Apple’s customer service performance suffered a rapid decline during the second fiscal quarter of 2015, according to a new study from market research firm StellaService. The slip is blamed on long wait times for both technical support, and shipping for devices like Apple Watch.
Taking its shipping, returns, and customer support performance into account, StellaService ranked Apple 25th in its latest Benchmarks report, which evaluates online retailers. That’s a significant drop of its third-place ranking in the fourth quarter of 2014.
It should be noted that StellaService recently changed its benchmark scoring process, so it is unable to accurately compare quarter-on-quarter results. But under its new process, Apple was ranked 14th place for order shipping.
This metric is calculated by monitoring things like product fulfillment, delivery times, checkout issues, and product damage during shipping. Fulfillment now stands at roughly 2.6 days, down from 3.1 days during the same time last year, while same-day shipping has also improved.
Apple was also ranked 14th in returns, which is calculated by monitoring refund times, availability of prepaid packaging labels, processing times, and other factors. On average, Apple processed refunds in just 4.4 days, which is twice as fast as other electronic companies, Stella found.
One area where Apple’s service took a big hit is in technical support. Measuring speed, StellaService found that it took an extra 30 seconds on average to speak to Apple support over the phone, and while chat availability remained at 100 percent, issue resolution rates dropped to 94 percent.
It’s thought the Apple Watch attributes to this, with phone response times getting three times longer when the device was made available to pre-order in April.
[via AppleInsider]
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