U.S. apple support going offshore?

Every company out there is outsourcing, and Apple started that over a year ago. Apple Accessibility is starting to go that way too, come to that.

This is bad. outsourced support is not nearly as effective. I like that you could call an accessibility rep and get someone state side and get good help. If it continues to go down the tubes I will reconsider if Apple is a brand I want to stick with.

This problem is getting out of hand. I was shocked a few months ago when my friends and I called to order pizza from Pizza Hut and got an overseas representative. True, those people need/deserve to have jobs, but especially when it comes to tech support where clear communication is critical, American representatives are all but essential. I know that a lot of companies, probably including Apple, outsource to save money, but I also wonder if the inability to find Americans who are willing to do the job might be a factor. That seems to be more and more of an issue as time goes by.

To the previous commenter who said that they'd have to consider whether or not to stick with Apple because of this, switching to another company wouldn't make anything better. I've had to contact Samsung tech support for my TV on several occasions, and their tech support was outsourced long before Apple's was. It's becoming a pretty major problem with Amazon as well, unfortunately. I really wish that tech companies in particular would make more effort to hire american workers, especially for tech support roles.

The love of money is the root of all evil, says the Bible. Anyone disagree? Apple executives and shareholders will make more money by hiring less expensive labor from foreign sources, and we will get what they're paying for -- lower quality service. Personally, I hate trying to communicate with people who have trouble speaking english. I'm pretty hard of hearing, and as someone here mentioned, tryiung to communicate about technical issues is difficult enough to begin with.

Remember, though. We can vote for or against Apple Corporation any time. Our ballots are our wallets.

After I tried and failed miserably to work in phone support, imho, the way all companies do support needs a complete overhaul. Stop making everything based on numbers, although to be fair I don't know of another way a rep's performance could be measured. I can see why a lot of people don't want to do it since it's a really high pressure environment and not everyone can deal with that kind of stress. I certainly could not!

Is all about the money. Less hear it for the money. Apple screw all for money. They just want money. Did I say money!!!!

Every company screws over everyone when it comes to money, its not just apple specific.

I, for one, am attempting to extricate myself from the apple ecosystem. It's designed so that, the deeper in you go, it's harder to climb out. We should have choice in what tech we use based on quality of product and support and not on compatibility and, in our cases, accessibility. Apple have and do make some very good products, but there are products which I don't think are as good, siri for example, the HomePod mini etc. It's a distinctly average and low performing device that works... Ish... If you're in the walled garden. There are better speakers out there for the same price, and there are certainly better personal assistants.

this slump in their quality of support is indeed concerning, even more reason to look around during our next text purchases. We've all, I have at least, come to believe that apple products are great, the best even, but that's just lazy thinking. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but usually, what they produce, is something that the most people will find fine. Lowest common denominator stuff.

Anyway, there is little need for outsourcing to be poor quality and it might just have been that the OP had a rare case. There is certainly a lot of jingoism involved when talking about employing people in other countries, you have it over there in the states, we have it here in the UK. Training is the key, not the people's origin, they must however, and this goes for any customer facing service, speak good English, especially in our cases where we have to communicate issues that diverge from the script.

Yes but I use apple so care about how apple is doing it to me. Hopeing that android works more on their accessibility regarding their talkback and will move. Like apple but getting tire of spending close $1000 for a phone and having bugs.

No, not all companies are the same, and neither are the people who run them.

A corporation's practices depend on the values of their management and controlling shareholders. The question isn't whether a corporation is out to make a profit; the question is what price are they willing to pay, or in other words, what moral and/or long term financial price will the corporation choose to pay to make a profit?

For example, some corporations discriminate against their own people on the basis of gender or race. This is not a profit motive, but it will certainly harm the corporation's bottom line in the long run. Other corporations actively try to preserve the environment, which is contrary to a short term profit but smart in the long run when considering what degree of customer support that value will earn.

In short, there are many shades of gray, but as for Apple hiring people I can't hear or understand because of their accents, well, that's just plain cheap. So far as I'm concerned, Apple is burning their bridges to make a quick buck, which is very disappointing.

My wife and I bought some Apple stock years ago. I'm seriously thinking of selling. I also might buy another iPhone in a year or two. I hope so, but I'm no longer committed to the idea.

Heres the thing. Every software has bugs, every moment. Even if you move... bugs will still be present, just like in ios. Maybee the bugs are lesser and maybee they are less than in ios. Or maybee they are far worse and way more than in ios. The point is, you'll have bugs regardless of what OS you go to. There is no software that doesn't have bugs, even in the, stable, or public, release. They might be small and insignificant, or major show-stoppers. But the truth of the matter, is that you will get always get some or other bugs in every piece of software. There is no such thing as a, bug free, perfect piece of software. I mean, people have the tendency to assume, public release means no bugs. at all. This isn't how things work in reality. Public release doesn't mean 0 bugs, perfect software.

Apple in accessibility, as seen in the official Apple Community, is pretty bad. I'm sure Apple is working good and well with their general support, just not for blind. Anything I see on the Apple Community re VO is replied to as if VO doesn't make sense and just being faulty just once, or that something from there (sometimes by what I've seen) outdated Apple Accessibility guides, like everything's the same. The issue, is not exactly they don't care, more like they lack experience in the area of troubleshooting accessibility issues with users, and need to just listen while people generously provide them feedback and advise them on how to improve their service. I would find an email that won't merit "We will ensure this message reaches the appropriate party" and tell them about it, perhaps providing some tips.

No. If a bug that affect sighted user with their phone, it will be fix within a week or 2. For us, we have to wait a long time. Ask those who use Braille writers. Now is the notification. Will see how long. Be lucky if is fix by iOS 16.2. That is 2 month for now.

there are long standing bugs in Mac OS, using finder, VoiceOver starting to read by letter with up and down keys whilst in a document, inconsistent behaviour in many of their own apps such as mail, music, podcasts etc... That have been around for years. They've just given up on them knowing that we will, most likely, give up on them being fixed.

the most recent bug, which annoyed me to heck, I said heck, not f**k... was that 3rd party keyboard cases on iPad don't lock properly leaving VoiceOver chattering away. This was with an m2 iPad Pro and the Logitech combo touch. I read that this was an issue a year ago, and still nothing fixed. I sent a rather harshly worded message to apple accessibility pointing out that a cynic might say that fixing this problem in VoiceOver might be counter to apple's bottom line... That and the iPad failing to migrate my iCloud account correctly, requiring restarts and, worse, the stock VoiceOver voice not reading letters or numbers during setup correctly, as in it would give a long verbose description of the graphical icon, at least that was what I assumed it was, convinced me that apple's really not all that. I'm not going to hate on them, it's more nuanced than that, but I'm not going to be so naive in the future. Needless to say, the iPad is going back as well as the keyboard cases. For close on £1400 I'd hoped for a smooth, even pleasurable experience. I wept... I wept...

In a Half a years time, the only Apple product I'll be for sure keeping, is my 2020 Mac Mini M1.

As for my Iphone 13 Pro in Gold? There's an Android topic around these parts I'll throw my thoughts in so not to clash with folks among this one.

Also, I believe most larger tech companies are outsourcing to India and elswhere when it comes to tech support calls.

Not experienced with Android phones, just with a chromebook. In my oppinion, based on my experience with a chromebook, Google seems to have better accessibility support (know this by watching abunch of official chromeVox tutroials on YouTube) but ChromeVox is not as good as voiceOver.

Hi guys.
Speaking of google accessibility support it seems like they don't know what they're doing.
Every time I've called them through be my eyes they've said let me look this up.
Atleast it seems like Apple accessibility people seem to know what they're doing.
Mind you I've not called Apple accessibility in a while so not sure about now.

Just spoke with apple support. the guy on the phone was Irish, which is the same as it's always been, apple being located in Northern Ireland to serve the UK. Think it's some tax break...

Maybe it's just the states where they are sendingg support requests abroad?

Oliver, Apple support for UK users is actually spread over a number of destinations - I've spoken to some people in the UK, some in Eastern Europe, some in the Republic of Ireland and some in the US. Like others on here I don't care where the support guys are based provided they know what they're doing and are fluent in English. My bank outsources to india, for example, but clearly they give excellent training to the Indians they employ as the service I get is of a very good standard. I think the point that accessibility presents niche issues seldom encountered elsewhere is a very good one and that can have a deleterious impact on our support experiences; but that isn't necessarily dependent on location. The only time I have ever been asked what Voiceover is, for example, when ringing Apple support, was by a US-based technician who sounded about as American as Bill Clinton.