We shouldn’t be surprised by this result. This year we’ve been able to test every Apple computer in exactly the same way we’ve been able to test regular PCs thanks to BootCamp, which won last year’s editorial software award.
Scoring top marks across the board, Apple walks away with the PC Award ahead of every ‘proper PC’ manufacturer in the industry. 80% of customers were at least satisfied with Support, with 48% saying they were Very Satisfied. This compares to Highly Commended Dell’s equivalent figures of 75% and 34% respectively.
These figures contrast noticeably with the likes of Acer and Compaq who saw only 67% – 69% of customers satisfied with Support.
In terms of Reliability, 90% of Mac users were satisfied compared to Dell’s 83%. Acer scored lowest with 71% of buyers satisfied and Compaq only satisfied 74%. All other manufactures hovered around the 80% satisfaction mark.
If Apple was going to suffer anywhere it would be with Value For Money (as occurred with its Laptops). However, by satisfying 76% of customers it once again scored top marks. Most other competitors weren’t far behind – hovering around the mid-to-low 70s (Dell scored 75%). But Compaq, HP and Lenovo should worry about satisfying only 65%, 68% and 63% of their customers respectively.
Not surprisingly, a high 89% of Mac users would buy a Mac again in the future. But 84% of Dell customers said likewise: impressive considering the amount of competition it has. Only 66% of Compaq customers said they’d buy from the same company again as did 69% of Optima customers, 71% of Acer’s, 72% of Lenovo’s and 79% of HP’s.
Dell shouldn’t feel too down – ten times as many people registered buying a Dell PC as a Mac. Also remember that while we’ve been able to run Windows on a Mac thanks to BootCamp, most respondents will have used Mac OS instead and the results will reflect this. While BootCamp is now officially supported by Apple, Windows is not and PC Authority does not recommend buying a Mac to exclusively run Windows as a direct alternative to buying a PC.
When it all goes wrong
Not surprisingly, not too many respondents had trouble getting through to sales people – only 4% of customers (on average) complained about this. This dropped to 1% with Lenovo.
On the other hand, on average 10% of all buyers had trouble getting through to customer support. This rose to 13% of Acer customers and 14% of HP’s. It dropped to 8% for both Apple and Optima buyers.
Overseas outsourcing has led to a number of complaints regarding difficulty in understanding company representatives and an average of 9% of respondents said they had difficulties. This rose to 13% for Dell’s customers and 12% of HP’s. But only 6% of Lenovo buyers complained. In terms of telephone courtesy, on average 5% complained. However, this rose to 8% for Acer and 9% for Compaq.
When it came to repairs taking longer than promised 9% of buyers complained. Dell was best with only 7% complaining but 14% of Compaq buyers weren’t happy. When it came to manufacturers wriggling out of warranties only 4% of buyers complained on average. However, this did rise to 6% for Acer and 7% for Compaq.
