I am sharing my 1 year experience with iPhone 4 and iPhone 4 Indian customer support in this post and this is my personal experience. I have been using iPhone for last one year and the phone seemed to work great. The iPhone build is excellent and functions are pretty easy to operate. However, i often faced problems with network signals and call drops but its still very hard to tell whether that was iPhone problem or Network problem. But trusting the Apple brand, i think cellphone operators responsible for signals problems.
Apart from this, i often faced problem with home button not working at random times which i often ignored. After all, i loved iphone and trusted Apple so much that how can i think that there is problem in iphone. I used to ignore home button problem on continuous basis because of my busy official schedule and 11 months passed. 12th month started i.e. last month of iphone warranty, iPhone home button totally stopped working. What is iphone without a home button. So, I now decided to take it the authorized service center in Noida and now my interaction began with the Apple India customer support. I will explain as a list to make it easily readable.
- Bought iPhone 4 – July 31, 2011
- Random Signal Problems – Just after phone activation- still don’t know who is responsible iPhone or network
- Home button slow to respond or not working sometimes – After 6 months- I ignored
- Home button Completely stopped working – June 2012- took to the service center- service center did not hear the problem because i was 3 minutes late- talked to sales staff in the apple store and pushing home button a little harder resolved the issue for the time being. I returned satisfied.
- Home Button Again completely stopped– August 5, 2012 – had to push the home button very hardly to make it work every time. – Called service center for appointment- They did not answer the call despite many attempts- I also forgot because of my busy schedule and i knew my warranty has expired so i will have to pay to get the button corrected and so i did not hurry that much.
- Called service center again and they picked the call – August 8th, 2012 – I asked for appointment and for charges to repair the Home button- They replied charges would be around Rs. 14500 and i was shocked. so much amount just for home button repair isn’t justified and its just 1 year. They gave me apple customer support number and asked to contact them if they can help you in this regard.
- Called apple support– 8th August 2012. they asked me to call from another number as they wasted to diagnose something in iPhone
- Called apple support from landline – Apple number not supported on airtel landline-
- Called Apple support again – August 9, 2012 – connected to Andrew and than escalated to Arup Chakraborty – He was very helping and he listened very carefully and guided me a way to check whether this was software or hardware problem. When software problem was not found he made an exception case for me and AppleCare Case ID: 338122738 was generated. He asked me to bring the iPhone to authorized service center and if there is no physical damage, it will be replaced. I was too happy at this point.
- I decided to leave for service center immediately, strange enough my home button started working nicely. I stopped and did not go to service center.
- Home button again stopped working next day – 10th August 2012- I talked to service center and they said that it was not possible to submit the iphone that day because of Janmastmi (Indian festival)
- Finally Submitted the iphone to service center – 11th August 2012- They submitted the iphone but said that there is liquid damage. I was shocked again as i never knew of any situation which could have caused it. But i cannot do anything, if they are saying it.
- Talked to Arup again from apple support, he asked me to submit the phone for proper inspection and wait for the next update.
- Its 72 hours and No update about my case.
- Still Waiting for update, and i will update it once i receive the update
Lessons Learnt from Apple Support:
- Never Ignore anything that happens with your iphone
- Try to get everything corrected during the warranty period.
- Buy apple protection program just after buying your products else your repairs will costly you dearly,
- Contact a nice customer support executive like Mr. Arup and explain everything in detail.
Important Details Related to apple incase you need support.
- Toll Free number: 18004250744
- Service centers locator at http://support.apple.com.au/wts/in/
iPhone is quite good device but you have to be very careful while using it. Till now i have found Apple support guys to be very friendly and supportive when talking to them. My problem still seems to be unresolved, and i am still waiting for the update.
10 Comments
Support is one of the main issues with companies like Apple. They provide good support in USA but they deal with Indians in a different manner.
All the best for your issue. Please keep us posted about the issue.
Abhishek, it cannot be said they treat customers differently. Till now i have had nice experience and they made a exception case also for me.
But yes, i do feel tat there are certain situations where they don’t listen to customers as my case they say liquid damage but i can guarantee that it is not so. but lets see what happens next.
Hello,
Yes Mr. Ashish, I also agree with your concerns. My brother faced the same problem and they even don’t understand customer concerns and only look for money and not even money but they ask for such a big amount for only service in which a good phone we can purchase.
Worst Service with a big brand 🙁
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Products from Apple are high quality and interesting to use its features. iphone from Apple is Quite different from others. Customer services is not up to the range……. Lets see in the upcoming years..
Hi all,
With this home button problem turning out to be universal for almost all i phone 4 handsets , and that too within a short period of purchase, its high time Apple decides to give a serious introspection to the problem which the unfortunate buyers of this model suffer instead of forcing them to discard the phone and get a newer model ! I feel they should accept the phones with this problem with a genuine apology and agree to replace the part at a nominal cost . Not the phenomenal charges they slap on the hapless customer. Poor business ethics !!