Computer Service

Inspired by linking through Shamus Young's stories of bad HP experiences, observe the new...

Google Customer Service Metric!

(Yes, I just made it up. Nevertheless...)

1. Google (or whatever search engine you prefer) for name of computer manufacturer customer service. Let n equal the number of results on the first page.
   
2. Find the first result for a customer service or support page from the manufacturer. Let the number of that result be a. (If the result does not appear on the first page, a = ∞, and n/a = 0)
   
3. Count the number of positive reviews in the results. (Count anecdotes of surprisingly good service as positive reviews. Feel free to assign fractional points at your discretion – this is far from an objective measure. No more than one point per result.) Let that number be b.
   
4. Count the number of negative reviews in the results. (Count 'horror stories' as negative reviews – same caveats.) Let that number be c.
   
5. Calculate the score S as follows:
   S = n/a + b - c
   S will be in the range -n to 2n-1.
   

Based on a May 2, 2007 survey, therefore, with n = 10:

• Apple scores an unsurprising 8, whereas Mac specifically scores 10 (chiefly due to the many non-Apple hits).
  
• Compaq takes a hit right out of the gate, as the first result is from a third party. (Probably mostly because Compaq is HP.) Net score: 2 (Ew!).
  
• Dell earns a pathetic 5, having not a single positive review.
  
• Gateway manages not to have its customer service link first despite having the first hit – said first hit is a 404, in fact. And it needed those five points. 0, and that's generous.
  
• HP apparently anticipated my methods and clogged the first page of results with many, many internal hits. 8, with both non-hp.com hits being negative reviews. Hewlett Packard gets a 9, same story.
  
• IBM is apparently out of the home computer market altogether – neither its support page nor reviews of any sort in the first ten hits. 0, in case anyone still has an old IBM box.
  
• You might think Sony would get out the same way IBM did, by having irrelevant hits on the first page, but you'd be wrong. 8, ignoring camera complaints. 6, including.
  
• Toshiba, astonishingly, earns a 10 – +2 and -2 – although these are mostly camera results. I guess they aren't so much PC people these days.