Apple Gets Top Marks on 'Tech Support Showdown' List

Apple continues to dominate when it comes to customer support, according to Laptop Mag's annual tech support showdown, which is designed to help customers determine which companies are offering the most reliable customer service in the tech industry.

Apple received an aggregate score of 91, earning 54 points for its web-based tech support and 37 points for its phone-based tech support. Laptop Mag says that Apple's support staff are among the "fastest and most knowledgeable," offering up "accurate answers" to Mac questions across live chat, social media, and the phone.

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In a more in-depth breakdown of Apple's score, Laptop Mag says its editors queried Apple about Dark Mode in macOS Mojave, disabling automatic updates, and turning off the webcams (something not possible).

Live chat was determined to be the best Apple support experience, and it took between 4 and 9 minutes for live chat staff to walk Laptop Mag through answers to its queries. Phone support was also quick, thorough, and helpful.

Larry was surprised when I told him I wanted to disable the MacBook Air's webcam. After saying he typically just puts tape over his webcam, Larry asked me to wait for 3 to 5 minutes while he checked to see if anything else were possible. Two minutes later, Larry was back on the call to walk me through the System Preferences app and show me how to disable webcam access, app by app. He also noted there might be a "fancier" way to disable the webcam via the Library (it's actually in the Terminal program), but that this was easier.

Few companies even came close to beating Apple's score of 91 in the Tech Support Showdown, but Razer, the number two company, scored an 88 and Dell scored a 73. Apple competitor Samsung earned a score of 73, while Microsoft got a 64.

As always, Laptop Mag arrived at these scores by posing as everyday PC and Mac users to get answers to three questions from major laptop manufacturers. Both the online and telephone support systems were tested. 100 points total were possible, 60 from online support because it's a more popular way to get help, and 40 from phone support.

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Top Rated Comments

TheBing1980 Avatar
78 months ago
I would have to say, I agree with this 100%.

I have only reached out to them a few times ....For some reason I prefer searching thru forums to fix things myself. ;)

But when I have contacted them, they have always been pretty knowledgeable and very polite.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Harthag Avatar
78 months ago
Razer at #2...LOL.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Classie Avatar
78 months ago
The few times I’ve reached out to Apples support they’ve been very professional and polite; always solved my issues.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
alpi123 Avatar
78 months ago
Dell doesn't deserve to be in the top 100.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nvmls Avatar
78 months ago
Hilarious chart, Razer and Dell? epic troll. Also, Apple's service is very inconsistent when outside of the U.S.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kemal Avatar
78 months ago
Then there is the cost of what should be reasonably priced repairs.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)