Tuesday 23 June 2015

User experience - Apple support in Egypt: Thanks Apple!

In comparison to my frustration last year trying to figure out an issue with my iPhone in my home country Egypt, I was very satisfied few days ago when I approached the company for an iOS support ticket. It's understood that Apple has no Apple stores in Egypt, only re-sellers, and the iPhones especially are supported through the mobile network operators. So those who purchase their handsets from outside the country, like my case, are mostly left behind with very limited support through the re-sellers.

My story started when I first tried to enable keychain on my device. To complete the operation, I should receive the security code on my registered phone number with Apple; however, since I purchased my device from Geneva, it looks like I have selected the country as Switzerland when I first set it up. Hence, whenever the service tries to send to me an SMS, it never reaches me as it was addressing my correct Egyptian number, except with a Swizerland's prefix.

https://www.apple.com/eg/support

Contact Us --> Get Started --> Select a product --> Select a topic --> "This Topic is not listed" --> Fill in the topic details -->



I have started my support request through Apple's online chat where the agent advised me to dial Apple support through the phone since resetting my account information requires verification which cannot be completed through the chat window. Moreover, he kindly shared a list of contacts which did not include Egypt and advised me to call the nearest location if my country is not listed. Before I do, I gave it a second shot for searching again on the Apple official site for support contacts until finally I found a toll-free support number (0800 000 0888) which answered with the reply that my call was outside the working hours. Another visit to the website, I was amazed to find a support call-in service with doubts that it might even work in Egypt. Anyway, I decided to give it a try and reserved an appointment annotated with my request topic. On the pre-defined time, I received the call which started by few minutes of waiting time. Then an agent replied and asked me about my issue, and looks like she recorded it very professionally and consulted someone or or another system. Finally, after some relatively long waiting period, she kindly returned with questions for verifying my identity, then some more waiting time which seams to me that she was waiting for her system interface to respond. Consequently she very patiently helped me through the resolution and confirmed it before we close the line.

Overall, I can say I had a very good user experience, starting from the scheduled call, passing by the very helpful agent, and more importantly she was able to find a way to resolve my issue in a single call.

It is worth mentioning that I questioned the location of the call center which turned out to be located in Athens; however, all the experience I perceived was merely Egyptian; the whole call was in the local Egyptian accent. Impressed!

I believe this post is my thank you token for Apple and that dedicated agent!

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