Is Apple's developer support a joke?

Counterexperience:

I ordered the Apple Developer Program in January. I had some issues with my bank, but eventually got payment to go through. I waited a few hours, no activation email from Apple. So I hit their site, sent an email to developer support, and waited. The next day, still nothing.

So then I hit up Apple's site, found a number for developer support, and called it. A human picked up, asked me my issue. I told him the issue, he said "check your email and try again." I did so, and it worked, and the developer program was enabled for me.

That is literally the best customer service experience I have ever had over the phone.

Sounds like this guy should have just dug up a contact number and called.

Can we have a rule against posting personal anecdotes about a support experience?

Every post about a company's support just devolves into people trotting out a single experience as evidence in favour of or against the company. It doesn't matter how good or bad a company's customer support is, there's still going to be people with good and bad opinions of it.

All customer support requests are different and saying you had no problem returning a laptop doesn't mean someone else won't.

I recently purchased a Mac Developer Program subscription. I do not intend to submit something to the App Store short term, but I support some of my (academic) software on OS X, and it is good to see what is coming up.

Anyway, I also bumped into problems using the activation code. I got a (security) message, because my account name was not matching up with my credit card name (one lists my names abbreviated, the other written full).

I e-mailed support, but after a few days nothing happened. Then I called developer support by phone, and everything was arranged in just ten minutes. Developer support by phone was helpful and friendly, and although they are in Ireland for support in Europe, they provide a local number in The Netherlands (and many other European countries).

Conclusion: call them, and you are probably helped quickly. Apple should modify their webpage to recommend people to call support, rather than using e-mail.

Good customer support experience:

My laptop went wonky, and it appeared to me to be the HDD.

Took it into Apple store, they agreed and quoted me £156 for replacement HDD. I happily agreed.

Next morning, they called to say it was ready. When I went to collect I was handed another bill for £40 for the HDD cable. Again, I was happy about that £196 to fix a ~£2000 laptop.

They then told me, no sir, it's just the £40. The HDD turned out to be fine.

They COULD have merrily charged me the £196 and I'd have been quite happy. Very honest of them.

Everyone say "just call them!", but you all forget: he's an international customer (from blog's about page, he's from Latvia).

If he call them, he will have to spend more money in international phone call just because Apple make this a big bureaucracy.

I'm outside U.S. too, and had to call once. Yes, the person solved my problem really quickly, but everything could be made in a single email.

They're verifying you're a real company is why they don't do it all via webform.

Call them. While they can be strident on policies, they're otherwise extremely nice and helpful. Seems to be very highly paid compared to other CSR jobs.

Dev support from Apple has always been horrible for me, been a paid member since 2007 and free member since at least 2005. Last time I called I was screamed at and I assumed cursed at in whatever language the rep spoke. Then he spat off some phone number and told me to get a refund and not to use their service. Never really got help in previous calls either.

Hardware/Software support has always been great and friendly. I can easily tell them what all I have done to diagnosis a hardware issue and they won't make me go through all the hoops. Repairs always take less than a week for the most part to ship off and back, since the nearest Apple store is ~200 miles away.

My iOS developer account activation took quite a while due to company permissions and stuff. I was hating on Apple too, just waiting for them. Finally, I picked up the phone and called them.

And it was a great experience. Talking to them solved the problem in minutes.

AND I had to break out the phonetic alphabet (the connection was bad, I was on an iPhone :)), and the support person knew it. Impressive.

I've had a great experience with Apple Support so far, when I renewed my contract I had some random issue with my credit card expiring (it was an old CC), because of this issue the iAds in my Apps where failing to Appear (for about a week).

The guy from Apple support called me like 3 times (international call to Chile), gave me a free month and fixed the issue.

It has been a good experience so far.

The first time I contacted Apple developer support was because I wanted to change one letter in my first name (the system has messed it up so that random numbers were displayed instead of 'ł' letter).

It took 3 months until I finally leared that this could not be done and that I should create new account. My emails were usually responded after one week and not read at all, instead I was given the same automated responses which had nothing to do with my problem.

The second time I wanted to ask whether it is allowed to recreate the look and feel of Aqua widgets in my app, so I have emailed the legal team. I recieved an automated response which was suggesting that my question might not be answered at all because of the high volume of questions that legal team is currently dealing with. I haven't heard from them since then.

Ohh... and yes, I also had to fax my credit card details in order to sign up for developer program, I can't think of any other online service that would have such requirement.

In Apples defence every single time I try to renew my MSDN subscription with Microsoft and gain access to my online tools I lose my mind because it never works almost no-one has any idea how and why it should work ("just give it another three days?").

Sorry, but if you don't take the time to even ask anyone how to best access Apple's Dev support, and instead persist with a channel that's clearly not working, that's your failing. I've had no problem whatsoever with their phone support.

I made the same mistake. I started out very excited about the developer program. I bought a Mac, read a couple of books on iPhone development, but my enrollment got stalled for weeks (months). Partners were asking about the delay and eventually the project lost momentum.

I should have called support sooner because they approved my application within minutes (after verifying my phone number). Though by then I was discouraged and figured I would get the same experience if I submitted an app.

Seems like an argument that is more emotional than rational. I never had trouble getting signed up though there were steps in the process that delay things. Why does the author say that it's pointless to wait for the financial information to clear? It's not his place and it's obvious why Apple would do that anyhow.