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Customers Rate PC Vendors' Tech Support
VorfeedTech writes "News.com has a story on consumers' satisfaction with tech support. The article goes on to mention ConsumerReports' survey results comparing a few of the major PC vendors. Apple rated the best for tech support. I guess this is where they think different (TM)."
Getting Tech Support to rate the customers. Which company has the stupidest clients, and is there a relationship between quality of service and the intelligence of the people receiving it.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
When you are supporting something, you become a genre expert, and as such, have a domain of knowledge about the product that few outside of tech support could hope to attain.
Besides, when you've worked tech support, you only remember the bad calls, never the good ones.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
I wonder if there is a connection there?
I've had two Dell computers without problem. The PCs worked fine for the duration of their life with me(2-3 years) and all was good.
This past winter I was going to buy another one only I had a complete brain fart about the limit on my card since I had never used it to make a purchase over $100 online.
So they send me an e-mail back saying the bank denied my purchase but did not give them a reason and I was to call Dell back, yadda yadda. So after figuring out about the limit from my card company I call Dell back and explain. I called the number they told me to call in the e-mail but after waiting 20 minutes to talk to them they had to rout me through to someone else because it wasn't the right department. So I wait another 20 minutes and I explain the problem to the next person...oh wait, it's not their department so they route me some place else. So I wait another 20 minutes and I explain the problem to the next person...oh wait, it's not their department so they route me some place else. Only this time my connection is disconnected...
I was so irritated I just forgot about the entire thing. In 2 days they had to release my order (as said in the e-mail) and I never did get a Dell. I built my own computer (thank goodness).
This could have all been avoided had I not bought the computer on the last day of a significant sale (free shipping -$90 plus a free upgrade or two, so I was saving quite a bit). Because of that I couldn't just cancel the order and configure and buy again.
In any event, that entire ordeal soured me to Dell.
After a great experience building my own computer months later, I'd never go back unless perhaps I ever bought a laptop.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
250$ for the extra 2 years of no-questions-asked tech support is exactly what you want if you're a college student. Do you really think your laptop is going to make it through college in one piece?
As a comparison, try checking the prices of in-store maintenance contracts for the same hardware. You'll find Apple is more than reasonable.
On the flip side, consider that any hardware repair at all after the first year will run you at least 350$ for parts and labor. You're foolish not the get the applecare warranty.
Remember that apple systems have a longer lifetime than typical PC counterparts. You're going to be using that ibook for a long time to come, you might as well take care of it.
I don't think we slashdot readers can say much about the quality of customer service for a simple reason: the average slashdot reader probably has a larger understanding of computers than the average customer service employee.
Point in case: I mailed compaq a few weeks ago, after I installed SuSE 8.0, because my computer was freezing, and the caps and scroll lock lights were blinking when this happened. I hoped the people at compaq could tell me if this was a diagnostic code.
The support was pretty good; I got a response to my email in less than 15 minutes. I find that excellent. However, the poor guy at the support centre couldn't get a grip on what I was saying, because he consequently underestimated my knowledge of computers. His first response was to make me use the quick restore cd's, which would erase my hard disk and repartition it and reinstall the win98 se that originally came with the computer.
My point is that if you're a professional yourself, your either better than the support guy or the support guy is not going to take you serious enough. Either way you won't be helped properly. That's why slashdot readers can't really have a representative opinion on help desks; help desks are aimed at nitwits (as far as their computer use goes anyhow).
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
A few years ago a Jaz disk would eject immediately after inserting it in the drive and I called Iomega. After going trough the automated stuff (push # for ...), I finally got a live person on the line.
After the usual (cables, drivers, etc....) stuff she exactly told me what to do to make it stay in there (easy: keep your hand the disk, until it snaps, it never had the problem after that occurence). She even was very patient with me because I had to walk to the computer each time to do something because the phone and computer were in different rooms. After being helped, I thanked her for her friendly and useful help, and she actually sounded astonished anyone would thank her for the help.
And now you say they don't remember the good calls? *snif* (Oh, and she had one kind of sexy voice with a slight Irish accent)
My Mom was proactive and bought a Mac a few months ago. She had problems with connecting to the Internet.
Since I know little about the Mac and how it accomplishes such things, and since I live about 2500 miles away from here, I said "Um, Sorry Mom, call Apple".
And so she did. And to my amazement, they solved her problem. Not only that, but she actually emailed her good experiences to me within a couple hours.
I have to admit this is the only good tech support experience I've heard from a PC company. Years ago, when I had a PC from another well known company, the tech support guys made me jump through 1000 hoops before they'd admit to a problem that could be fixed with a BIOS upgrade.
Apple didn't make my Mom do that!
Ask yourself the question, why not??
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
[OBDisclaimer: I work for Apple, in fact the Euro support centre is next-door but right now I'm speaking just for myself.]
Yes, Apple have full-time, trained employees working on tech support. They do in both the US support site (Sacramento, CA) and in Europe (Cork, Ireland).
By the way, every new Mac sold also contains a diagnostic CD. The user can simply insert it, boot in 5 seconds and get a result back for tech support without even needing a supporting OS!! Kewl or wha' ....
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Huh? Because Apple customers like Apple products they should be excluded of a customer satisfaction survey?
You argue that because they are Mac enthousiast they will have a better perception of Apple's tech support. Has it occured to you that maybe Mac enthousiast are enthousiastic because of the quality of Apple's tech support and that the probable reason that the Dell customer has no particular love for the company is because their products are not very satisfying...
On Monday afternoon I called them and they said they'd send me an overnight shipping package.
Tuesday, mid-day, an Airborne Express box was sitting on my porch. I packed the machine and brought it to the Airborne office for shipping.
Wednesday, I check the website and my machine arrived in the morning, has been fixed and is being shipped out in the afternoon.
Thursday, mid-day, an Airborne Express box is on my porch with my laptop with a new hard drive.
Time from problem discovery to problem resolution: 70 hours. Cost to me: $0. (Well, I did miss out on the $200 rebate offer when I bought it by one friggin' day ... darn you Apple--why won't you be nice and give it to me anyway? why? Oh ... sorry ... )
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
You know why tech support sucks?
Because people will not pay for it. Margins are too low for companies to give good tech support. Consumers are only looking at prices/features not how good their tech support is. Who here is going to pay an extra $100 to $200 a year just for good tech support? Not many. Businesses are different, but most consumers are not going to pay the money to get good tech support.
There was a batch of Deskpros which had faulty video cards. They would work fine when new, but over time the BIOS would leak power until one day you switched on and, well, it didn't switch on. You got the beep sequence informing you, "Dude, you're getting no video!". Once that happened, you were out of luck and had to RMA the card. Eventually they came out with a "patch" -- if you can consider a small Windows program which bleeps the BIOS every 24 hours to refresh the video card information a legitimate patch -- but it was useless if your card had already died.
I had a client who'd bought a batch of 70 or so and was rolling them out in lots of five at a time. Hence, every few weeks, we'd have to call Compaq and RMA the video card. Well, naturally, we had to go through the diagnostics. Even though this was a well-known and documented issue, and even though the beep sequence said exactly what was happening, and even though you would tell Compaq you'd gone through the diagnostics, you had to do it while the Compaq tech was on the line.
So eventually I figured out how to do this.
Compaq tech: "Okay, switch out the video card with a known good card and check it boots up with that one, then replace the original and see if you still have the same problem."
Me: wait for 15 seconds doing nothing, then, "Okay, done that. The other card worked fine, but I still have the same problem with the original."
Compaq tech: "Gosh, that was quick."
Me: "Yes, well, I'm, err, used to doing this by now."
Compaq tech: "Okay. Well then...um, let's reset the motherboard BIOS by..."
Me: "...switching over Jumper A17, powering up for 20 seconds, then turning it off and switching back, yeah, I know. Hang on a minute."
Sit for another 30 seconds doing nothing.
"Okay, done that, same problem."
Compaq tech: "Wow, you're really quick on this stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, well, I play the piano, I have good dexterity."
Compaq tech: "Oh..."
Quite efficient, I think: if you just pretend to do what they're asking instead of actually doing it, it goes much more quickly. This is good, right? You cut down on the call time, save the client time and money, and don't tie up the Compaq tech line either, so they're getting better call times -- yay, everyone wins!
You just had to make sure you paused long enough to make it sound plausible. No good coming back after five seconds claiming to have replaced the video card, booted up into Windows, shut down, and switched in the original video card, as well as having done a complete NT installation on the side. But there was one tech who I spoke with quite often, and he soon figured out what was going on. Fortunately, he also figured out I had at least half a clue, and if he played along it'd cut down his call times.
They have to go through the charade, poor buggers; almost feel sorry for them sometimes.