QOTD: How Important is Good Tech Support?

Tech support is not an issue I consider when buying a computer. I reakon most people who frequent this site probable perfer to be their own tech support themselves.
I posted yesterday about what a terrible experience I had with Dell "tech support". I still went ahead and bought another laptop off of them when it came time to upgrade.

Tech support isn't a great importance to me. As long as there's google and tech forums you can normally get most of the help you require without killing your phone bill.

i have never needed tech support, as i have never bought a branded system in my life for my standard system.

as for my laptop, again, dont need support most of the time as if there is a problem then i will normally correct it. but when it comes to rma then yes, availability of tech support would be benificial.

Never used tech support besides calling microsoft when oem key is not accepted after computer rebuild. also never used warranty either except when doa.

I wish I could get discounts for that. Some people pay for extended warranty extra so why cannot I get discount for opting out of support and warranty. All I need is warranty for month that I get from retailer, I don't need manufactures warranty as I never save receipts, And could not be bothered to pay for posting faulty goods or wait over a month to get them back.

I have a friend who has sent his Asus laptop 4 times for warranty in less then Year each time paying for recorded shipping and waiting over a month totalling at about £100 for shipping not including time and petrol to get it packaged and trip to post office. And more then half of the time he owned laptop it have been away for warranty repairs. They even replaced good working cd drive with lesser model. WHAT A JOKE.

Only way I see warranty andd tech support working is from the local company where You can walk in and get it sorted immediatly.

For support, like most here I can do it myself when its PC parts.

Replacement of big items like monitors is important. Ship me a new one next day please.

I Personally would build my own machine and porvide support myself. in regards to customers that come to me about business and IT integration. Then I think a good level of support is required. I am too expensive for them to call me and the cheapest support is ussually with the hardware vendor. Especially when it comes to laptops or desktops. The after care support for Hardware is key, so a company that can provide on-site support and warranty for 3 years covers the main requirements of a service. Most tech support are good if they need to cover generic problems. If they have to go outside there comfort zone they the support becomes more fragemented.

Hardware support should be able to be supplied by Vendor.

Software support can be supplied by Hardware is supplied with Hardware Vendor, but recommend providing an independant.

As an aside, when I worked in a repairs centre I saw an amazingly stupid return. It was a laptop where the screen had a circular area roughly 2 inches wide in the middle wher the pixels had "browned out", they still worked but the image was fuzzy and the colours faded. The only give away was the casing on the back of the screen had a small discolouration as well.

After we failed to locate the cause we decided to ask daft questions of the customer. We found he had used a candle on his desk, and opened the lid with the candle behind it, it had left a heatspot that went through the lid and onto the screen.

The bigger the company the more sales you make, the more stupid people send back machines to service centres with ridiculous faults that the engineer knows are chargable non-warranty but cannot prove.

never called tech support... in fact when I was specifically asked to at my previous job - they've either diagnosed the same issue as I did or nothing at all... The worst thing is reading through the bloody script by someone in Asia and not giving a f.... about what I SAY to them... When someone asks me to do a ping although I've mentioned that DNS is working fine, the timeouts are random and the connection breaks on the physical layer as the router and OS does not experience any issues... that's just plain silly. Another stupid thing is when they ALWAYS confirm ALL contact details before hand...? What is the point? If I have their number - that means I am their customer - why confirm all these details? It just blocks the line and the operator for another client and cost money... Useless... Either way - technical supports are usually crap. As for the Apple's support - Power management settings? Just go to "Preferences and change them". another screen? Same plus connect the screen - why would that represent average Joe's problems? I don't get it... Why wouldn't they resolve a silly yet very often problem - connecting to the internet? I wonder how would apple's "geniuses" do then? Trying to explain to a brainless customer "that buying apple's product does not mean he/she would get internet access automatically"...
Anyway - let's just give up and shout with the others - "yes apple's best at everything they do - everything else is crap - let's buy their ancient crap"... I am getting fedup with apple's presence on this site... I thought it's "Toms Hardware Guide" not "Someone's old crap Guide"...