QOTW: Which tech companies excel at customer service?

[HEXUS]

And which don't?

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[Dashers]

In the UK a lot of after-sales is with the retailer. And as much as I hate to say it, the only consistently good customer service I've experienced when buying tech is Amazon. Scan and Ebuyer being the worst (see my recent thread).

Further down the line, I was pleased to find the returns policy on EVGA graphics cards - return to the manufacturer directly and don't mess about with the retail channel - I never had to test it though, but it was a good sign that they take it seriously.

Corsair have been pretty good too. They've sent me replacement parts FOC for my case which failed unreasonably early. They also fully refunded me on 16GB of DDR4 RAM many many years after I bought it once I had finally managed to prove conclusively it was the RAM causing an intermittent stability issue - unfortunately it took until I could afford another set of RAM to prove it as they weren't willing to go on my word, but to their credit they gave me a refund of the purchase price and not the current sale price, which allowed me to double my RAM capacity.

Gigabyte are a bit iffy, whilst they've issued me a custom BIOS as recently as last year on a X99 board, and even tested my quirky configuration; their first-line team is pretty dire and you can easily get lost in a circle of silly basic questions.

Dell pretty dire, still awaiting a response about dead pixels on my new laptop. I must chase them.

Specialist independent manufacturers tend to be good if dealing direct. They want to produce a product that works, and are less focused on pure volume sales. Although that sort of thing doesn't exist in the traditional computer market.

[judge56988]

It's some years ago now but I've had excellent after sales service from Kustom PCs. I generally buy from them if their prices are reasonably competetive - sometimes they are too expensive though.

[EvilCycle]

I know it seems a bit bias considering where I am posting, but a shout out to SCAN, they have been nothing but helpful and efficient with any problem or question I have had, they once replaced a faulty fan controller without question and they even sorted out a Battlefield V code for me back when I bought my 2080, I think that I was out by a couple of days for the offer but they still obliged!

[Jonj1611]

Amazon & EVGA

[Namor]

Amazon and Crucial are very good.

OverclockersUK easily the worst for me.

[spacein_vader]

System76.

[Luke7]

Scan seem okay, but last time I contacted them they were pretty damned useless. I ordered a Corsair H55 for an old AMD system (which I checked was covered in the compatibility guide), however; half of the AMD (Intel was all there) stuff was complete missing (backplate and a few bits). So I contacted them, told them *precisely* which parts were missing... a few days later, I receive a parcel containing exactly the same bits I had before with exactly the same parts missing again...

I’ve probably left it far too long to resolve the issue now... but if anyone wants a H55 let me know lol.

[pa1nkiller]

Amazon & EVGA

This.

Ebuyer, Currys, Corsair, Zotac & Creative have made my "never buy from again" list.

[Tabbykatze]

Wait, aren't Amazon the retail equivalent of Satan?

[Hoonigan]

Sennheiser go in my list, I've never experienced service like it. Rapid, decisive, informed, they were absolutely everything I hoped for.

Ebuyer, Currys, Corsair, Zotac & Creative have made my "never buy from again" list.

With a lengthy list like that, have you ever wondered if it's you that's the problem?

[jm101]

Corsair, Amazon, Bond, Asus and Ring immediately come to mind. I use their products and look there first every time BECAUSE their service after the sale is very good.

[AGTDenton]

CCL Computers have been my favourite so far. The only downside is turn around time, but that's just the logistics for a smaller company and a small issue that can be easily overlooked.
You communicate with a technically minded person and can bounce ideas off each other to get to a resolution, not just some secretary that organises the return and inputs badly written notes into a field because they clearly didn't understand a damn thing you were talking about.

Amazon are great with the exception of that you don't speak to a technical person. But 99% of the time you're gonna get a replacement/refund if it has truely failed and not been damaged so it's not necessarily required if you're technically minded already.

I've had good experiences with Dell. What I find with them is, when you tell them to stop reading the script/tree diagram they have in front of them, they actually like that they're not talking to a non techie and start thinking on their own initiative and understand the diagnosis you have already performed. It skips about an hour of rubbish they would have had you perform.
They're also happy if you're able to remove the parts yourself to trade with the delivery man when he turns up so that they don't always have to send an engineer.
Or in the case of my laptop they come with the part and fitted it there and then under warranty. I had the screen die on me, thankfully on this occasion 1 month before warranty ran out.

A lesser known company I've also dealt with are RackServers.com.
Even though we hadn't paid for 4 hour response, we had a new server turn up which had issues with storage. They turned up about 3 hours after reporting it basically with a clone of the server so that they would replace the correct parts where required. As with our case it wasn't obvious what part was causing it.
Highly recommended for companies where fast and critical turn arounds are required!

[firewrath9]

EVGA has amazing customer support, great RMA service, and a very lenient warranty

[Scryder]

Amazon by far beats anyone else online when it comes to customer service (that I've used anywayts). They'll replace right away, no questions asked and BEFORE you return the product. I like that they trust me to return the product and they treat you like a reliable customer and not someone looking to scam them! I like this attitude. Their service in general is brilliant as well. Which is why even though they're a giant, and I'd prefer to support someone smaller... I still love Amazon. As no one beats them IMO in what they do.
One negative is when they use Hermes for deliveries... they claimed they attempted delivery, but we were home and didn't hear the doorbell, knocking or see a note... someone's telling porkies. As the ones delivered by Amazon Logistics and Royal Mail turned up on the same day before AND after Hermes claimed they tried to deliver. They might want to check their external delivery people! EDIT: So Hermes did deliver just a while ago. So I'll retract what I said here, as initially the tracker said I need to contact Hermes to arrange delivery....

Unlike with Scan who I RMA'd my Blu-Ray drive, FIRST I had to find a store that did DPD, then it was stuck at that store for a few days before finally picked up. Then had to wait till they received it before sending a replacement! - even with the 48-hour replacement - I know it says it's after they received it, but still... making things hard for me means I'll rather not use you in the future! I had the same experience when RMA'ing my wireless headset (the receiver was faulty. It was a pain in the arse to find a store that did DPD. And even though the second one also had faults (the headband cracked, so it never fit correctly) I didn't bother RMAing the second one... as who knows what fault the third one will have!

[QuorTek]

Razer, but uhm that is because the stuff they sell, do not live up to the reputation they once had for both quality and stuff that would last for years.. never dealt with their customer service or whatever, but had to replace 3 of their Mouses over a period of 3 months, and enough was enough, mostly because their products usually lasted 1-2 years for me... in general every company that has crap quality items or hyped up to be awesome and then break... just hit the bad list for me, and the list is short.