Reliability and Service: Service Takes a Dive
Our survey of 27,000 readers shows customer support at an all-time low. Find out which PC makers fared best and worst, and how to get the help you thought you paid for.Laurianne McLaughlin
You or your company paid good money for your computer or laptop. As part of the deal, you're entitled to the manufacturer's help in your computer's hour of need. But far too often, you don't get that help, according to the results of our latest survey on PC reliability and service. In one of the steepest declines we've seen in the eight years we've been surveying readers, service has deteriorated on every measure we track.
Our 27,000 survey respondents tell us that when their machine breaks, they wait on hold longer to talk to a technician, the techies seem to have less know-how, and the companies take longer to fix the problem. Worse yet, many readers never have their problems resolved.
In the ten months since we published our last report, service has turned lean, if not mean. The only good news is that PCs aren't breaking down any more often now than in the past. Readers say they've run into fewer problems each year, and most users are generally satisfied with their desktops' and notebooks' reliability.
Where Has Good Service Gone?
While reliability has remained about the same, the numbers we gathered on the service front tell a very different story. Support has declined significantly for work and home desktop computers and for notebooks. And less than half of the people who participated in our survey reported that they were very satisfied with the service they received.
Take Charles Tator, a technician with Unisys in Long Island, New York. Tator knows what it's like to be stuck with an unresolved problem. About a month before the one-year warranty on his Compaq Presario expired, the system's modem started acting flaky: It would disconnect him from the Internet, and at various times, his machine would freeze. He switched ISPs, but that didn't help. Tator e-mailed Compaq to explain his problem and the fixes he had tried, but Compaq's reply--which arrived within 24 hours--did him no good, he says. "I received an automatic response saying it could be the [phone] line, it could be the ISP," recalls Tator. "But I had already tried a second ISP."
Tator called Compaq and waited 45 minutes on hold, only to be told that his warranty had expired. Since he had e-mailed Compaq before his warranty was up, Tator argues, the company should have taken care of the problem and sent him the inexpensive part. It refused, so he replaced the modem himself with a new $59 unit, which corrected the problem. "This cost them," Tator says. "Since then, our family has bought two more PCs--an HP and an IBM. We're not getting Compaqs ever again."
Compaq feels that Tator's experience was atypical. "With online support, our goal is to have a technician respond by e-mail within 30 minutes," says Steve Young, Compaq's vice president of worldwide customer care in the access business group. "We are reaching that goal." When Tator ran into problems during the phone call, says Young, it was probably because the technician didn't have access to the e-mail transactions to find out what had happened prior to then. "We're almost finished rolling out a new system that will capture all communication channels," says Young. This will let techs view the entire history of a customer problem, he adds.
Compaq has registered some of the worst declines in service, according to our survey, but it's hardly alone. All the big computer brands we rated have seen their service scores drop. That said, the majority of respondents still had positive experiences. (We received too few responses from users of various smaller manufacturers' PCs to include ratings for these companies in our report.)
Based on our readers' reports, no vendor scored high enough to earn a rating of Outstanding. Even Dell, the perennial star of our survey, shines less brightly than before. Though the company still sits at the top of the overall rankings for home and work PCs and for notebooks, its vaunted customer service is clearly slipping. Specifically, Dell customers' calls to tech support were not picked up as quickly on average, plus a bigger proportion of home PC owners were left with unresolved problems. In past surveys, Dell regularly finished well ahead of the pack, but now it has lost much of its advantage over Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and local retailers. (For our previous survey's results, check out the January 2001 story "In Search of Trouble-Free PCs.")
The worst offenders? Compaq and Emachines--both rated Poor for their home PCs--languish at the bottom of the heap. For a detailed breakdown of each PC maker's scores on six reliability and six service measures, see the charts for work PCs, for home PCs, and for notebooks. For the first time, we tracked responses from readers who own PCs built by local stores. Local retailers are ranked together in one group. In the home PC and work PC categories, local retailers did fairly well on service measures. See the charts for more details.
Laurianne McLaughlin is a freelance writer based in Massachusetts. If you have a gripe with your PC maker, or you want to applaud your service experience, contact us at onyourside@pcworld.com.
The Slimfast Plan
Why has service declined so drastically? The PC industry is suffering through an ugly year. Sales are slumping, companies are fighting a price war, and profits are shrinking. Clearly, the environment doesn't encourage companies to go the extra mile to improve customer service. "Hardware vendors are under the gun to cut costs wherever they can," says Ana Volpi, program manager of research firm IDC's technical support services group.
Because layoffs reduce costs, almost every major PC maker has laid off employees this year. For example, Dell cut about 5000 jobs earlier this year; and following the proposed HP-Compaq merger, the new HP says that it plans to lay off roughly 15,000 people. We asked a number of PC makers whether tech support staffers would be laid off.
Dell told us that its cutbacks would not affect its support operations. "We purposely did not make cuts among the front-line service representatives, the people who handle our customers directly," says Rick Chase, Dell's vice president of customer service in the home and small-business group.
As part of Gateway's plan to cut 2100 jobs in the United States, the company will consolidate several call centers around the country. "It's possible that there will be job losses among technical support operators in certain regions," says Gateway spokesperson Tyson Heyn. "But we are hiring technicians in other areas, such as Kansas City, Missouri, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota." Heyn adds that Gateway plans to ramp up service options on the ground through its local Country Stores, beefing up phone support and keeping more spare parts on hand.
HP spokesperson Ann Finnie says that at this writing the company has not ironed out any details about its post-merger support operations. HP couldn't say whether the HP and Compaq brands would remain separate, nor could it specify how the job cuts would affect its service departments.
Even confronted with the grim reality of layoffs, such companies as Compaq and IBM deny that service is suffering. "Despite the economic climate, we continue to invest in customer service," says Compaq's Young. Compaq regularly surveys its customers about support every week, and Young says those surveys indicate that significant improvements in service have occurred this year compared with last year. Young adds that Compaq has shortened its customers' hold times to roughly a minute on average, and increased the likelihood that problems will be fixed during the first technical support call.
Our survey results show a different picture, though. Only 42 percent of respondents who own Compaq home PCs had their calls picked up in 5 minutes or less--a sharp drop from the previous survey's figure, 64 percent. When we asked readers whether problems were resolved in five days or less, 56 percent of Compaq customers said yes, down from almost 64 percent previously. Nearly 14 percent of Compaq home PC owners said they were left with an unresolved problem, compared with slightly over 9 percent in last January's survey.
Online Support Struggles
To curb the costs associated with call centers, PC companies have promoted their online support tools. Online help is a great idea--in theory. When your system has a problem, you go to your PC maker's Web site and track down fixes that work. You get a snappy response by e-mail or engage in live chat with a technician. Furthermore, the most sophisticated tools allow a tech to diagnose your PC's ailments remotely. All of this should mean that you need never pick up the phone. (Of course, online support does no good for people whose PCs won't boot or who otherwise can't get online.)
But in practice, online support hasn't fared so well. Of our survey respondents who posted tech support questions (via e-mail or a Web-based template) to their PC's maker and got replies, only a quarter said that the response solved the problem; another 38 percent felt it didn't help at all.
Dell discontinued Resolution Assistant, its online support tool, at the end of July. Resolution Assistant let customers engage in live chats with technicians and allowed the techs to carry out diagnostic tests remotely. "It wasn't giving customers the satisfaction we needed it to," reports Dell spokesperson Bryant Hilton. Dell ended up receiving many phone calls following online sessions, Hilton adds. And that's not the way online help is supposed to operate. For now, Dell will offer e-mail support but not online chat. The company says it is continuing to evaluate future online tools.
Paul Didier, a small-business owner in Long Beach, California, was unimpressed with Resolution Assistant--and with Dell. Last March, Didier started to get error messages on his three-month-old Inspiron 8000 notebook. Didier tried phoning Dell twice, but he couldn't reach a human being. The first time, he waited 45 minutes on hold only to be disconnected; the second time he called, he gave up after waiting for more than an hour.
Didier then tried Dell's Resolution Assistant. The tech pointed him to the right system file to adjust, but then logged off. Didier never got the information he really wanted: how the modification would affect the speed of his computer. "I was in the middle of writing a question and that was the last I heard of him," adds Didier, noting that there was no way to get the technician back online.
As part of our research for this story, we evaluated the technical support offered by six PC companies. Unfortunately, our only experience with online tech support--HP's Assisted Support--made phone tech support seem blindingly fast.
When we phoned HP with two relatively simple problems (discussed in one phone call), it took just 25 minutes--including hold time--to fix them. When we used the online support option, however, solving just one of the problems took three times as long (the other problem never got resolved).
The most painful part of the process was the excruciating time lag while we waited for Al, the HP online support technician working with us, to answer our questions. Al took 18 minutes to type this simple response to one question: "Yes." We contacted HP to find out what had happened. Susan Hollis, HP's worldwide e-support program manager, concluded that our experience was an isolated incident. Hollis reports that HP has improved its online support features over the past few months. Customer satisfaction levels are also improving, she says.
Some companies say they're happy with their online support. Gateway, for example, says it has been able to solve problems much more efficiently. Its online program, launched in fall 2000, includes live chat with techs. Gateway also reports that it has been able to solve more customers' problems without sending replacement parts. Gateway's corporate customers are now more likely to request support online than over the phone, according to Dan Ludwick, Gateway's director of service development and marketing. In October 2000, 15 percent of service requests arrived electronically, Ludwick says, but today that figure has risen to 52 percent.
Finding a Fix
While Windows Me caused its fair share of upgrade headaches, respondents running Me express slightly higher levels of satisfaction than users who have Windows 95 or 98 PCs. One possible explanation for these results might be Me's System Restore utility.
If your PC runs into trouble, System Restore lets you roll your computer back to the way it was on a certain date, as long as you asked System Restore to take a snapshot of your PC at that earlier time. This can return your system to a stable state, but System Restore can introduce other hassles. For example, if the underlying problem is a corrupted driver, using System Restore would amount to overkill--and would entail far more work for you than reinstalling the driver, which would solve the problem in one step.
When we called various tech support lines to test companies' service, we were surprised at how heavily techs relied on System Restore as a catch-all fix and instructed us to run it. On some occasions, the techs advised us to run System Restore immediately, without performing any preliminary diagnostic tests. For the PC problems we were contacting vendors about, running System Restore wasn't necessary--and it didn't always fix the problem.
Self-Serve Island
As the odds of poor service from PC companies increase, it's wise to become as self-reliant as possible. You can save time, money, and aggravation with online research or, in some cases, a quick part swap. Mike Schnee of Akron, Ohio, an assistant manager at a retail store, called Emachines when his home PC started making a strange noise. Schnee and the technician narrowed down the problem to the fan. But the tech insisted that Schnee, at his own expense, send the whole system back for repair. Schnee wasn't excited about that prospect, so he looked for an alternative.
"I found out it would cost me $7 to $14 for a fan with heat sink from a local place," Schnee says. "That's easily less than the shipping." So he bought and installed the new fan himself. But remember, installing third-party components can void parts of some warranties, so always check your policy. For more tips on how to cure your PC's ills, see "How to Deal With Lousy Support."
Still, no matter how self-reliant computer owners have become, readers who responded to PC World's survey echo the attitude of frequent fliers who've grown displeased with the major airlines: Service just isn't what it used to be.
No doubt, this is a tough economic time. And no doubt, providing customer service at a reasonable cost is a complex undertaking that employs legions of smart people. But any business that depends at least partly on word-of-mouth recommendations should be concerned when less than half of its customers are very satisfied with the service they get.
Repeatedly, readers tell us that bad service will make them less likely to buy from the same PC maker next time. As Paul Didier, once a loyal Dell customer, puts it: "It doesn't matter if companies have good techs, [when] you aren't able to get through to them," he says. "I will not consider buying a Dell again until they remedy this situation."
When your PC manufacturer won't help you with your broken system, taking matters into your own hands is an option; but don't let the company off the hook. Be vocal. Document your complaint. Write to your PC maker's CEO and to the company's local Better Business Bureau branch. Spread the word among friends and coworkers. And whatever you do, don't forget to write to us.
A Word About the Scores
Word scores awarded correspond to the companies' relative rankings. Each measure listed here and in the charts relates to a particular question (or set of questions) we asked PC World subscribers in our survey. See our chart for the percentages underlying each word score.
Reliability Measures
- Percent of PCs with problems: Percentage of PCs that have had at least one problem needing repair.
- Problems per year: Average number of problems per PC per year of age.
- Problems on arrival: Percentage of PCs that did not work properly when they were first turned on.
- Dead on arrival: Percentage of PCs that were nonfunctional when they were first turned on.
- Component failure: Percentage of PCs that have had at least one faulty component replaced.
- High satisfaction with reliability: Percentage of respondents who indicated that they were very satisfied with their PC's reliability.
Service Measures
- Short hold time: Percentage of phone service recipients who waited on hold for 5 minutes or less.
- Quick resolution: Percentage of service recipients whose most recent problem was resolved in five days or less.
- No resolution: Percentage of service recipients whose most recent problem was never resolved.
- Knowledgeable tech support: Percentage of service recipients who rated the knowledge of the technician who helped them as Excellent or Good.
- Sincere effort by tech support: Percentage of service recipients who rated the sincere effort of the technician who helped them as Excellent or Good.
- High satisfaction with service: Percentage of service recipients who indicated that they were very satisfied with the service they received.
Survey Methodology
PC World's Reliability and Service survey was conducted in conjunction with Survey.com of Campbell, California. We invited subscribers to take the Web-based survey from April through June 2001. We received 27,081 reports from verified PC World subscribers describing their PCs' reliability and their experiences, if any, in getting service. We only included reports about PCs that were three years old or newer. Using this data, a team of PC World editors and research experts analyzed the reliability and service performance of each manufacturer's work, home, and notebook PCs. We rated each PC maker's performance on 12 weighted measures and then used those results to determine the company's overall ranking.
Tips to Get Help: How to Deal With Lousy Support
When your PC gets sick, you can choose from two possible strategies. You can try the Sleepless in Seattle approach: I'm smart and charming, and I'm going to find good service. Or you can opt for the Cast Away approach: I'm going to fix this myself. Here are some tips for both methods.
Attention, Please: Get Your PC Maker to Listen
- Have all key information at hand when you first call. This includes system information (such as serial numbers and service tag numbers), order or invoice numbers, date of purchase, and any fixes you've tried.
- Back up your data, and keep your backups current. Maintain a list of all your apps. Take notes on any weird PC behavior following installation of a new program or downloading a driver.
- If a technician doesn't offer helpful answers, ask for someone else, preferably a supervisor. The company would rather solve your problem the first day, since that costs less money.
- Keep detailed notes on your support calls, and maintain a log of dates and times, plus each fix the techs suggest. Get their phone extensions, if possible, and any case numbers assigned to your PC problem.
- If the end of your computer's warranty is near, don't waste any time. If necessary, press your PC maker to send the appropriate replacement part.
- As a last resort, send a letter (not an e-mail) to the CEO's office and the Better Business Bureau (if there is one) in the city where the manufacturer is located; you can find addresses for all local BBB offices. The BBB can often cut through bureaucracy.
Take Charge: Solve Your Own PC Problems
- Use a free site such as PC World partner PC Pitstop to run diagnostics and scout out typical PC ills.
- Consult one or more volunteer sites such as Wayne's Computer World and question-and-answer forums such as VirtualDr.com (for instance, see Windows Me tips). Or visit Experts Exchange's hardware forum.
- Read newsgroup postings. Two good places to start are the Usenet Info Center's directory and the comp (Computers) discussions. Laptop users should check out the comp.sys.laptops group.
- Local PC shops may offer tech support, for which they charge by the hour. Get friends, neighbors, and colleagues to recommend a shop if possible; simply choosing a store from the yellow pages can be risky.
- Consider fee-based support sites such as Expertcity.com or Askdrtech.com. Through Expertcity.com's ExpertLive, independent experts will quote you their prices on handling your PC question. In return for an annual fee of $49 or more, Askdrtech.com offers phone and e-mail help.
For more details on finding the best help, turn to June's "Get the Help You Need."
Testing Tech Support
While researching this story, a team of PC World editors evaluated technical support. In our hands-on tests, we contacted six manufacturers by phone with two hardware questions.
PC World Goes Undercover: What's Service Really Like?
As part of our research for this story, we wanted to get a taste of tech support for ourselves. In July of this year, we ordered and received brand new PCs from six manufacturers: Compaq, Dell, Emachines, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and Sony.
Where possible, we ordered similarly configured systems. Nearly all computers came with a Pentium III-1GHz processor and 128MB of memory. The exceptions were Sony and Emachines. The Sony VAIO PCV-RX450 shipped with an Athlon 1-GHz processor; the Emachines EMonster had 64MB of memory. All systems came with a 17-inch monitor and Windows Me.
In the case of Hewlett-Packard, we bought three identical HP Pavilion 7855 computers to be used in a separate test.
Tech Support Tests
Over the course of a few weekdays in mid-July, we called each company's technical help line once. Before picking up the phone, we replicated two common PC problems: The first scenario involved audio (the sound wouldn't work), and the second problem centered on graphics (the desktop looked a little weird and the colors were washed out).
In the case of the sound problem, we disconnected the speaker cable from the correct jack and inserted it into another spot. In the case of the graphics problem, we renamed the graphics driver and this corrupted the driver after we rebooted. The easiest remedies: Simply switching the speaker wire to the correct jack would restore the sound. And the most efficient way to fix the graphics problem would be to reinstall the graphics driver.
We asked each PC maker about both these issues in a single phone call.
Our findings? Based on these limited tests, we were generally impressed with the short amount of time we had to endure on hold. We were generally calling during the workday. Gateway was the fastest to pick up the phone. After we punched in our Gateway Essential's serial number, a technical rep answered immediately--zero time on hold. We waited the longest for Dell to pick up--just over 18 minutes. We were on hold for less than a minute when we called Compaq, HP, and Sony; Emachines picked up in about two minutes.
We got lucky. We didn't have to put up with muzak in our ears as long as some survey participants: On average, just over half of our subscribers waited on hold for five minutes or less. Beyond that time limit, slightly more than 42 percent waited anywhere from six minutes up to a half-hour on hold.
Windows Me to the Rescue?
While getting through to a live human being wasn't such a big deal, we ran into a few surprises on the tech advice front. We hadn't expected technicians to depend on System Restore, one of Windows Me's new features, as a surefire fix. But some of them did.
Here's how it works: If your PC gets into a jam, the System Restore utility lets you roll your system back to how it was on a certain date--as long as you asked System Restore to take a snapshot of your PC at a specified time. You can establish multiple "restore points" on different dates as often as you like. You can also roll back to any of the automatic restore points that System Restore sets up. When you run System Restore, it will undo any changes made to the Windows Registry. You shouldn't have to worry about losing personal data, like Word documents or e-mail archives, say.
Sure, System Restore can help you out of some pickles and bring your system back to a stable state, but it can introduce other annoyances of its own. For example, after rolling your PC back to an earlier date, you'd need to reinstall any programs you'd already installed in that timeframe, because of the Registry changes.
In our first problem scenario, the weird-looking desktop was caused by a corrupted graphics driver. The most efficient way to fix this problem would be to reinstall the graphics driver itself. Running System Restore, in this instance, would simply be overkill--and as it turned out, it didn't always solve the problem.
Out of our six calls, three companies--Dell, Emachines, and Sony--had us run System Restore right off the bat. It fixed the funky graphics problem only once (with the Sony VAIO). On the other hand, Compaq, Gateway, and HP suggested using some of the discs from their customized restoration CD packs to isolate the graphics component, and these reinstallations worked fine. (Note: The second PC problem, where we couldn't hear any sound, was traced back to the speaker wires being connected to the PC incorrectly. Over the phone, the techs figured this one out pretty quickly.)
Another revelation: We got the feeling that some of the technicians weren't exactly sure which data files or programs would--or would not--be affected by running System Restore. Despite this uncertainty, three techs advised us to run the utility anyway.
Our call time, all told? Sony had us on and off the phone the fastest. Including hold time, the two problems were fixed in 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, Dell kept us on the phone a few minutes short of an hour. Gateway, close behind, took almost 50 minutes to resolve our problems; Compaq and HP, less than half an hour; Emachines, just over 20 minutes.
At the end of the day, we found that some of the techs we talked to were more knowledgeable than others. One tech, for instance, constantly put us on hold while she hunted down more information. She also confessed that she was reading from a script. On the whole though, the technicians were very friendly and courteous.
Tech Support Race
Phone help is one option, but what about alternate methods? We also wanted to experience online support first hand by checking out advice posted on the manufacturer's Web site, and through live chat with a technician.
We set up a tech support race in the PC World Test Center-also in July, on a weekday.
The race involved three identical HP Pavilion 7855 machines with a tester perched at each one. Using a stopwatch, each tester evaluated a different method of tech support: phone support, the help at the company's Web site, and interactive assistance (including remote diagnostic tests performed by the HP tech).
On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!
The three testers started at exactly the same time to get a solution for the two hardware problems. We wanted to find out which support method was the fastest--and the most accurate.
Phone support won hands down. HP fixed both problems in less than 25 minutes, including hold time. The technician advised us to reinstall the graphics driver after booting to Safe Mode and it solved the problem.
HP's interactive offering, Assisted Support, was incredibly slow by comparison. Our tester found his way indirectly to the interactive help--an icon on the desktop brought him to a Microsoft help Web page, which included a link to HP's help site. After that, things went downhill. As soon as the live text chat began, it took five or ten minutes for our tester to get a response to each question. On one occasion, the HP tech took 18 minutes to send back one particular response: "Yes."
When the session finally got underway, the HP tech whisked off canned instructions on how to use System Restore to fix the graphics problem. Our tester followed the advice, but it didn't work. In fact, he lost his ISP settings--and Internet connection--and had to undo the process so he could get back to the tech to tell him the problem wasn't solved.
The tech then suggested reloading the graphics drivers and sent our tester step-by-step directions. This worked--but it still took a long time to get that far. The entire process, starting from when the tester first logged on, took one-and-a-half hours. At that point, we had run out of time and the second (audio) problem never got resolved.
The least impressive support option turned out to be HP's troubleshooting information posted on its site. Our tester, a PC novice, used HP's online database to run several searches, trying a variety of keywords, but it didn't get him very far. With the sound problem, for example, the site's help had him tinker with the HP keyboard and uninstall the CD-ROM drive; he was never instructed to check the speaker wires. After 90 minutes, the sound problem--the easier of the two to fix--wasn't resolved. Our tester didn't even get to search for help with the graphics problem.
Report Card: Winners and Losers
It's a sorry state of affairs: Not one company in the mix is worthy of an Outstanding rating. In our previous survey, Dell ranked well above other brands. The Texas giant is still by itself at the top in the home PCs category, but it has slipped from Outstanding to Good. At the other end of the spectrum, Compaq took a nosedive, earning a Poor rating for its home PCs.
Readers who own work and home PCs built by local stores (mom-and-pops) sent in enough reports to let us include these stores in the rankings.
Winners and Losers (chart)
| Work PCs | Home PCs | Notebooks |
| Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding |
| None | None | None |
| Good | Good | Good |
| Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, local retailers1 | Dell | Dell, IBM |
| Fair | Fair | Fair |
| Compaq, Gateway | Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, local retailers,1 MicronPC | Compaq, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba |
| Poor | Poor | Poor |
| None | Compaq, Emachines | None |
Survey Results: Readers Rate Work PCs (chart)
| | Percent of PCs with problems | Problems per year | Problems on arrival | Dead on arrival | Component failure | High satisfaction with reliability | Overall reliability score | Short hold time | Quick resolution | No resolution | Knowledgeable tech support | Sincere effort by tech support | High satisfaction with service | Overall service score |
 GOOD | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Dell First-class reliability; techs take ages to pick up calls. | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Poor | Good | Good | Fair | Fair | Good | Fair |
| Hewlett-Packard Reps resolve problems, but you'll wait on hold. | Fair | Outstanding | Good | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | Poor | Good | Outstanding | Fair | Good | Poor | Fair |
| IBM Though PC parts aren't likely to fail, service is just middle-of-the-road. | Good | Outstanding | Good | Good | Outstanding | Fair | Good | Good | Fair | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair |
| Local retailers1 Middling reliability; calls get picked up quickly, staffers know their stuff. | Fair | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Good |
 FAIR | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Compaq Solid PCs, but some troubling service scores. | Good | Outstanding | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Poor | Good | Poor | Fair | Poor | Poor | Poor | Unacceptable | Poor |
| Gateway Dependable PCs and sincere techs; otherwise, so-so service across the board. | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Good | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair |
| Reliability only2 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| MicronPC Systems are solid, but customers aren't ecstatic about their reliability. | Good | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Good | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Survey Results: Readers Rate Home PCs (chart)
| | Percent of PCs with problems | Problems per year | Problems on arrival | Dead on arrival | Component failure | High satisfaction with reliability | Overall reliability score | Short hold time | Quick resolution | No resolution | Knowledgeable tech support | Sincere effort by tech support | High satisfaction with service | Overall service score |
| GOOD | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Dell Solid machines but long hold times. | Outstanding | Good | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Poor | Good | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| FAIR | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Gateway Some serious reliability problems, and service is only middling. | Poor | Poor | Poor | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Poor | Fair | Poor | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair |
| Hewlett-Packard Supersturdy components, spotty service. | Good | Poor | Fair | Good | Outstanding | Poor | Fair | Good | Poor | Poor | Poor | Fair | Poor | Poor |
| IBM Impressive reliability, but lots of customers are left in the lurch. | Good | Good | Good | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Poor | Fair | Poor | Poor | Fair |
| Local retailers1 Some reliability problems, but techs are there when you need them. | Fair | Fair | Poor | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Outstanding | Fair | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Good |
| MicronPC Need a tech staffer over the phone? You'll probably have to be patient. | Outstanding | Outstanding | Poor | Poor | Good | Good | Good | Unacceptable | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair |
 POOR | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Compaq Hordes of unhappy campers, very worrisome service scores. | Poor | Poor | Fair | Good | Good | Unaccpetable | Fair | Poor | Poor | Poor | Poor | Fair | Poor | Poor |
| Emachines Dependable computers, but how low can service go? | Good | Fair | Outstanding | Outstanding | Good | Unacceptable | Good | Unacceptable | Unacceptable | Unacceptable | Poor | Poor | Unacceptable | Unacceptable |
| Reliability only2 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Acer Lots of problems from the get-go, and some owners aren't thrilled. | Fair | Good | Poor | Fair | Fair | Poor | Fair | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Sony Some high points in reliability; customers fairly content. | Outstanding | Good | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Good | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Survey Results: Readers Rate Notebooks (chart)
| | Percent of PCs with problems | Problems per year | Problems on arrival | Dead on arrival | Component failure | High satisfaction with reliability | Overall reliability score | Short hold time | Quick resolution | No resolution | Knowledgeable tech support | Sincere effort by tech support | High satisfaction with service | Overall service score |
| GOOD | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Dell Service slips, especially on hold times. | Fair | Good | Good | Outstanding | Fair | Good | Good | Poor | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Fair |
| IBM Mostly solid laptops, but problems take a while to be fixed. | Outstanding | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Good | Good | Poor | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair |
| FAIR | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Compaq Reliable computers, very few DOAs, but many service problems. | Poor | Good | Good | Outstanding | Fair | Poor | Fair | Fair | Poor | Poor | Fair | Poor | Fair | Poor |
| Gateway Time on your hands? You may need it to get your PC fixed. | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Poor | Poor | Fair | Fair | Poor | Fair | Fair |
| Hewlett-Packard Reliable notebooks for most owners, but support techs are slow to pick up calls. | Outstanding | Fair | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Fair | Good | Poor | Fair | Fair | Poor | Poor | Fair | Fair |
| Toshiba Pretty sturdy machines, but customers could be happier with service. | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | Fair | Poor | Fair | Fair | Fair | Poor | Fair |
| Reliability only2 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Fujitsu Dependable machines, few dead on arrival. | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Outstanding | Good | Fair | Good | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| MicronPC Small number of problems each year; otherwise, mediocre reliability. | Fair | Outstanding | Fair | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Sony Not many DOA systems; components tend to last. | Outstanding | Good | Good | Outstanding | Outstanding | Fair | Good | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Survey Results: Percentages (chart)
| Measure | Work PCs | Home PCs | Notebooks | Survey average1 |
| Percent of PCs with problems Percentage of PCs that have had at least one problem needing repair. | Outstanding: 31.5 percent Good: 38.5 to 41.5 percent Fair: 44.1 to 47.1 percent | Outstanding: 45.7 to 48.2 percent Good: 49.8 to 53.3 percent Fair: 54.9 to 55.5 percent Poor: 61.3 to 63.0 percent | Outstanding: 39.0 to 39.8 percent Good: 41.2 to 42.1 percent Fair: 45.2 to 48.7 percent Poor: 51.1 percent | Home PCs: 53 percent Work PCs: 40 percent Notebook PCs: 44 percent |
| Problems per year Average number of problems per year of age, for the brand's PCs. | Outstanding: 0.56 to 0.83 Good: 0.91 | Outstanding: 0.62 Good: 0.79 to 0.97 Fair: 1.07 to 1.13 Poor: 1.36 to 1.62 | Outstanding: 0.47 to 0.68 Good: 0.81 to 0.86 Fair: 0.95 | Home PCs: 1.1 Work PCs: 0.7 Notebook PCs: 0.7 |
| Problems on arrival Percentage of PCs that did not work properly when they were first turned on. | Outstanding: 2.8 to 3.7 percent Good: 4.1 to 4.9 percent Fair: 5.6 percent | Outstanding: 3.9 percent Good: 4.7 to 5.4 percent Fair: 7.0 to 7.1 percent Poor: 8.5 to 10.5 percent | Outstanding: 2.1 to 2.4 percent Good: 3.5 to 5.2 percent Fair: 6.3. to 7.8 percent | Home PCs: 7.1 percent Work PCs: 4.23 percent Notebook PCs: 4.4 percent |
| Dead on arrival Percentage of PCs that were nonfunctional when they were first turned on. | Outstanding: 0.31 to 0.88 percent Good: 1.09 to 1.24 percent Fair: 1.95 percent | Outstanding: 0.91 to 1.13 percent Good: 1.83 to 1.94 percent Fair: 2.7 to 2.94 percent Poor: 4.19 percent | Outstanding: zero to 0.94 percent Good: 1.11 percent Fair: 1.82 to 2.23 percent | Home PCs: 2.1 percent Work PCs: 1 percent Notebook PCs: 0.82 percent |
| Component failure Percentage of PCs that have had at least one faulty component replaced. | Outstanding: 16.6 to 20.2 percent Good: 22.4 to 25.4 percent Fair: 29.7 percent | Outstanding: 20.6 to 22.5 percent Good: 25.2 to 31.9 percent Fair: 35.2 to 42.2 percent | Outstanding: 15.7 to 17.1 percent Good: 22.4 to 23.1 percent Fair: 25.8 to 30 percent | Home PCs: 30 percent Work PCs: 22 percent Notebook PCs: 23 percent |
| High satisfaction with reliability Percentage of respondents who indicated they were very satisfied with their PC's reliability. | Outstanding: 79.1 percent Fair: 65.9 to 59.1 percent Poor: 53.8 percent | Outstanding: 84.1 percent Good: 69.6 percent Fair: 64.6 to 62.3 percent Poor: 54.5 to 52.9 percent Unacceptable: 48.7 to 48.6 percent | Good: 77.8 percent Fair: 69.6 to 61.1 percent Poor: 56.1 percent | Home PCs: 61 percent Work PCs: 63 percent Notebook PCs: 67 percent |
| Short hold time Percentage of phone service recipients who waited on hold for 5 minutes or less. | Outstanding: 73.6 percent Good: 61.8 percent Fair: 54.4 percent Poor: 48.0 to 46.6 percent | Outstanding: 79.1 percent Good: 60.8 percent Fair: 52.6 percent Poor: 46.7 to 42.2 percent Unacceptable: 39.7 to 34.3 percent | Good: 65.4 percent Fair: 56.7 to 54.8 percent Poor: 50 to 45.8 percent | Home PCs: 50 percent Work PCs: 55 percent Notebook PCs: 53 percent |
| Quick resolution Percentage of service recipients whose most recent problem was resolved in 5 days or less. | Good: 80.0 to 77.6 percent Fair: 68.6 to 67.2 percent | Good: 72.1 percent Fair: 67.2 to 60.2 percent Poor: 56.2 to 53.5 percent Unacceptable: 49.3 percent | Fair: 67.3 to 62.5 percent Poor: 58.9 to 52 percent | Home PCs: 61 percent Work PCs: 73 percent Notebook PCs: 58 percent |
| No resolution Percentage of service recipients whose most recent problem was never resolved. | Outstanding: 2.4 percent Good: 5.2 percent Fair: 6.7 to 7.9 percent Poor: 8.9 percent | Fair: 8.1 to 9.9 percent Poor: 10.5 to 13.6 percent Unacceptable: 15.1 percent | Fair: 7.3 to 9.1 percent Poor: 11.2 percent | Home PCs: 11 percent Work PCs: 6.5 percent Notebook PCs: 9 percent |
| Knowledgeable tech support Percentage of service recipients rating the knowledge of the technician who helped them as excellent or good. | Good: 84.2 to 83.3 percent Fair: 80.1 to 78.6 percent Poor: 66.7 percent | Good: 82.5 to 82.3 percent Fair: 77.5 to 74.6 percent Poor: 69.8 to 61.7 percent | Good: 84.8 to 81.5 percent Fair: 77.8 to 73.2 percent Poor: 70.1 percent | Home PCs: 74 percent Work PCs: 79 percent Notebook PCs: 77 percent |
| Sincere effort by tech support Percentage of service recipients rating the sincere effort of the technician who helped them as excellent or good. | Good: 84.2 to 83.1 percent Fair: 78.9 to 78.8 percent Poor: 70.8 percent | Good: 84.6 percent Fair: 79.1 to 71.8 percent Poor: 69.2 to 62.4 percent | Good: 86.2 percent Fair: 78 to 76.9 percent Poor: 75.3 to 72.8 percent | Home PCs: 75 percent Work PCs: 80 percent Notebook PCs: 77 percent |
| High satisfaction with service Percentage of service recipients who indicated that they were very satisfied with the service they received. | Good: 53.8 to 50.0 percent Fair: 47.6 to 43.9 percent Poor: 38.6 percent Unacceptable: 29.2 percent | Good: 62.6 percent Fair: 50.5 to 47.1 percent Poor: 40.2 to 32.3 percent Unacceptable: 26.2 percent | Good: 61.2 percent Fair: 48.1 to 42.9 percent Poor: 40.2 percent | Home PCs: 43 percent Work PCs: 44 percent Notebook PCs: 47 percent |