QOTD: How Important is Good Tech Support?

[griffed88]

It's only important when I need to RMA something. I already know when hardware is broken as I am a tech. I hate it when I call a support line and I can barely understand the tech's english. It's hard enough to understand people when your cell phones quality is bad and when you throw a thick accent on top of that it's almost incomprehensible.

 

[jlo]

If I can"t demo the myself, then I want to know the fine specs. Not just the amount of RAM or size of the hard drive (Walmart), but actual timings and frequencies. But most preferably, I'd rather they just let me run CPU-Z .

 

[invlem]

[citation][nom]spectrewind[/nom]Assuming the tech support has something to do with computers running some kind of Microsoft OS...I saw some references to Dell. While I have promised myself to never own one of their products, I have plenty of experience dealing with their technical support.Last I checked, Dell has different tiers of support:Gold, Silver, Bronze, Free.They range in expense and level of experience between the tiers. My employer uses the Gold level, and whenever I have had hardware problems (my company laptop D630 is on its 3rd mainboard), this support has high accuracy, are efficient, and I CAN UNDERSTAND THEM.A counter-example:The free-user warranty support (From Dell) is the outsourced garbage technical support with some idiot, probably in India, calls himself/herself Bob, Mary, Joe, or Kim (fake name of course), who is restricted to scripts and is incapable of performing bona-fide technical support. For example, I once had to tell one of these outsourced low-lifes how to get into the Windows Control Panel, to gain access to the device manager so he could review something with me for God sakes! He could not grasp the concept of keyboard shortcuts, such as WIN + PAUSE/BREAK to do the same thing.I could not believe that guy was employed there!!Oddly enough, I often end up on the tech support line with the company I work for. Their tier-1 support is as bad as Dell's, and I cannot understand them either (outsourced French support).I once experienced call-center guy saying something that sounded like "man-gerr-leet" when he was trying to say "lead manager", which was really the shift supervisor; only he did not know how to say/iterate it, in American English, on the English language support channel, of which he was a part of.The only benefit of this to me is that company policy dictates I take this route whenever esoteric problems appear with no known easy fix and other technicians cannot be reached.I am paid hourly. In my line of work I usually break 30+ hours OT per week when on-call and 10+ hours OT per week when not on-call.Don't get me started on retail tech support...[/citation]


You hit the nail on the head there, dell's excellent sales figures is due to their large corporate sales.

Their enterprise/business tech support is also excellent (and located here in North America).

Their home user tech support is outsourced (I believe its currently in India).

If you absolutely need a Dell PC for home use, try buying it through their Small Business website, rather than the generic user website. You'll get the same PC, but with better Tech support.

 

[hoofhearted]

The product should "work" out of the box. Tech support is only for when something is wrong or doesn't make sense. If they are producing good and user friendly products then tech support should be a minimal consideration.

 

[GravityParade]

I think the main price is the primary focus of most consumers. Tech support is in another galaxy at the time of the purchase. It's probably because people think their tech support needs will be minimal because the computer is new. I've heard people say things like "I just want a new computer so I don't have these kind of problems."

 

[GravityParade]

I think the main price is the primary focus of most consumers. Tech support is in another galaxy at the time of the purchase. It's probably because people think their tech support needs will be minimal because the computer is new. I've heard people say things like "I just want a new computer so I don't have these kind of problems."

 

[pakardbell486dx2]

I don't use tech support for software issues, however when it comes to hardware issues such as malfunctions or defects, I do. It does not really bother me if the person i am talking to is in India or whatever just as long as they get the job done. Unfortunately having foreign tech support plays in favor to the companies who use them. Language barriers, lack of personality, lack of knowledge of the product. These things are commonly are associated with this kind of tech support. Companies like dell and hp are aware of this, but since they pay peanuts to have this kind of service, they can boldly say they have tech support so they can sway customers into buying their crap. In this time and age where profits are everything I dont think we will ever see or hear of a company having real tech support ever. Having real tech support is a big profit drainer and companies avoid it like the plague.

 

[ram1009]

Tech support is important proportional to how likely I am to need it.

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

Alot of times there is NO telephone tech support, its only by email which blows because you submit your question and then 3-10 days later you get a lame response which is usual something like this did you update your drivers, do you meet the minimum system requirements... and so on. I have had more success researching problems online in forums, blogs...

 

[kittle]

"support" .. is somewhat importand.

Return policy and warranty is a bigger issue. I picked a few of my brands of hardware based on their return policy.. not on their supposedly stellar reputation.

But also its importand to have a tech with a clue when you call in to attempt a warranty or RMA replacement.
me: "my graphics card just died, I need an RMA"
tech: "have you tried turning it on?"
me: "...." wtf?

Fortunately that was NOT the conversation I had with eVGA over the weekend - but there have been some along those lines.

On the other side of the coin - all of us who could care less about tech support, should try working at it for a year or more. You end up with a lot more respect for the crap and jerks the support staff has to put up with.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

From retailers: not important
From vendors/oems: very important

 

[Guest]

I am from tech support.

Most of my customers are often novices at computers. A significant amount are above 50 (I'd say around 30-40%, and please don't take this the wrong way if you are above 50), some think it's a "magic box", some don't even know what the desktop is (picture with pictures in it FTW). We google solutions as well (thanks, Tom's hardware!). We also operate from your perspectives (google first the error code, ask questions later) however, not all people think like that. I've had an old lady explain to her all icons of the desktop (What is Skype? What is Verizon? What is Norton?). Of course I have that same scenario in finding out what msconfig startup items are, but I google them instead of calling tech support, just as anyone here on Tom's, right?

You've also got to think that we're very limited in what we can do. If a customer calls in complaining about a virus or spyware issue, we recommend just reinstalling the OS itself. However, if it was my friend I would recommend Malwarebytes/Spybot/different antiviruses/manual deletion in registry first. If let's just say that the AV deleted one of the customer's important files, who will be sued?

It's really hit and miss when it comes to technical support. You might get lucky and get an experienced tech, or you might get blown over by a new hire who's taking his first call.

 

[jsc]

Tech support is very important to me. On the other hand, I AM my tech support.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]jsc[/nom]Tech support is very important to me. On the other hand, I AM my tech support.[/citation]
well no matter how good you are, there'll be times where you have to rely on other tech support people.