PC World Health Check

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by Shaun

You many not be able to tar each member of staff but you can have a bad opinion of a company. I certainly do.

but how can the company be bad if 1 person gets good service and another doesnt

[Strzelecki]

A PC healthcheck, whether you've paid for it specifically or it's as part of you PC Performance package is allocated a 2 hour time slot on a central booking system. Techs at the store are meant to print out the healtchecks that are meant to be for that day and mark them off when they arrive. On a week day slots start at 9am and overlap by and hour (i.e 9-11 and 10-12) so you'd need at least 2 techs (who know what they're doing) working to get them all done. How ever this rarely happens as it is very hard to do a good thorough cleanup in 2 hours, no matter what machine you have, a virus scan alone can take more than 2 hours and uses a lot of the machines resources. I'm afraid to say it's not really the people who work at the store who can be blamed, most of the stuff is out of their control. A majority of healtchecks are booked via the call centre in Sheffield (not run by DSG) by people who a paid purely to answer phones, they don't actually know what they're doing most of the time (we always have numerous double bookings), the diary system doesn't help either, it gives no flexibility for overlap. Plus if a customer brings in a machine late then that can throw everything off course. We are given software which we have to use (unless it fails to install on a machine) that is basically a 'fill in the boxes, tick the answers, run the scanners kind of thing, that then generates a report and sticks it on the desktop (you should have that at least rovert?). Where I work we create this report but also type up a brief one on the store booking system, print off 2 copies, one for the customer and one for the records, that way disputes are a lot easier to rectify. Also our customer service staff are told to explain the report when they give back a machine.
Maybe I'm lucky, I gained all the knowledge I have before I started working there and have a genuine interest in computers. I also hate not finishing a job, I don't trust anyone else! I think Stoke store may be lucky too as it has a few good techs and some dedicted customer service people but we still suffer the novice problem. I think it's a combination of stores finding it hard to fill positions, average pay and interviewing being done by managers for positions they know little about. You all complain, but why do you buy stuff from there?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

but how can the company be bad if 1 person gets good service and another doesnt

I agree, you get good and bad staff in any company. Look at NTL for proof of that.

The problem is with PC World is that the staff they employ are good sales people, but not so good at the technical support. Two examples. My boss, when he first started his degree, didn't know an awful lot about PCs. He bought an old 486 PC off his mate, that (for some reason) had no onboard IDE connectors, only SCSI. He needed a larger hard drive, went into PC world and asked about SCSI hard drives. He was told that he shouldn't be bothering with SCSI as it was yesterday's technology and about to be phased out in favour of IDE.

Another example. I went in PC World a couple of years ago, looking for a DVD writer. Now, compatibility with DVD Set top boxes was important to me, so I asked for either a DVD +/-R/RW combo drive or a DVD-R/RW drive. The guy told me I should not be considering any drive with -R as +R was better for everything (BTW, +R is better for most things, but not where compatibility with set top players is needed). We actually argued for several minutes, until I walked out.

The final thing that puts me off PC World tech support. I know a girl who was a section manager for that section in one of their stores, and she freely admits she knew almost nothing about computers..


Regarding their "Healthcheck" service? Well, it doesn't seem to achieve much that can't be achieved by running a good virus scanner, adaware, spybot, Microsoft AntiSpyware amd occasionally running the disk cleanup wizard.

They do seem good at causing problems while cleaning up your PC though..

[rovert]

Nothing on the desktop by way of report but that's hardly surprising given the other shortcomings discovered from this experience!

[AndrewJ]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

here we go again , you cant tar them all with the same brush , like i said before , good and bad in all

Yes but there is a minority which are okay, but these are very few and PCworld is working on "improving" it's techincal staff.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by AndrewJames

Yes but there is a minority which are okay, but these are very few and PCworld is working on "improving" it's techincal staff.

I presume that you know all PCWorld staff personally and know all their capabilities?

It is absolute crap to brand the majority of an organisations staff based on your own very limited experience and a few comments made here and there. It's just like the branding of NTL employees that some members engage in.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by El Reg

PC World's parent company was left red-faced and considering its legal options this week after it was found guilty of mis-selling computer equipment. A Yorkshire court heard how buyers were fooled into thinking that they were getting new computer equipment while they were - in fact - not only getting secondhand kit, and in one case a laptop with a long history of trouble.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/200...puters_as_new/

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

but how can the company be bad if 1 person gets good service and another doesnt

Easily, if I receive bad service from a company consistently then as the customer my image of the company is tainted. Doesn't matter if it's the norm or not, I'll not go back to them if I can help it. I think you'll find this is how many people are.

[NitroNutter]

The real truth is your average household PC owner is really out of their league.
They have driven profit margins to a minimul low, and many really do not have a clue but are not willing to pay the price for their lack of knowledge.
PC maintenance can and generally is more time consuming than that of your car. The expertise and knowledge required to perform it to a respectable standard is way above.

Heres a prime example you average PCWorld health check cost £50 but that would not cover the cost of a full scandisk check on a lonesome 160GB hard drive which can take hours alone.
Garages charge by the hour, the majority would not pay that towards their PC.

This time round the fault is down to consumer demand, by demanding over and above what a market can provide for the prices offered.

In reality this is more what the PC market should look like

Base system bare minimum £3000
Hardware is covered by a warranty but the consumer would have to subscribe to a maintenance contract, which would then include a quartely visit to perform a health check that will take at least an entire day.

You cannot get this level of service in todays PC market prices so dont expect it.

Else the other option is know your system inside out, build it from scratch, know what its all about and what you dont know but think you need to know find it out.

Originally Posted by NitroNutter

Heres a prime example you average PCWorld health check cost £50 but that would not cover the cost of a full scandisk check on a lonesome 160GB hard drive which can take hours alone.
Garages charge by the hour, the majority would not pay that towards their PC.

A mech has to be working at the car the duartion the works done I can sleep or go out or fix a dif pc while scan disc is running i certainly won't be sat there

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

A mech has to be working at the car the duartion the works done I can sleep or go out or fix a dif pc while scan disc is running i certainly won't be sat there

fix automatically is not allways the best option, therefore you need to be at hand at least for any prompts that pop up. Yes in a store workshop you could get involved in other tasks else where but if its a home visit you cant.

If i was doing a full scan disc it would be in dos searching for bad sectors and trying to recover which on a large hdd will take hours,a job that required this would be taken into workshop not attempted in the home

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

If i was doing a full scan disc it would be in dos searching for bad sectors and trying to recover which on a large hdd will take hours,a job that required this would be taken into workshop not attempted in the home

Workshop or home you still need to be around to deal with any prompts.
now add:
memtest86 2 pass minimum
check all drivers and hardware inc ports are operational
speed test the hdd to verify its operating in the correct mode
full virus and trojan scan ( 2 programs)
full anti spyware scan (2 programs)
a reg inspector and cleaner
a full defrag
check directx with dx diagnostix inc all tests
run a cuple of benchmarks and stress tests.
usually a customer would also mention a specific problem which will need investigating

PCWorld health check £50 2 hour slot ? Its like going to a car wash where they offer a full valet for a fiver. It cant be delivered so you would not get it.

Ok you have stretched a clean up to a full system diagnostic,There would have to be faults other just a slow down to have to root so deep for a problem.

[NitroNutter]

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...d&tm=undefined

looking at the basic description there:
remove memtest86 drop the bad block test with scandisk
the rest of my list is directly related to system slow down and optimisation

but also add the extra benchmarks I wouldnt bother with that should be included as theres a 50 point performance test with the PCWorld health check.

Still adds up to way way way over 2 hours and cannot be delivered for the price