DELL's outstanding 5 Star edge in Reliability & Service-From PC World
In fact, Dell always receives high ratings from readers in our PC Reliability and Service survey, and this time was no exception. Dell home PC users were so pleased, they gave the company the only five-star rating for overall reliability and service in the entire report.
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PC Reliability & Service: The Best Are a Phone Call Away
by Brad Grimes
Some of us don't call certain relatives as often as Rod Teeple has called Dell's sales line. Teeple, a former marketing director from Wilmington, Delaware, bought his third Dell PC last October and talks as if a fourth is in the cards.
"All three have performed almost without problems," says Teeple. "And when there has been a glitch, Dell has solved it promptly. Once the fan drive broke down, and one of their service people was at my front door the next day to replace it. Another time I bought an internal tape backup drive from a local computer store and called a Dell support rep to walk me through the installation. He acted as if he had all the time in the world."
Sounds like a marriage made in digital heaven. In fact, Dell always receives high ratings from readers in our PC Reliability and Service survey, and this time was no exception. Dell home PC users were so pleased, they gave the company the only five-star rating for overall reliability and service in the entire report.
But Dell isn't the only company with happy customers. Micron is another longtime favorite, and over the last couple of years Gateway and Quantex have also ascended in rank. Even CyberMax, which debuted in our ratings just last November, wins high marks for its home PCs. The common thread? These companies all sell their systems direct to customers.
According to Bruce Stephen, group vice president of worldwide PC research at IDC Consulting, the affinity consumers have for direct vendors "reflects loyalty to the company because users perceive that direct vendors can take ownership of users' problems."
Warm fuzzy feelings aside, these direct vendors must be doing something right. According to our survey results, they deliver the most reliable PCs and the best service. On average, their users report fewer problems, faster and more knowledgeable technical support, and higher satisfaction. Little wonder that Compaq is making a second foray into selling direct and Sony has launched its own program.
The Votes Are In
Last December, nearly 10,000 PC World subscribers participated in our online survey, hosted by World Research of San Jose, California. The survey covered desktop PCs used at work, desktops used at home, and notebook PCs used anywhere and in between. Respondents were asked about problems they'd had with their PCs, support they'd received, and their general satisfaction with the system and the company behind it (see "PC Reliability and Service: A Word About the Numbers").
In the end, we rated 15 different vendors for reliability and service (see "Readers Choose the Winners & Losers"). The results offer some good news for PC users.
Compared to survey results reported last November ( "PC Reliability and Service: Who Can You Trust?"), the percentage of respondents who reported problems when their PCs first arrived is down across all three categories. Whether the machine in question was a desktop or a notebook, roughly 7.6 percent of participants in the current survey reported a problem on arrival, versus about 10 percent in our last Reliability and Service survey.
Similarly, the percentage of people who told us their vendor never resolved their most recent problem is down across all categories and among most PC makers. IBM's notebook PCs registered the biggest improvement--just 3.3 percent of IBM notebook users said their problem went unresolved, down from a frightening 11.6 percent reported last fall.
What else did people have to say?
AT WORK: IBM is a big winner, joining Dell and Gateway as the top companies for reliability and service. You say IBM isn't a direct vendor? Interestingly, more IBM work PC users in our study bought their systems from IBM's sales line than by any other method. As far as service goes, 76 percent of these IBM customers waited 5 minutes or less to reach a support rep. Micron's tech support line is a different story. The company's work PC customers complain that they aren't getting through quickly very often.
AT HOME: The highlight of the survey is Dell's Outstanding rating--it's the only company to receive five stars overall--but Gateway, Micron, and Quantex are close behind. And as we discovered in our last Reliability and Service survey, CyberMax and Sony rate well overall, though CyberMax's reliability and Sony's service rank just Fair. Just Fair would be a step up for Acer and Packard Bell: Both get Poor marks for overall reliability and service.
ON THE ROAD: We're not surprised readers report a higher rate of problems due to component failure with notebooks than with desktops, given the jostling that portable PCs undergo. But which company keeps headaches to a minimum? Respondents say Dell's notebooks are the most reliable, while IBM has significantly improved its service. On the other hand, Toshiba has slipped a notch from Good to Fair overall, and Fujitsu--despite improving in reliability--receives the same Poor rating for service it got collared with before.
All this good news about direct marketers doesn't mean that PCs sold direct are problem-free. In fact, 44 percent of Dell home PC users who answered our survey said they'd had a problem with their system. Generally, even if you go with a PC from one of the highest-rated direct-mail vendors in our survey, you face a fifty-fifty chance of encountering a problem.
To be fair, not everyone loves Dell, nor do they all love Gateway and Micron. Just ask Dell owner Ellen Benkin. An information services coordinator at the University of California, Los Angeles, Benkin reports enduring a bear of a time while trying to get her Dimension XPS R450 to work correctly. "I began experiencing problems with it within a week of receiving it," she says. "The support I got over the Web didn't help, neither did suggestions from Dell's phone support." Even an on-site technician with the right replacement part couldn't fix Benkin's PC. "The technician then spent at least an hour on the phone with Dell, trying--unsuccessfully--to resolve the problem," recalls Benkin. Dell ended up replacing her computer with another one that also had problems.
Direct PC sellers do not excel in every service measure either. For example, only 40 percent of all Micron work PC users reported hold times of 5 minutes or less. That's the worst figure for any PC manufacturer in our survey and deserves an Unacceptable rating.
But when you examine the scores cumulatively, direct manufacturers have an unmistakable edge. |
