Open Letter to Apple on working conditions at Apple service providers
You should quit working for Apple in the customer service if the service provider working conditions are not changed.
On working at Conduent, an American Apple customer service provider in Germany
Dear Tim Cook, dear folks at Apple and dear future customers of Apple products,
I have recently applied for a job for the customer support service at Conduent in Germany (Apple service provider). To say it mildly: I am really outraged that you engage a service provider which pays just above the minimum pay with 9,50 € per hour. Even IBM where I had worked, pays way more. Even if you first give people a 4 weeks training course, you may have and do have people who have gotten sincere knowledge of Apple devices and IT (as in my person). By which I think, you should get a proper pay for the 40 hours work without extra pay on working at german holidays (or if it would be the US, which in Germany costs a lot and is justifiable when you work on holiday you should get payed a lot more).
This really outrages me, as such a forward looking company as Apple is or want to be. Apple should pay their employees and especially also their service providers the proper payment, even the garbage men and women working for german towns and cities get here a-lot more in payment than at working for Apple service providers. This is outrageous, ridiculous and a scandal!
Here are some bits of how bad it is standing about the Apple Support and their service providers:
Just recently a book was published, „Inside Apple“ which revealed the bad conditions (in an somewhat subjective manner) for working for Apple directly at Apple in Cork, Ireland. And for the service provider it seems to be even worse.
Apple is one of the companies with the most outsourced call-centers. Sure many may work from home, but that does just do slightly better and doesn’t change the main issue. The Austrian Daniela Kickl expressed it as such:
„Everything we do with a customer must be in accordance with a procedure, improvisations and spontaneous ideas of whatever kind are forbidden, we must never think and act independently, but we must know the in each case to be used procedures asleep, and then exactly follow these.“
Is this really Apples vision for „Think different“ ? I think not. I may say that a ground structure of procedure is very import for proper work and support. But it seems that, in my own experience with the retail store support, you can’t deviate from the procedure (and as I also could get this from the interview with Conduent). Especially if it may be proper at a given time to deviate from it, as it will not provide any further helpful information (maybe just a confirmation) but in effect it results to be inefficient and just useless. Such as when you tell what is wrong with your phone or mac or keyboard, and it is also clearly to be seen and what to be done, a time consuming procedure support is undertaken, instead of directly addressing the issue, and everything else can be checked by Apple itself without my time consuming personal presence.
I do then know for some issues and errors the procedures are very quick in identifying and probably solving the issues. But again: in many cases the procedures are just frustrating and time consuming for the customers waiting and should accordingly be changed (at least my experience here in Germany).
So when we get back to the phone support you have about 15 minute to solves this and that. In many cases it wont be solved in that time. And you will get another call or an appointment for the Apple Store long in the future (my own Apple support experience). This is calling for improvement.
Customer satisfaction has been really high for Apple since a long time. And this is correct. But in most cases the reports don’t include the Experience with the Apple support (or from their service providers) itself but mostly with the devices only.
Let me start with the part of the equation that’s true: Satisfactory customer service doesn’t excite customers or resonate very much with them emotionally. Simply satisfying your customers is unlikely to give you an unstoppable competitive advantage in itself, to make your brand so strong in customers’ eyes that they stop checking out your competitors and thinking about switching. That’s why, if you want to use customer service as a competitive advantage, it is important to rise beyond “satisfactory” customer service, at least from time to time. There is great competitive value in moving beyond satisfaction, in creating memorable moments for customers, for example when an unusual situation, positive or negative, occurs that allows your organization and its employees to rise to the occasion.
So as seen Apple does not entirely fulfill this role of good service (which includes proper payment of employees, also for service providers. Because they are representing Apple. So that there today is not really any transparence here just shows how bad it is and that there is much room for improvement.
You may think that most or many companies are doing such bad paid work with service providers and that Apple is not really outstanding here. Yes and you are right. Here in Germany and surely in Europe and the US elsewhere bad payment for customer service is the rule. But I ask for, as Apple is such an envisioned innovating company standing in for LGBT rights and so on, they really should look forward to be a pioneer in working conditions, this would really help the world. They should really take a look at Scandinavia and proper working conditions there knowingly as I am coming from Denmark myself.
So back to Conduent then. At the the end of my Skype Job interview I notified that this isn’t a really good payment and as a Apple service provider they should rather look forward and pay the far better than most other companies, surely Apple can afford that. They could take could take Scandinavian work models as some model to work on. Not this bad payment with 9,5 € per hour plus some bonuses which are fast destructed by your rating in not solving the customers issues in 15 min ( if it may be a hardware like failure or a more complex approach to Apple ID and services). This is not how it should work.
So at the end i didn’t get the job. But with this bad payment I wasn’t really into it all. And nobody else should make him a slave for Apple under these conditions.
So I am really annoyed about this and next time I will really think a lot more before buying the next Apple product. And to all others you should too!
Think different Apple!
Sources:
„Alles, was wir mit einem Kunden tun, muss einer Prozedur entsprechen. Improvisationen und spontane Ideen, welcher Art auch immer, sind verboten. Wir dürfen unter keinen Umständen selbstständig denken und handeln, sondern müssen die jeweils anzuwendende Prozedur im Schlaf kennen und ihr genau folgen.”
Verfasst von Philipp Tusch // 22. Juli 2015 um 16:18 Uhr:
UPDATE 11:01 Uhr, 23. Juli 2015:
Eine weitere, ehemalige Mitarbeiterin meldet sich uns gegenüber zu Wort. Sie nennt sich Gabi und schreibt:
Apple hat die meisten Callcenter outgesourct. Und die Anforderungen an diese Supporter sind absolut unterirdisch. Ja, es gibt ein Bonussystem. Beispiel gefällig? Hilfst du dem Kunden und überschreitest dabei permanent deine dir zugewiesene “Helferzeit” -> Bonus am A… Hältst du die Zeit im Level, kannst aber dem Kunden vielleicht nicht wirklich zu vollster Zufriedenheit helfen… schlechte Bewertung -> Bonus am A.
Die Bewertungen sind so aufgelistet, dass der erste Punkt nach der Gesamtzufriedenheit mit Apple fragt, erst danach kommen die Punkte mit der Mitarbeiterzufriedenheit. Wenn nun der Kunde mit dem Mitarbeiter völlig zufrieden war, sich aber über z.B. die Wartezeit an der Hotline gestört hat oder ein Staubkorn auf dem Iphone war (Ironie), dann bewertet er es niedriger am ersten Punkt (Apple). Den Mitarbeiter lobt er natürlich oder will sogar eine Lohnerhöhung für ihn (alles schon da gewesen). Das fatale aber ist, in den Bonus fließt AUSSCHLIESSLICH.. der 1. Punkt -> Bonus am A, obwohl du als Mitarbeiter 100% super Arbeit geleistet hast. …
Ihr wundert Euch, dass die Mitarbeiter meist so gut ausgebildet sind? Dort sitzen mitunter studierte Leute, Fachinformatiker usw., die sonst in ihrer Gegend (Rumänien, Griechenland…) keinen Job mehr bekommen (mögliche Überqualifikation). Und die MÜSSEN sich von irgendwelchen frustrierten Kunden (nicht alle) bepöbeln, beleidigen und zeitweise sogar bedrohen lassen. Und dabei freundlich bleiben, sonst ist ja der Bonus weg, wenn gerade wieder mitgehört wird. … Aber es gibt auch die guten Kunden ….
