While much has been made of ‘Dell H*ll’ I found it interesting that the top 3 PC makers all had REAL BAD ratings for customer service, even worse than Dell.
sources: shopping.com list bad revus via epinions but provides a sometimes skewed rating.
resellerratings.com seems better: they have a numeric 6 month and lifetime rating.
company 6month #revu lifetime #revus
Dell 3.83 143 4.4 961
Gateway 1.67 6 2.25 132
HP .83 3 4.03 54
Note that the average store is 7, they are all well below, and I have found some camera retailers for example above 7 and closer to 8 or 9, with some scam sites closer to zero, about HP’s rating.
IBM had a lifetime rating of 10, but only 37 revu’s and one in last 6 months; and they are supposed to be getting out of PC biz.
Horror stories abound if you read the individual dissatisfied revus: bad packing, terminally late shipments, changes in price and items on order by vendor without asking after order in; phone transfer and holds in order of hours and hours, lying to about availability etc.
Yet apparently SOME biz customers have better luck, vendors appear to pay more attention to them. (tho not all biz revus are good).
My questions:
why are computer vendors like this?
are there any alternatives for buyers?
are only the ticked off people filing revu’s?
do we now have to buy from smaller companies that have better service?
how can the large companies get away with this?
will they try and fudge over by paying off ratings sites?
or spamming them with ‘good’ reviews?