According to PC Magazine’s 18th annual Reader Satisfaction Survey (www.pcmag.com/sr), on newsstands September 6, 2005, more people are turning to the Web to solve problems with their PCs and printers, and beginning to turn away from phone support. Despite this shift, computer users are happier with their PCs and manufacturers support services overall than they were a year ago, though there’s still room for improvement.
Ziff Davis Media’s PC Magazine surveyed nearly 14,000 subscribers — technology influencers, consumers and business professionals — and asked them to describe their experiences with the desktops, notebooks, and printers that they use. They rated over 26,000 PCs and over 19,000 printers, including products used in the home and at work. Readers were asked to evaluate the following categories in the satisfaction survey: overall satisfaction, product reliability, quality and frequency of repairs, initial setup experience, hardware and software reliability and technical support including tech support professional’s ability to communicate and understand the problem.
“It’s good to see companies offering better online support, but there’s clearly room for improvement in phone-based support,” says Michael J. Miller, Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine. “In particular, many readers complained about technicians who were hard to understand, or who didn’t seem to understand the problem.”
According to the survey, overall satisfaction with desktops and notebooks — as well as satisfaction with their reliability is very good but people are less satisfied with the quality of technical support and repair services of PC manufacturers.
PC owners are increasingly turning away from the phone and toward the Internet for tech support. This year, 69% of computer users used the telephone for tech support, down significantly versus a year ago, at 80%, This year, computer users are using the Web for support, including online FAQs, knowledge bases, download centers, 30% of the time; a year ago people they only used Web support 18% of the time.
Generally, the survey showed that the number of systems needing repair has decreased slightly since last year, which can be attributed in part to the increased use of Windows XP and the increasing standardization of components.
Desktops
While nearly all the vendors in the survey received overall ratings from customers in the “very good” range, four companies — Apple, Dell, Sony and survey newcomer Alienware — scored the highest, winning the coveted PC Magazine Readers’ Choice Award. Apple received the overall highest satisfaction rating due, in part, to its integration of its computer systems and the fact that Macs attract far fewer viruses than Windows machines. Among the major manufacturers of Windows PCs, Dell’s desktops received its 14th PC Magazine Readers’ Choice Award in 15 years, showing improvement in tech support versus year ago. Sony earned impressive satisfaction rates for desktops and newcomer Alienware scored an impressive overall rating of 8.8 for their cutting-edge, gaming machines.
Notebooks
Apple and Lenovo/IBM scored the highest among notebook users in the notebook category — earning them a PC Magazine Readers’ Choice Award. Apple users gave the company an 8.6 rating for satisfaction with tech support and 8.3 for satisfaction with repairs, both very impressive results. Lenovo/IBM scored well in reliability, better than average (8.5) and performed well in both the business and home market.
Printers
PC Magazine evaluated many categories of printers, used in business and at home, ranging from monochrome lasers to color ink-jet all-in-one printers. For the 14th year in a row, Hewlett-Packard received the PC Magazine Readers’ Choice award for printers, sharing the award with Canon who won for the third straight year. HP received top honors with a significantly better than average score overall and on reliability, and with significantly fewer printers than average needing repair. Users are impressed with HP’s web based support which relies on Instant Support Technology, through which an embedded Web server gathers data about printers and submits it over the Internet to HP for diagnostics.
Canon’s performance can be attributed to its stellar service and reliability ratings for color ink jets, color ink jet all-in-ones, and photo printers. Canon’s newer models are faring well, as the company receives the highest scores of any manufacturer for overall satisfaction and for reliability among respondents who have had their printers for a year or less.
Methodology
The 18th annual reader satisfaction survey covers desktop PCs, notebooks and printers. The survey gauges the satisfaction on a variety of measures including reliability and service experiences with the products PC Magazine subscribers are using and the companies who make these products. PC Magazine conducted the survey from June 14, 2005 to June 28, 2005. Subscribers to PC Magazine and pcmag.com were invited through by email and through a link posted in the magazine. PC Magazine accepted only one entry per subscriber and only subscribers could participate. Equation Research (www.equationresearch.com) hosted the survey and tabulated the results. PC Magazine asked respondents about the desktop, notebooks and printers that they currently using at work and home.
PC Magazine excluded any company for which they did not receive at least 50 responses, the minimum number necessary to produce statistically reliable results. Only PCs less than four years old were considered. Each company’s scores for each question were compared against the average of all the companies’ scores in the same product category. The result is characterized as better or worse than average, or significantly better or worse than average, based on the statistical testing of the responses to a 95% confidence level.
About PC Magazine
PC Magazine, the independent guide to technology, delivers comprehensive labs-based reviews and the most trusted recommendations for buyers of technology products and services. Reaching more than 5.1 million highly engaged technology influencers, PC Magazine provides product reviews, first looks at emerging technologies and products, and opinionated columns from renowned technology pundits. To meet its readers’ needs for buying information that is as current as it is comprehensive, PC Magazine publishes 22 times a year in print and continually on the Web.
About Ziff Davis Media Inc.
Ziff Davis Media is a leading integrated media company serving the technology and videogame markets. The Company is an information services provider of technology media including publications, websites, conferences, events, eSeminars, eNewsletters, custom publishing, list rentals, research and market intelligence. In the United States, the Company publishes 10 magazines including PC Magazine, Sync, ExtremeTech, DigitalLife, eWEEK, CIO Insight, Baseline, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. The Company exports the power of its brands internationally, with publications in 40 countries and 20 languages. Ziff Davis leverages its content on the Internet with a network of highly-targeted technology and gaming sites including PCMag.com, eWEEK.com, ExtremeTech.com and 1UP.com. The Company also produces highly-targeted b-to-b and consumer technology events including DigitalLife. With its main headquarters and PC Magazine Labs based in New York, Ziff Davis Media also has offices and lab facilities in the San Francisco and Boston markets. Additional information is available at www.ziffdavis.com.
This article was last modified on January 7, 2023
This article was first published on August 26, 2005
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