[_Bat_]

I know Acer aren't a good company from past experience with their products, but I have had two of their machines HDD's die on me recently. The machines are still under warranty so I phoned up Acer Technicial Support to get them fixed.

The guy on the phone sounded very annoyed when he first answered but I ignored it and explained the problem and where I was calling from. Like normal, he didn't believe what I was telling him that the HDD was broken, but thats normal for technical support so I went through all the usual questions with him. He asked if I had tried using the restore CDs that come with the machine. I explained that as we are a school we don't work quite like that, but yes, I had tried to re-image the machine and it won't even detect the HDD. He didn't understand what I was saying and kept mentioning the restore CDs, but eventually he sighed and bypassed that question totally.

Then it comes to the serial numbers - now the acer serial numbers are 22 characters long and the machines are locked under the desk in a dark area. I haven't got the keys to remove the machines yet so I had to crawl under in the dark and attempt to write down the serial numbers before I phoned them. I started reading it out to him but he stopped me almost immediately saying that it was wrong and I could tell he was getting annoyed. I tried starting again but again he stopped me. So I walked all the way to the other end of the school to the machines in question and got underneath the desk so I could read directly from the back of the computer, which was very difficult I was in a very awkward position and he was sighing all the time I was walking there. Then he started getting annoyed that I wasn't using phonetic alphabet - well i'm sorry, I don't work with the phonetic alphabet often. He is sitting in an office with his phone and computer directly in front of him, most likely with the phonetic alphabet nearby. I'm lying on the floor with my mobile in one hand under a dark desk with a computer that is broken (not to mention attached to the desk with a very short cable so it is difficult to turn) and a trying to read a serial number that is in about font size 5, at completely the other end of the school to where my own computer is.

Eventually we got the correct serial number after several repetitions, which incidently was exactly the same one I had written down. Then he asked for the post code. I don't know the school post code, I usually check the school address on my computer when this question is asked, but now of course I am at the other end of the school! Asking people nearby was no help, so I had to walk all the way back to my own computer and google the school name to find out the post code. By now I could tell he was positively fuming and he was raising his voice. It was probably a good job because a load of kids had just come into the ICT Suite and I could hardly hear what he was saying.

Then it comes to my e-mail address... now trying to read an e-mail address that ends with @theoval.bham.sch.uk over the phone is not an easy task when the person on the other end of the line has never seen the address before. Out of habit I pronounced 'sch' as 'school', but immediately corrected myself and he positively exploded saying "Okay, so please tell me, is it "school" or is it S-C-H". By this time I was getting annoyed myself, the kids were getting extremely loud and he was speaking so fast that I couldn't understand what he was saying. He asked if the machine has any windows passwords - why? I have no idea, the HDD is dead. I explained that the computer was part of a domain, besides, it doesn't even matter!

Eventually he explained what I needed to do to get the machines back to them, but I couldn't understand him because he was talking so fast and the kids were so loud. He said at the end "now would you like me to e-mail you that information?" I said yes, because I hadn't heard it anyway. He told me it had been sent. I hung up and checked my e-mail. Have I got it? No! He must have typed it in wrong. Now i'm not sure whether I am supposed arrange to have it sent to them or whether they arrange to have it picked up.

[Quackers]

We always buy Acer when it comes to laptops because the phone support is SO good. I refuse to buy HP and DELL because of the indian call centers that drive me mad. I have found with Acer they are friendly they have UK call centers, they send a text message to say your product is on it was back to you after repair. Could not ask for better support. I think you must have had a bad egg.

[danIT]

In my opinion Acer have always had terrible tech support! just what i have experienced!

[_Bat_]

Originally Posted by Quackers

We always buy Acer when it comes to laptops because the phone support is SO good. I refuse to buy HP and DELL because of the indian call centers that drive me mad. I have found with Acer they are friendly they have UK call centers, they send a text message to say your product is on it was back to you after repair. Could not ask for better support. I think you must have had a bad egg.

Meh, I'm not so annoyed about him being rude, he did have to wait a little bit, even though it wasn't really my fault - I'd have quite happily used phonetic alphabet had I been at my computer. It's the fact that I now have no idea what I am supposed to do. I'm going to e-mail them and find out what I need to do.

[Dos_Box]

Originally Posted by Quackers

We always buy Acer when it comes to laptops because the phone support is SO good. I refuse to buy HP and DELL because of the indian call centers that drive me mad. I have found with Acer they are friendly they have UK call centers, they send a text message to say your product is on it was back to you after repair. Could not ask for better support. I think you must have had a bad egg.

The phone support is OK, but the actual hardware support is awful. They had a mission critical laptop of ours for 3 months!! For a touchpad to be replaced! That's a quarter of a year. They may make good laptops, but I would never recommend them because of the poor support we have received from them in the past.
Yes, Dell and HP is frustrating spelling out every email adress and your name 3 times over, but at least someone shows up next day and fixes your problem.

[AlexB]

Acer's support wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to keep using it. I have to ring them far more than any other manu and I only have 3 acer products...

[petectid]

Originally Posted by Dos_Box

Yes, Dell and HP is frustrating spelling out every email adress and your name 3 times over, but at least someone shows up next day and fixes your problem.

I had to phone HP on Wednesday this week as we had a system die after two days use, not unusual to have a system fail like this, having purchased 65 I always expect an early failure or even two.

I do not mind dealing with any call centre wherever they are in the world, at least the call centres in India have polite agents and in my experience they do not loose there temper.

They arranged for the repair to be made and I got a call from a company called Ikon the following day. I wasn't pleased as we have next business day cover so I was expecting an engineer not a phone call telling me that they did not have the parts and would phone me on Monday to arrange a date for the engineers visit. We pay quite a bit extra for next business day cover so I'm not impressed that we cannot actually get that as HP's parts distribution service can not supply parts for it.

It does not matter who you purchase from we are only small fish and they do not seem to appreciate our custom.

[CHR1S]

I know this is going to sound picky but dont you have an audit of all the PC names and serial numbers? Id pester you NM for access to it if you have, it will make your life alot easier and a lot less under desk activity free

Also I have had no problems with Acer support in the past, only had a slightly extended wait for a laptop back.

[Geoff]

If your NM doesn't have such a list your admin people should. They need it for insurance purposes.

[eejit]

Always takes forever to get through to their support people too - 45 min at least from my experience.

[john]

Originally Posted by petectid

I had to phone HP on Wednesday this week as we had a system die after two days use, not unusual to have a system fail like this, having purchased 65 I always expect an early failure or even two.

I do not mind dealing with any call centre wherever they are in the world, at least the call centres in India have polite agents and in my experience they do not loose there temper.

They arranged for the repair to be made and I got a call from a company called Ikon the following day. I wasn't pleased as we have next business day cover so I was expecting an engineer not a phone call telling me that they did not have the parts and would phone me on Monday to arrange a date for the engineers visit. We pay quite a bit extra for next business day cover so I'm not impressed that we cannot actually get that as HP's parts distribution service can not supply parts for it.

It does not matter who you purchase from we are only small fish and they do not seem to appreciate our custom.

Ikon are HPs repair partner so its normal to hear from them, and the same with parts, its crazy! I have given over buying NBD carepacks are it never works, its always 3 days before they get repaired and parts so its not worth it at all.

[Andrew_C]

What amazes me about your story is that you got ANY tech support out of the ******. You wouldn't believe the strife I had over the "Duff Capacitors Issue" a few years back... 3/4 of an hour waiting for them to pick up the 'king phone wasn't unusual.

[eejit]

who are the ****** you are referring to Andrew_C? Acer? I didn't know that they got affected by the capacitor problem.

[maniac]

We regualarly deal with HP support for our servers, and DELL support for some of our desktops, and we do it all online.

e.g HP server had a disk fail, we simply put the server serial number in, tell them what the problem is, and a new drive turns up by courier the next day. Ocassionally they will call to confirm the problem, or ask additional details, but they're usually quite prompt about it.

We also had a dell machine where the power supply failed (well ok it was switched to 110v by a kid, but Dell didn't know that!) again did it all online, engineer there the next day with all the right bits. Must say I'm impressed with the online warrenty system from both companies, as it works well!

Acer support on the other hand, I won't even go there again. I'm put off them for life, like many others on here had bad experiences with their support, they don't (or didn't last time I looked) have an online service, so on hold for long periods of time is the only way!

Mike.

[john]

I will agree with you on the web logging for HP, I get the parts mostly next day if I do it that way, but its when a machines eating Motherboard that you actually want an engineer to "check" that your not having a senior moment but then you end up waiting 3 days for it then get the wrong motherboard etc... So it just goes on and on.