Laptop Mag Grades Tech Support of Leading Brands, Confirms Our Suspicions
You know the drill. Buy a laptop, grab the requisite warranty and tech support guarantee, and then spend endless minutes of your life on the line with said tech support every time your new baby starts to sputter. Why, you may ask yourself, is my laptop's tech support so gosh darn un- supportive? Well, Laptop Magazine did some extensive research on the subject, contacting tech support units at twelve major laptop manufacturers, and assessing their helpfulness. In order to grade each company, the team asked them a pre-determined list of three, relatively simple questions, and examined variables like hold time, level of support and overall satisfaction. Laptop also checked each company's website for answers to their troika of questions, and handed out separate Web grades, based on both the availability and accessibility of the information. There were, of course, variations across the twelve manufacturers, which include brands like Dell, Acer, Apple and HP. In a strong first place was Apple, while Acer and Gateway got a paltry D+. Overall, though, the investigators found that tech support workers across the sample tend to not stay on the line long enough to fully answer a question, and, more often than not, will direct customers to other, paid alternatives. You can check where your computer's brand ranks here, and figure out how much aspirin you should have on hand the next time you call for support. [From: Laptop, via: Engadget]
