Technology in terms you understand. Sign up for the Confident Computing newsletter for weekly solutions to make your life easier. Click here and get The Ask Leo! Guide to Staying Safe on the Internet — FREE Edition as my thank you for subscribing!

It's all about support

When making a purchase, do you think ahead to the kind of support you’ll get after?

Become a Patron of Ask Leo! and go ad-free!


Transcript

This is Leo Notenboom for askleo.net.

As I mentioned last week, I recently purchased a new desktop machine. My new
machine had an issue, and the experience got me thinking about support and
customer service, and how it so rarely enters into our purchasing
decisions.

Typically when we purchase a new computer or software we spend a lot of time
looking at things like features, functionality, price, longevity, performance
and of course cost.

But we rarely look at what will happen when something goes wrong.

Now it’s tempting to think that if you’ve purchased the right package or
purchased from the right vendor, nothing will go wrong and support won’t even be
needed.

Trust me, it doesn’t work that way. Something will go wrong.
Perhaps not with every purchase, and perhaps not even something significant,
but even with the best vendors mistakes can and will be made, issues will
arise.

I’m still evaluating this new vendor’s response to my issues. I will say
that they’re off to a somewhat rocky start having failed to respond to some of
my emailed inquires, but once the issue became clear, the response was fairly
quick.

Unfortunately many companies really cut corners when it comes to after sales
support. It can be expensive and doesn’t add directly to the bottom line.
And to be perhaps a little blunt, if it’s anything like the flow of support
questions I get here at Ask Leo, the majority of issues that many customer service
folks face are likely to be issues that people can frequently solve themselves
with just a little bit more effort.

Unfortunately cutting those corners is a clear case of throwing the baby out
with the bath water. Good customer support actually adds to the bottom line
long term by fostering repeat and loyal customers. And, there are many
legitimate issues that good customer support can and should be available to
help with. Even a good approach for the simple and common questions will
only foster more good will and loyalty.

Other than experimenting as I am with my own purchases, I don’t have a magic
way to figure out who’s customer support is good and who’s is not. It’s all
about reputation, and as such I would spend time browsing the web and
particularly customer support forums. Particularly in those forums see how many
questions are actually being answered and if any are being answered by company
representatives.

Beware too that as companies go through various budget and other cycles,
customer support is one of those items that often gets cut to “save money”. Make
sure that whatever information you find is current.

Let me also turn it around: how do you identify good customer service
before you make a major purchase?

I’d love to hear what you think. Visit askleo.net and enter 12352 in the go
to article number box to access the show notes, the transcript and to leave me a
comment. While you’re there, browse the hundreds of technical questions and
answers on the site.

Till next time, I’m Leo Notenboom, for askleo.net.

Do this

Subscribe to Confident Computing! Less frustration and more confidence, solutions, answers, and tips in your inbox every week.

I'll see you there!

2 comments on “It's all about support”

  1. For sometime now before I purchased anything of any value or that will be used a lot and will have a high annoyance factor if it doesn’t work as expected, like you I read as much customer feedback as I can at sites like Amazon.com, ResellerRatings.com, NewEgg, HowardForums (for mobile phones), etc. If customer support stinks, there are plenty of unhappy customers wanting to tell you about their experiences.

    More often the decision for me is, if I know up front that good customer support will not be available from the manufacturer or service provider, will satisfactory support be available from other sources?

    Reply
  2. I’m lucky (sort of) the only machines that ever died on me were 2 ibooks and 1 powerbook. All just after their warranty expired so as far as tech support goes Apple was VERY NICE but did charge for the logic boards and hard drive. But they were very nice about it and that’s … nice.
    I’ve never had a Dell, HP or any other machine die until the point of absurdity. My Acer running 95 still boots right up!
    I also have had very good results from Microsoft the latest when Vista SP1 caused the first blue screen with Vista I ever had, the advice was very good and fixed the problem. I found it to be timely and accurate, both are necessary attributes of good tech support.

    Reply

Leave a reply:

Before commenting please:

  • Read the article.
  • Comment on the article.
  • No personal information.
  • No spam.

Comments violating those rules will be removed. Comments that don't add value will be removed, including off-topic or content-free comments, or comments that look even a little bit like spam. All comments containing links and certain keywords will be moderated before publication.

I want comments to be valuable for everyone, including those who come later and take the time to read.