[CS-FSLUG] iBook sales phone/email

[Steve McCracken]

Nathan T. wrote:
> I just got an e-mail back from support at apple.com apparently they don't
> do any e-mail communication there as the automatic-response said, and
> I hate going through the phone.

I can understand your plight, but I think it would behoove you to learn 
to talk on the phone well.  I will always come in handy when you 
graduate and get a job.  I can also understand that sales will usually 
want to do everything over the phone.  Think of how well people can 
communicate comparing face to face communication with phone 
conversations with email.  Obviously face to face is best because you 
can read the person's body language, hear the inflections in their 
voice, see their smile (or lack thereof), etc.  Phone conversation has 
all these elements except for the visual.  With email you even lose the 
inflections in voice and such.  Also, email is very, very, (did I say 
*very*) slow when trying to resolve an issue.  Over the phone one can 
easily ask for clarification if one doesn't understand and ask more 
questions to try to better understand what the person really wants (it's 
not always clear.)  A 15 minute phone conversation could easily take 
*days* when conducted over email.

I would highly suggest, especially for a purchase that you think is so 
important that you're asking for advice on it, that you take the extra 
effort and actually call.
> 
> I'm thinking right about now maybe Lintel is my best option, I'm going
> to keep my eyes open for a laptop that will work well with Mandrake
> unless someone can give me a good reason why that would be a bad idea,
> such as bad hardware support, shorter battery life or no suspend. I've

I would suggest you read Tim's post again about the remorse that can 
come later on basing a decision on one set of facts.  If you are 
thinking of making a decision only on price (or only on the fact that 
you can't communicate through email), I would think twice on that.

> got a few more days in which Apple could reply, but so far they
> haven't proved themselves very serious about actually selling anything
> to me. If a company wants my business, it'll let me reach them in a
> way that's convenient to me.

You can decide on this, but are probably reducing your options a lot.  I 
would prefer talking on the phone with someone rather than waiting days 
for answers to my questions.  I always find that some answers provoke 
other questions and without the ability to hear inflections and such 
there is a higher probability for misunderstanding (we probably have 
several examples of this in the archives of this forum).

That said, you can alway go to the support forums or such to find some 
information.  I would also (maybe through the tech support section?) see 
if they had "chat" which would be in between phone and email communication.

sjm

P.S. I'm not trying to push you one way or the other, but just trying to 
help you out with how to get your questions answered in a timely manner.