything a pc will do without the crash and pain. Business owners and bosses want results and if mac users continue to provide good results the mac foot hold will increase."
Apple's switch to Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) processors two years ago may have been the first catalyst to kick things into gear for enterprise interest, and while the percentages are low, they are definitely growing.
"Apple is, of course, experiencing huge successes in the consumer market and is enjoying every moment of Windows Vista bashing, and this success is bleeding into the corporate market," Benjamin Gray, an IT infrastructure and operations analyst for Forrester Research, told MacNewsWorld.
"In fact, at the end of last year, Macs represented almost 5 percent of our enterprise client PCs. Why such success in a market Apple isn't even trying to engage? Some believe it's because of the iPhone, others base it on the hardware and operating system designs, while others attribute it to desktop virtualization technologies that enable the best of both worlds: a PC experience on a Mac," he explained.
"I think it's definitely a combination of all three, but the ability to run a virtualized Windows environment within sleek Mac hardware is incredibly enticing for a lot of corporate workers. And as the consumerization of the enterprise, driven by this phenomenon that we call 'Tech Populism,' increases, there's really no end in sight -- nor is there any going back," he added.
"We're finding that individuals -- and not IT -- are fueling the next wave of IT adoption. Obviously not all IT organizations are embracing this, but many are rethinking their people, processes and technologies in order to accommodate it," Gray concluded.
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