Apple- Are You Kidding (Mobile)Me?????
Posted on 08 August 2008, at 3:54 pm, by Dan Cohen
I am not having a “Happy Apple Week”.
First I bought an app from the iTunes App Store that I wanted to review over on WhatsOniPhone that just plain didn’t work. My attempts to contact Apple to get a refund have been nothing short of absurd. I’ve documented it in a small rant here.
As if that wasn’t bad enough my email stopped working for a few hours today. Yup, MobileMe was down- shocking isn’t it????
So I (finally) found the information to get on a Support Chat. (Why do they make it so impossible? I know, also shocking.) I don’t know about you, but I had nothing better to do today than wait for 64 minutes- yes 64 minutes- to get a support person. (Actually, come to think of it, “lack-of-support person” is more accurate.)
I’ve included the transcript below for your amusement but took the liberty of removing the Rep’s name and putting the more “significant” pieces in bold.
The upshot is this- It was such a worthwhile 64 minutes of waiting. Apparently any problems with Mobile Me are now apparently due to “Traffic Congestion”.
Enjoy.
You are chatting with _____________, a MobileMe Support Representative
Hi, my name is ______. Welcome to Apple!
Apple Rep: Hello Dan, welcome to MobileMe support. It seems like your mail stopped working. What is the main issue with it?
dan: .mobileme email hasn’t worked all afternoon. now it started again but i thought it was supposed to be working now?
Apple Rep: Ok, are you not able to send, receive, log in?
dan: now i can but for two hours i could not. again
Apple Rep: Im sorry to hear you are having so many problems with it, I know how important email is for everyone. Let me take a quick look at your account and see if any provisioning is missing or causing issues. ok. So what happened exactly, I am not finding any issues with the servers
dan: i would send something from my mobile me account and the send would spin and spin and spin. and then new emails sent to me weren’t coming in
Apple Rep: I did not find any current or past issues with the servers, and they all have different servers. My belief is that there was too much traffic and the emails were being delayed, sometimes it can happen with any provider. I apologize again for your issues. But im glad it is working again.
dan: i have never run into that with gmail
Apple Rep: Whenever anything happens we post it on the support page, and let our customers know what to expect. So keep an eye on that if you have any other issues. I apologize again.
dan: i need email i can rely upon
Apple Rep: Is there anything else I can help you with?
dan: to wait 64 minutes to be told “there was traffic, it happens” is unacceptable;
Apple Rep: I understand that, and the traffic answer is my belief, since there is no issue to duplicate, and no server issues history, so it is not a fact.
dan: I’m not sure what to make of that answer. “it is your belief” and???
Apple Rep: I mean that there is no current issue, so there is no way to know what happened.
dan: i have never had these issues with other email options and apple and its non-reposnsiveness is going to lose a whole lot of customers
Apple Rep: I am sorry you feel that way. Do you have any other mail questions i can help you with?
dan: you haven’t helped but no, there are no other email issues you can’t help with
Apple Rep: Ok, let us know if we can help you with anything else. You have a nice day.
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August 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Haha.
Hello, my name is ___________. I understand you are having a problem with your Mobile Me email.
Don’t worry, Dan. We at Apple have an easy fix.
If you are having problems with your email service, I am going to need you to open your Firefox web browser.
Now, please type the following URL: http://www.gmail.com
Did you get that? Great! Now, just follow the instructions on the screen and you should have no problems.
Doug
August 8th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
These customer service representatives all go to the same (outdated) school that gives them 80 hours of “Patronizing the caller 101″.
Too bad there isn’t a “Dial one to skip the fake friendly BS and get support from someone who will tell it like it is”
August 8th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Why exactly did you leave the name of the CS rep out?
August 8th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Because even though he only used his first name, having had my name used improperly in various settings where either I hadn’t been asked, I was misquoted or I thought I was off the record, I personally would always like to err on the side of being overly (perhaps far too) cautious- especially when the commentary is negative.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
It’s good that you never had these kinds of problems before, but I have to tell you this kind of experience is hardly unique to Apple. I’ve had heavy issues in the past with Yahoo! Mail (paid) and AOL Mail before that.
That doesn’t make Apple’s response right.
Apple, at least, has acknowledged a major problem with the service and has now put someone new in charge. That doesn’t address the generically poor customer service you got but this response is better than what Yahoo or AOL didn’t do for their customers. Even Google had a sequence of problems earlier this year (which you apparently didn’t experience). Pity none of them ever seem to learn from the mistakes of the others.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I once called Microsoft and the phone tech support was answered by a man with a terrible stammer. I felt sorry for the guy - but, honestly, wouldn’t he be better placed in online support?
And, honestly, I think that the Apple support guy handled you pretty well. What were you expecting him to say when you brought up gmail? And, given the acknowledged problems with Mobile Me, I. having a hard time understanding why you think waiting 64 minutes for support is the same as non-responsive? They do not have enough people handling calls in a crisis, but who the heck does? Do you think that these guys are sitting around doing nothing and answering calls when they feel like it?
Honestly, you were a bit on the rude side. As somebody who is pretty techy, I would think that you would know that sometimes there is no way to know why a problem occurred if you cannot replicate it later.
August 11th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
doogald-
You might be right. Maybe I was a bit on the rude side since he certainly isn’t the direct source of my on-going hit-or-miss email access. (And as today showed I certainly was wrong about gmail’s invulnerability.)
BUT- as you point out- “…sometimes there is no way to know why a problem occurred if you cannot replicate it later.”
That is all good and well. Then SAY that. Don’t make a guess that it was “network traffic” that can “happen to anyone” when we all know there have been issues (ongoing)that are the far more likely culprit.
Had he said, “I checked the network and it isn’t showing anything right now.” I’m sure I would not have been happy about the wait (not his fault) but that would have been it for the call.