Australian PC Authority Magazine “Reliability & Service Awards 2007”

This week Australian PC Authority released the findings of its largest ever customer service and satisfaction survey.

The total number of respondents was 14,003, a significant increase on previous years surveys.

Below is a summary of some of the results that customers of GJ’s Computers Services and other readers of this blog will find of interest.

Nowadays with prices falling notebooks are estimated to outsell branded Desktop PCs 60-40. The top four ranked Notebooks according to this survey in categories of SUPPORT, RELIABILITY, SATISFACTION and an OVERALL rating are Fujitsu, Asus, Apple and not far behind these top three was Dell. Interesting to me, was Toshiba running 6th out of 13 contenders in this category – I would have thought it would rank higher – as this is the brand of laptop that I have used for many years with no issues and competent customer support. As I own an Apple Macbook as well it came as no surprise its high ranking, but unlike Windows Notebooks, Apple hardware generally remains on the relatively more expensive side. Fujitsu have long manufactured robust and reliable Notebooks, but these are generally once again on the expensive side and not generally geared to the home user market.

In the PCs category, Apple was the overall winner, with Dell running second . Interesting feedback in this category related to comments on the overseas outsourcing undertaken by many companies, resulting in complaints regarding customer difficulties in understanding company representatives. This issue of the difficulty of understanding customer service representatives is not unique to troubleshooting computer problems, but unfortunately extends to other areas, such as Internet Service Providers. And this can occur whether or not the company has outsourced its call centres overseas.

In the new category of GPS, Tom Tom was a clear winner, particularly in the categories of EASE OF USE and ACCURACY OF MAPS AND ROUTING.

The clear winner in the Inkjet Printers category was Canon, with Epson and HP not far behind. In this category PRINT QUALITY and RELIABILITY were particular areas of analysis.

The number 1 Laser Printer was Oki, with Brother printers highly commended and Fuji Xerox next.

In Digital Cameras Manufacturer Nikon retained first spot, with Canon and Panasonic in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. Nikon rated highest in IMAGE QUALITY.

Samsung took out first position in the LCD Monitors category.

For Wireless Routers Company Dynalink had the best overall rating. In this category an important attribute is SPEED AND RANGE. Interestingly, D-Link, a common choice for consumers, ranked last. Other popular consumer brands Linksys and Netgear ranked midway.

One of the most interesting and relevant categories is the winner of the Best Internet Service Provider (ISP). Last year Telstra Bigpond ranked last. This time it marginally improved to third last spot, but most importantly the kicker regarding Telstra Bigpond is that 52% of Telstra customers state they would not recommend Bigpond to a friend. In my computer services business I spend a lot of time resolving customer issues with Telstra Bigpond, and when customers are out of contract changing their ISP from Telstra Bigpond to others, particularly Exetel http://www.exetel.com.au (in this survey it had a high customer satisfaction rating). In all cases where customers have changed ISPs from Telstra Bigpond they gain better value for money and a more reliable service.  The top three winners in this category were Westnet (http://www.westnet.com.au), Internode (http://www.internode.on.net) and Adam Internet (http://www.adam.com.au).  

The number 1 MP3 player is iRiver, followed by Samsung.

The Best Software winner was Mozilla Firefox browser. This category includes both free and paid software and there was a total of 22 manufacturers ranked. Acronis True Image Backup software came in second. AVG Free Edition (Antivirus software) ranked 4th. Google Earth and Google Picasa, Adobe Acrobat, Skype and Microsoft Office 2007 ranked midway. The bottom three software applications were unsurprisingly Apple iTunes, Microsoft Windows Vista and Norton Internet Security.

The above results should be borne in mind when consumers make their next purchases in these categories, particularly in the lead-up to Christmas and the post Xmas sales.

For further information on these Awards and user comments go to http://www.pcauthority.com.au/feature.aspx?CIaFID=4078.

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If you do not already have one sign up for a free web-based email address from Yahoo (https://edit.yahoo.com/registration?.intl=au&new=1&.partner=&.src=ym&.done=http://au.yahoo.com/), Gmail (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/about.html) or Windows Live Hotmail (http://get.live.com/mail/options) and use this address to subscribe. I particularly like and use Gmail, as it has a superb spam filter, not to mention loads of space (you may never have to delete an email again).

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