OK, 1) who calls tech support the most? People who have no clue what they're buying, and shop for PCs like they shop at Walmart... Cheaper is better. Also, people who buy cheap, and who clearly don't understand component quality, let alone what specs they need to do a certain thing, also drag on with tech support endlessly trying to make their HD camcorder work with their $400 PC...
Then we've also got support by product line. Call HP about a retail notebook and you'll wait 45 minutes to talk to someone who can essentially tell you nothing and who's job it is to ensure you've done at best the simplest levels of diagostics, or to walk you through them first before passing on to someone who might actually have an answer. The time on hold is spent listening to a recording tells you over and over to look for solutions online, or simply to reformat your machine with the factory CD and see if the issue persists. Call their business line about a server issue and you'll wait virtually no time on hold, and talk to someone who can actually help you with driver issues, and knows how to configure a RAID. Retail printer support sucks, OfficeJet support is a bit better, and large laser support (8000 series and up) is wonderful to deal with...
The same applies to Dell, but it's even more granular. Latitude support is the worst, their mainline notebooks get a bit better support, XPS is slightly better still, but all are still basically lvl 1 support at best and plagued by long hold times and dealing horrible, thick accents. Talk to their alienware devision, or about an Adamo notebook and the support is good in general.
Why?
The manufacturers know several things: A) people who buy cheap generally don't need support, they need a friggin manual and someone to make them read it; basically they just don't know how to use the machine, and it's almost always a software problem unless there's an obvious failure when they're calling in. B) 1 or 2 support calls, and a cheap machine turns from profitable, to a loss leader. Dell's lucky to clear $50 on some packages. Discouraging repetitive calls to support is impotant as a lvl 1 phone tech can be found for $7-9 an hour, but someone capable of real diagnostics over the phone is going to require more like $15 an hour, and lvl 2+ techs or those comfortable working with non-standard OS customers (not XP or Vista Home) can cost even more. The call center itself including the equipment and other staff is an added expense. Getting the tech off the line as quickly as possible is the number one job, convincing customers to use online resources that don't require a tech at all is even better...
Now look at Apple. They don't sell cheap crap forst of all. 1) Most people buying a mac are above average in their knowledge at least of what machine they need to do a particular task; either that or since there's no el-cheapo model, most machine sare simply up to any task thrown at them by general users. 2) The operating system simply is superior in both usability and reliabiltiy. Having error messages that are less than cryptic doesn't hurt either. 3) Apple's support site not only makes sense, and its generally easy to find answers. Further, a WEALTH of very well produced user tutorials exists on nearly every aspect of using the mac, including how to use each major program and even how to perform some fairly complex tasks. 4) lack of viruses. Yes there's some mailware, but the bloatware, spyware, and viruses simply can't propgate in the mac. It is possibole to get one, and there are some out there that can cuase quite a bit of damage either to your file system or your credit ranting, but any app running on a mac is easy to spot, and easy to clean out, as it generally is for all UNIX based operating systems. A simple AV program that monitors privelige escalations with huristic scanning can pretty much prevent all forms of iunfection. 5) when there's a hardware problem, it's obvious. Most people calling Apple support are doing so not "because my computer is slow" but because "I have a bomb when i turn it on," or "it won't turn on" 6) data recovery. Thank GOD for Time Machine... Reinstalls are a snap, and it restores all application settings too. The OS can also detect and repair bad files most times avoiding a re-install. 7) Geniouses. When all else fails, Apple's phone support (which is really good in and of itself, using people who really know the mac system well as their lvl 1 people) realizes you;re not dealing with hardware trouble, or when it;s questionable, can allways direct you to a local Apple store. Here, not only can they run advanced diagnostics quick and easy, or direct you to a genius for a free training session, but the folks in the store can turn a support call into a pleasant experience, feed you with information about the OS and your machine while it's being fixed on the spot for you, and in most cases I've seen, convince you to get an upgrade, a new accessory, or more, while you're there. For Apple, tech support is not only a good customer experience, it's usually profitable as well, and a customer who buys something because a tech showed them how it makes their life easier is MUCH more likely to return than one forced into hardware upgrades or new software "just to make it work."
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