It may sound accurate to those who are the ones getting the support, but it may not sound accurate to the ones giving the tech support.
It is necessary to be realistic with such surveys. Accuracy may be in the eye of the beholder, but in this case, it is a very powerful and meaningful metric. You cannot ask Dell or HP or Apple how well they serviced their customers' issues ("Oh, we did great. Great, I tell you!").
How many times would those low scores be attributed to the consumer not having a clue, blowing up, and then thinking to him/her self that the entire tech support thing was evil?
Whether or not a customer has a clue about how badly they've f*'d up the system has minimal bearing on their service experience. There are a lot of "customers are idiots" statements in this post, and while it may be true, it does not account for their perceptions of service.
Customer service has as much to do with how a customer is treated as it does with whether the problem was solved. It is imperative for the technician/CSR/whatever to understand what the problem is before they can diagnose. The fact is that most technical support personnel (whether PC or not) tend to jump to conclusions because "they've seen it all before".
Of course, there will be times where the reverse is true, when tech support will really be the ones who screw up, but being the tech support is their job.
They can actually get fired... the consumer can't get fired.
No, the consumer can't get fired. But consider this: The consumer just plopped down a chunk of change roughly equivalent to two weeks of this CSR's pay. So, which is more valuable, a CSR who manages to screw up a potentially lifelong relationship with a customer because he or she incorrectly diagnoses a problem? Or is the customer who, over a lifetime relationship of PC buying might just single handedly fund a year or two of a CSR's salary.
Now is the point where I'm gonna go off-topic with an overused anecdote... Businesses are in business to make money.
To make money you need customers. In a commodity business, whether it's BMWs or Macintoshes or Rolexes, a satisfied customer is a lifelong customer. Surveys like this one are the best way to determine how well a company is tracking against the goal of making lifelong customers.
Now we beat the dead horse to make sure I'm mod'ed way, Way down.../.'ers are typically not average customers.
I bet, in fact, if you cross-compared within this sample, the average customer of one manufacturer is not the average customer of another. We thrive on our technical literacy. Joe Quicken User or Mary iPhoto just want an appliance that they don't have to use voodoo to control. They tend to ask lots of questions. It's imperative (from a business case) that when they ask those questions, they're treated well.
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It is necessary to be realistic with such surveys. Accuracy may be in the eye of the beholder, but in this case, it is a very powerful and meaningful metric. You cannot ask Dell or HP or Apple how well they serviced their customers' issues ("Oh, we did great. Great, I tell you!").
Whether or not a customer has a clue about how badly they've f*'d up the system has minimal bearing on their service experience. There are a lot of "customers are idiots" statements in this post, and while it may be true, it does not account for their perceptions of service.
Customer service has as much to do with how a customer is treated as it does with whether the problem was solved. It is imperative for the technician/CSR/whatever to understand what the problem is before they can diagnose. The fact is that most technical support personnel (whether PC or not) tend to jump to conclusions because "they've seen it all before".
No, the consumer can't get fired. But consider this: The consumer just plopped down a chunk of change roughly equivalent to two weeks of this CSR's pay. So, which is more valuable, a CSR who manages to screw up a potentially lifelong relationship with a customer because he or she incorrectly diagnoses a problem? Or is the customer who, over a lifetime relationship of PC buying might just single handedly fund a year or two of a CSR's salary.
Now is the point where I'm gonna go off-topic with an overused anecdote... Businesses are in business to make money.
To make money you need customers. In a commodity business, whether it's BMWs or Macintoshes or Rolexes, a satisfied customer is a lifelong customer. Surveys like this one are the best way to determine how well a company is tracking against the goal of making lifelong customers.
Now we beat the dead horse to make sure I'm mod'ed way, Way down... /.'ers are typically not average customers.
I bet, in fact, if you cross-compared within this sample, the average customer of one manufacturer is not the average customer of another. We thrive on our technical literacy. Joe Quicken User or Mary iPhoto just want an appliance that they don't have to use voodoo to control. They tend to ask lots of questions. It's imperative (from a business case) that when they ask those questions, they're treated well.
-dlh5069