Any experience of customer care with other manufacturers?

[boomdog]

I am shortly going to be upgrading my phone and for the first time in many years I'm not sure it will be with another Apple. I've spent the last 4 years with an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 5 and whilst I have enjoyed the experience and can not fault the devices too much, the allure of cheaper, waterproof alternative that are seemingly more functional may be too great. I'm aware that part of the joy of IOS is its simplicity and inability to customise and that is one of my worries about moving away from apple but at some stage I have to try Android.

My real question is, does anyone else have any experience of customer care standards with other manufacturers? I'm most interested in the new Sony flagship so experience of Sony support would be most welcome.

The reason I ask, is during my time in the Apple ecosystem I have received 3 free phone replacements when I have accidentally broken them or discovered unfixable faults, 2 iPad replacements and a replacement MacBook Pro with barely a question asked. In addition to these replacements, I have always found the online chat support to be exceptionally useful. Comparisons?

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

Samsung pretty much staffs their customer support center with Indian anger management patients.

Terrible customer service.

But what you really need to understand is that your tech support needs are mostly going to self service via various Internet forums. Apples integrated service model is pretty unique.

 

[spinedoc77]

It's a moot point for AT&T, I don't have to deal with Samsung. If I ever have a warranty issue I bring my phone right to the ATT warranty center and they replace it with no questions asked as long as it's an ATT branded phone and within the manufacturer warranty. This is WITHOUT monthly insurance, they just honor the manufacturer warranty and I assume just do the legwork with them.

You could also get squaretrade which also adds an accidental damage policy. Unless they have refurbs sitting around I've found they usually just send you a check that you can do anything you want with.

Apple care is ok, but I've had issues with them. I was part of that fiasco where they turned away people from getting warranty service because of overly aggressive water damage stickers, they got sued a hefty amount for that. I've had Apple employees purposefully try to get out of warranty claims, twice for water damage and once for a broken headphone slot, in all of those cases escalating it resolved it but most customers probably wouldn't escalate it and would leave with a broken phone, plus it was a fairly large hassle to deal with.

 

[boomdog]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry to hear about the poor apple care experience. I must have been lucky all these years!

I've been making some calculations and it would seem that if I go worth the Sony, I will save £500+ across the term of the contract so I would be able to purchase a replacement of warranty is an issue. Apple obviously factor their customer care in to the price.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Microsoft is so far behind, they'll bend over backwards for you at any of their stores.

 

[boomdog]

I don't even know where my nearest Microsoft store is! I guess one of the biggest problems with that is that Microsoft don't make the actual computer so only software support is available. Windows 8 is just infuriating. Credit to them for listening and appearing to be putting a some fixes in before Windows 10.

 

[ozaz]

Samsung pretty much staffs their customer support center with Indian anger management patients.

Terrible customer service.

But what you really need to understand is that your tech support needs are mostly going to self service via various Internet forums. Apples integrated service model is pretty unique.

That's not my experience with phone support from samsung. I spoke to UK-based staff, and they were quite good. Maybe it varies country to country.

But when I needed to send a device in for repair I was not happy with the service. Repairs seemed to be outsourced rather than handled by samsung. Turnaround was very slow and it was difficult to get information about the repair.

I don't even know where my nearest Microsoft store is! I guess one of the biggest problems with that is that Microsoft don't make the actual computer so only software support is available. Windows 8 is just infuriating. Credit to them for listening and appearing to be putting a some fixes in before Windows 10.

Seems like you're in the UK. We don't have any Microsoft Stores here.

Will you be getting on contract? If so, the support will be handled by the network operator, I think.

 

[pdqgp]

My real question is, does anyone else have any experience of customer care standards with other manufacturers? I'm most interested in the new Sony flagship so experience of Sony support would be most welcome.

I've called into Sony support for items in past including a computer and they have always been great. Support center I called was in Florida.

I really like the specs behind he Xperia and would consider it in my top choices. Looked at it again yesterday while at AT&T discussing upgrades for my wife and son. http://www.sonymobile.com/us/support/xperia-care/