Laptop Mag's tech support showdown strikes once again
By Laura June 
posted August 6th 2009 10:51AM
posted August 6th 2009 10:51AM
posted August 6th 2009 10:51AM
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I like it.
That's what was lacking this morning in these articles. We need to bring back the lolcat article pictures.
I don't know how dell got a C-, their tech support is so simple. Just use the chat! Don't call it in.
One thing about that lolcat pic that is strange is that every word is spelled properly. hmmm, must not have come from 4chan...
Customer service is always better than technical support (they want your money). So you had a similar situation with a Dell purchase (1) or is that a Dell technical support issue (2)? If (1), stop sending it to the wrong address, that's your own damn fault. If (2), read the first sentence. As a former tech, I can say I would probably put you on hold for thirty minutes as well, judging by your previous posts.
@sacapuntas, overlooked that you are right... this isn't a lolcat at all without the lolspeak.
Not surprised about Dell at all. In my experience, both their customer service and tech support are quite terrible.
just quit while you're ahead.
you're fighting a losing battle... and wasting everyone's bandwidth.
this study is pretty ridiculous.
I'm shocked! Are you telling me you don't think a sample size of 2 is large enough to be statistically significant, providing a broad representation of the average CC rep at each company, and average wait times and policies?
I'm actually shocked that after only sampling 2 calls to each company they actually have the nerve to call this a study. Call me when they make 100-200 calls and get some real numbers.
I've never called Apple support for anything more than some help with some shipping problems (They fixed them in about 5mins).
Dell I've dealt with a couple times. Their phone service is nothing to brag about (They get things fixed though), but their online service is great from my experience.
The fact that the study gave apple the best score is the only reason this is on Engadget at all.
@ Paul
And the only reason you are commenting as well.
"You're a hater!"
"You're a fanboy!"
Ok, we get it. Howsabout everyone stops acting like little children around here?
Lian-Li case being attacked by cat...
Not really. Seeing as how Apple no doubt has much, MUCH more experience with dealing with irate and pissed off customers.
Practice makes perfect.
I think the big news here is Dell and how lousy they STILL are after all the supposed efforts they were to put forth to improve their service
Considering they only made 2 calls to each support line, this study is pretty much just anecdotal evidence. Somewhere in the comments above one or two users said that they had no problem with Dell's support, and when I called in to get my power brick replaced they did it without any fuss or delay. I think the comments to this article have already invalidated their "study".
Hey is this fair at all? Leave it to Engadget to make it sound like PC support is bad! If you check Lenovo(A-[can't figure out why an A-]), Toshiba(A) and others they pretty much scored up there with Apple. By the sound of this Article no one else did at least in 2009.
Apple only make two laptops. How difficult can it be to be good when that's your entire product line?
Although HP are shit. Let's not even argue about that.
You're right, Quix. I'm going to go home and give my Macbook a hard stare.
Or maybe a smack on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Who knows?
That's also how they claim the #1 most used laptop in colleges statistic that they were touting in their commercials a while back. Yeah, they've got the #1 model, because every Apple notebook is either a MacBook or MacBook Pro. But if they were to go up against every other laptop manufacturer (Dell, Lenovo), or even series (Inspiron, Thinkpad) instead of model, their statistic would get crushed.
Here's one
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10288275-1.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related
Here's another
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/07/apple-market-share-up-or-down-depending-on-who-you-ask.ars
No, they're definitely not.
I agree that Apple's phone support is generally very good. I try to avoid calling companies as often as possible, generally opting for email support or online chat. Apple's email support has been fantastic every time I've used it (generally for iTunes/Accounts issues), and I'm still unhappy they have yet to add a support chat (there is now store chat - which is nice).
Although I generally deal with premier business support with HP and Dell, I agree that HP's home support is atrocious. Dell's I don't think is nearly as bad as Laptop Mag's was, but I guess it's hit or miss. I dread calling HP's home support and refuse to purchase any products from them. HP's business support on the other hand is probably the best I've dealt with (Dell is right up there too).
While it sucks that I have had to use Apple Support twice, iPhone flipped shit, Macbook Pro screen wigged out, they were amazing at holding up there end of the agreement. Took maybe 5 mins call time in each situation and both products were fixed/replaced within 2 business days at no charge to me. A major convenience is, after you setup a support ticket online or through phone, that they call you asap rather than you having to sit on hold for 20 mins, and they have usually done a little pre research on the issue.
@Nick - I agree with what you're saying, but you have to realize the market shares of Lenovo or Toshiba (or Fujitsu/Sony for that matter) are much MUCH lower than the likes of Dell or HP.
Lenovo's support is absolutely fantastic though. The hold times are a bit long, but the actual chat with support is generally
i read the report but don't understand how they rate it.
ASUS, FUJITSU, LENOVO and SONY "answered our questions correctly in less than a minute" while APPLE tech "didn’t mention Apple’s Energy Saver utility" which was, supposedly, the right answer, then BAM! APPLE gets an A and ALL the others get a B, this is on phone grade only. how does this make sense?
Completely disagree with your Paul - Dell's hardware (keep in mind I only use their business products) is fantastic. Their business support is also great, so their generally the first company we look at when purchasing new machines (when we're not looking for Macs).
I have had nothing but good with HP tech support. I hate apple they dont know anything about their own computers! Boot camp wasnt working a product specialist couldnt tell me whats wrong. Couple hours on google and I found the problem. It might be hard to understand people at HP but they are good and their repair process is quick as well.
To expand a bit on Mark Anderson's comment with my own points:
Apple controls their whole brand, from product to support. It's not surprising that they get good marks because they have a tiny field of products (even if you go back a few generations), their Apple Stores provide a clear and visible target for customers who just want to talk to support face-to-face, and their support site is laid-out really well (design is something I'm sure everyone expects Apple to try at -- whether or not you think they succeed).
Until Dell or HP or another big PC vendor decides to offer their own nationwide store chain that offers face-to-face tech support, we're stuck with doing it ourselves, finding a local PC repair shop we trust, or going to the Geek Squad.
Dell and gateway both used to, but they failed miserably due to the high cost of having to support all the machines people were bringing in.
@d_lca - I don't see your point. The way Apple's machines handle power management is completely different from Windows PCs. The Apple reps we're trying to explain this - like how you can't change the screen close settings on a Mac because sleep is a fundamental part of their power management.
Once the caller asked for more energy management type settings they were immediately directed to the appropriate system pref pane.
Dell XPS service is tops. From what I read of the article, they were only talking to the regular call centers. Dell has a policy to transfer all calls out of whatever country you are in. If you live in Canada, your call is routed, initially somewhere overseas. If you have issue not understanding what they are saying, ask for a North American call center. Easy as pie. They will send your call then to someone in the USA.
XPS support has a call center in the US, for Canadian customers, and one in Canada for US customers.
Ive had a couple of small issues throughout the 3 years Ive had my XPS M1710. My calls were answered within a few minutes. Entering my express code was simple. (I dont know why the R tards that wrote the article had to do it 3 times.)
On one call, Aprox 16 months after my purchase, my right mouse button stopped working on my G5. I called support to see what could be done. During this call, I also mentioned that one of the LED's inside my G15 went out sometime ago as well. A solid 4 months PAST the end of the coverage for these items, DELL replaced them. With Newer versions as well. I got the G15 v.2 and the G9. They didnt have to... but they did.
My graphics card was causing some issue while playing some games, within 12 hours, I had a guy at my door, replacing the card. No cost.
You pay a premium for XPS service, and the no cost no questions asked warranty, but this machine is faster, better, and cheaper (relatively) than anything Apple has ever made.
I really like macs but my one exp with their tech support was an obvious hardware issue with a fan but instead of fixing it IN HOME like my warranty said they convinced me to goto a SERVICE PROVIDER. Which turned out to be CompUSA who replaced my hard drive instead of my fan....TWICE before they admitted it might just be a fan issue.
All because some dufus didn't want to take the extra 2 mins to mail me a fan that can be replaced without even using a screw driver.
On the other hand their computers rock....
@Paul - Wow, I'm really surprised about that. I worked for a company that was exclusively Dell and we didn't have many issues. Sure, the occasional keyboard would die or the screen would break, but Dell fixed everything very quickly.
Now when it comes to servers - HP is the only company I'll look at. Their hardware is fantastic, their support is great, and the products are just well designed in general. I
If you read the article, it makes it sound like the reason Apple got good grades is because you can't change the power settings in the way the caller wanted! So all the tech had to do was say "the power settings are preset on a Mac", all you can do is adjust the idle timer for putting the system to sleep.
Contrast this to a Thinkpad; where their custom Power Manager allows you to save power profiles and tweak every little detail for different profiles: CPU speed, wifi strenght, screen brightness, optical drive settings, etc. etc.
I'm just sayin'...
this whole study was a joke. they compare 2 questions from each company and thats how u judge their CC and tech support? WOW if only every study was this accurate and detailed. And product lines from Dell,lenovo,sony etc dont compare to the LIMITED product lines of Apple. When you release MULTIPLE machines with varied configs your going to have more CC and tech support issues, granted it still doesnt excuse some issues larger companies have.
And i love how ONLY Apple was praised by engadget when other companies did well also.
+1
Or may be the miss more common question:
a) Hi have a doc file in my pendrive, how i can open it in my ____ machine?
b) The screen is black.
You sure nailed everything.
Nice job bringing out all the BS!! :)
Not only that.. but the questions are mostly irrelevant to the hardware supplier in the PC environment.
your a PC get over it already. You've even stated in previous posts you don't own any apple products because you can't afford them. I suspect you may even be reverse astroturfing and your job is to make Apple look bad by being an obnoxious Apple supporter. I mean come on people! Did nobody notice his initials are PC? ~sarcasm
I can vouch for the shittyness that is HP consumer customer service. Business on the other hand, well that is an amazing experience. But heaven help if your just a lowly consumer
So Acer got marked down for not mentioning their power utility, but when Apple didn't mention their power utility they didn't get marked down?
I just never need to call tech support so the results don't matter to me lol!!
Use the chat for Dell tech support it works really well and the sales rep really helped me answer all of my questions about the Dell Studio XPS 13 that i'm probably going to buy now.
@MRCUR you're right, but why does APPLE get an A while ALL the others get B? Where's the justification in that?
I had a cat that looked like that once.
He was cool! Like 16 years he lived -good run.
Oh yeah, computers and good now yes.
@Paul Chapel
i don't know if i'm an APPLE hater, but i just don't think it's fair that APPLE gets all the credit, e.g. SONY came up with MP3 players and chiclet keyboards and somehow most people think APPLE came up with them. And now in this case, if everyone did well, they should all get A's. Favoring APPLE over any other product with no justification makes the review biased.
Only reason Apple got a A is they can afford to pay their employees cause no one can afford a apple so they only need 1 or 2 tech support reps