Laptop Makers Pushing Paid Support Instead of Answering Questions

July 13th, 2010 by Anna Attkisson, LAPTOP Managing Editor  

Our annual Tech Support Showdown uncovered an ugly truth this year. Facing falling prices and shrinking profit margins, some notebook makers are either outright refusing to answer the types of questions we’ve posed in the past (time is money, after all) or they’re telling custoemrs to sign up for pricey tech support services–even if you’re still under the standard warranty.

How did we discover this? Well, two of our three questions asked during our undercover reporting met with resistance, prompting the tech agents from some of the bigger names–Acer, Dell, HP, Gateway, and Lenovo–to refuse to help us or to direct us to paid support lines.

We asked how to share files across Windows 7 notebooks, but we were told that was outside of the scope for the support line or were not covered by our warranty because they were not hardware specific. And two companies–Lenovo and Gateway–refused to help us boot our system faster, with one Lenovo rep rudely telling us to “go take a computer class” when we asked how to remove preloaded apps we didn’t want slowing down our startup.

So, why would these companies risk alienating their customers by offering sub-par service?

Short-term profit chasing is the probable answer, according to Chris Walters, contributor to Consumerist.com. After all, having a customer asking for help setting up Windows could be taking away from help for those who have a more serious problem. However, it’s not the way to build customer loyalty. “Having CSRs answer only questions about defective parts signals two things: first, that the company is unwilling to spend any money on support staff training, and second, that it’s trying to turn traditional after-sale support into a new revenue stream,” Walters said. “But if a company has to take something away from the consumer to create a new revenue stream, it’s doing it wrong.”

ASUS, who answered our question despite the fact that the agent said it didn’t strictly fit within the scope of the warranty,  told us it was merely a misunderstanding. “This question is fully covered by our system (notebooks, netbooks, desktop) warranty coverage,” according to a spokesman for ASUS. He went on to say that Asus has “implemented corrective action based on your results to ensure the technical support staff does not confuse the OS support policy between systems and components. Satisfying the customer is our number one priority.”

But not everyone was as eager to please. Acer and Gateway’s warrantys only cover issues relating to broken hardware or software, not configuration or how-tos. Lenovo says its base warranty ensures the hardware and supported software function as advertised, but that  instructions on how to use or configure apps are not covered.  For HP’s part, Nora Hahn, customer experience marketing manager, told us the manufacturer’s warranty and policies have not changed. The standard warranty covers HP and other pre-installed software, as well as initial setup.  But it does not cover system optimization, customization, or network configuration.

The paid support services Answers by Acer and Answers by Gateway have been around for more than a decade. And HP’s paid upsell, HP Smart Friends program, launched in 2008. So why are these companies being more aggressive in throwing up a pay wall now? We think notebook vendors are being much more selective as to what questions they field for free in light of the economic downturn. Lenovo has done away with its paid support line in favor of online forums.

When asked why HP needed such a service, Hahn told us, “we wanted to give our customers the option of having a service to answer basic questions and get general help with tasks not typically covered by a warranty.” And while it’s true that an option is better than no option, our question remains: why not offer this service free of charge? Wouldn’t that build more brand loyalty, and thus more repeat customers?

Walters admits that a warranty isn’t meant to guarantee good customer support, simply what a customer should expect if something breaks. But covered by warranty or not, it’s just good business to help customers when they need it. “I can’t imagine how telling your customer you won’t help her remove crapware will help build your relationship with her moving forward,” he said. That’s certainly true in Apple’s case, who goes ones-step further than the competition with its Genius Bars and has won our Tech Support Showdown several years in a row.

So what’s a shopper to do? Walters does recommend that if you’re going to pay for help, you should go with a third-party. “This will ensure that the manufacturer’s plan to capture more of your money will fail, which may help convince it to offer old-fashioned customer service gratis once again.”

Comments (11 Responses) 

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11 Responses to “Laptop Makers Pushing Paid Support Instead of Answering Questions”

  1. arash Says:
    July 14th, 2010 at 8:24 pm

    Actually these windows laptop manufacturers are abusing windows and microsoft. they pay for OEM versions of windows and they should support customers but because windows is so good and customers will buy windows laptops no matter what they see no need in supporting customer for competing with others. they know people will buy windows based laptops. just imagine if dell was selling ubuntu based laptops, then they were forced to support customers in order to compete with others and save their brands

  2. Luke Says:
    July 14th, 2010 at 11:34 pm

    so what your saying is…. it should be like buying a manual car from Ford, not knowing how to drive a manual car.. and expecting the Mechanics in the shop to teach you how to drive it? I’m sorry but people should take the time to learn how to use a computer or at least the basics. I have been a tech for a long time, For many companies, software / hardware and internet. i am certified in most fields of computing, but some techs are Hardware only & some are software only, So not all techs can help out with everything wrong with computers.
    “The less they pay, the more they expect and the more they complain”

  3. lazylizard Says:
    July 15th, 2010 at 12:02 am

    its a complex issue isn’t it? laptop buyers asking tech support for help setting up the network is like a car buyer asking Ford how to change tires?

  4. Shinigami Says:
    July 15th, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    I’m sorry if I sound rude, but if you do not know how to remove “crapware”, you REALLY need those computer courses.
    For those too lazy to visit:
    HP laptops: control panel – add/remove programs (programs and components in Vista), uninstall anything that has HP in its name
    Acer laptops: control panel – add/remove programs (programs and components in Vista), uninstall anything that has Acer in its name
    Personally I recommend also removing all Norton-named programs and use free alternatives.

    You’re free to remove anything and everything else, but if you remove some of your drivers by accident and your PC stops working properly, I’m afraid I won’t be able to help even if I want to.

    As for warranty: never used it, kept it for cases where something doesn’t work and extensive usage of http://www.google.com doesn’t help. In 99% cases “problem” can be solved without calling tech support, doesn’t require replacing faulty hardware.

  5. Luke Says:
    July 15th, 2010 at 10:43 pm

    People setting up a network is nothing like calling ford to get tires changed, its more like having a Sony TV and calling Sony to set up your Yamaha home theater and connecting your Samsung dvd player to it as well.. stuff like that you seek local tech’s in your area. because what your asking is that the Sony tech knows how to set up Yamaha & Samsung devices.

  6. Jayubull Says:
    July 16th, 2010 at 3:21 am

    To Arash, you’re right to an extent. PC manufacturers are supposed to support Windows as part of OEM licensing, but the scope isn’t infinite. Even if you bought a fully packaged product of Windows 7 for example and called Microsoft for support on Windows 7, Microsoft wouldn’t offer support on the full in and outs of setting up your network. Now Microsoft may walk you through how to use HomeGroup, but they’re not going to tell you how to set up your Linksys router. That being said essentially, “support” for the OS is not a Q&A service for “How do I do this?”. The manufacturer offer’s a warranty which is there for troubleshooting hardware issues, softwares issues possibly being caused by hardware issues, or isolated software issues that are NOT a result of third-party non-manufacturer/non-Microsoft related software that did NOT come preinstalled. I understand that it may be frustrating that the scope of service with the OEM licensing feels limited, but that’s the nature of how it is. So in reality, most PC manufacturers are not abusing Microsoft.

  7. Dave Says:
    July 25th, 2010 at 7:19 am

    The manufacturer put the crapware on your computer. They should help you get it the hell off.

  8. Raf Says:
    August 8th, 2010 at 1:30 am

    Why would anyone expect these companies to help you with WINDOWS related questions? They have other callers who need help on the actual computer and tech support shouldn’t be dealing with that, take your questions to Microsoft. Also, this “bloatware” is the reason you paid as much as you did on your PC and not $50 dollars MORE, it is just STUPID to think that a company would help you remove the software they were paid to install on the computer.

  9. cris_lemuel Says:
    August 19th, 2010 at 10:13 pm

    I purchased a lenovo laptop that is still in warranty period and the battery is always drain in a matter of 10 to 15 minutes so I returned it to the distributor where I purchased the said laptop, it’s been 3 weeks now and they haven’t return the unit. Right now I will never again buy items that has a logo of lenovo.

  10. anthony Says:
    August 23rd, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    this is ridiculous i just bought a sony vaio laotop and 3 weeks later it wont boot into windows it did boot in safemode until i called tech support and their retarted techs gave me advice ,now it wont boot into safemode either and now sony tells me there is nothing i can do except restore the computer and lose all my data and time of having to reinstall all updates over again thats their awnser to everything restore it and loose everything they are the dumbest techs ever not just sony but all of them someone here said “well just go to microsoft for windows support” why should i pay them, a company with more money than most governments and they cant even develop a product that works properly how many versions of windows have there been now? come on ,i would like to know what they spend on r&devolpment i bet its like .00000000000000001 of their profits for 1 quater. if bill gates is such a f-ing filanthrapist and is going to give half of his fortune away alog with warren buffet(so i heard)why cant they support their products without charging you more money than the entire computer along with the os is worth for an hour of tech support,someone here said that the oems have bought the os and therfore the rights to it and therefore should support the os ,i cant beleive they call this tech support when i know more than they do. i could get a dos c:/ prompt and get into the registry edior but they said that they had no options to get my computer to boot into windows w/o restoring it,i mean come on they should atleast be able to tell you how to edit the registry

  11. Jim C Says:
    September 7th, 2010 at 9:25 am

    Automobile makers do not have a different way of shifting gears for every brand and every model and don’t change that way every few weeks.

    When I recently called HP to ask a single question about the capabilities of an out of warranty printer the representative only tried to sell me a service contract. I resolved then and there that I would not buy another HP product although I had only bought HP printers prior to that and was using a Compaq computer. A few days later I bought a new Canon printer and since then have bought a fair number of Canon ink cartridiges and no HP ink cartridges. I’m shopping now for a new computer and it WILL NOT be an HP.

    BestBuy and it’s Geek Squad are about as bad — got a question? Buy an answer from the Geek Squad.

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