Do business class warranties work for layman users?

Advance warning! A bit of a long post

A lot of people say "Business support is good." But I'm curious about how it works for layman consumers. People on this forum are probably more experienced with support then I, so hopefully you can help.

I've worked with Dell business (for Latitude and Optiplex) support before and had fairly good experiences. Usually I knew exactly what the problem was and so the support calls were short. The nice part of this was the support agent never assumed I was clueless (no scripts!) and things were resolved fairly quickly. Even when I was stumped, I was able to follow instructions and run diagnostics easily, and the overall experience was positive.

Based on my experiences I've told people (few have listened) to buy business line products or buy consumer products through the business division.

However, many people are not IT savvy and they don't care to be because they've got other priorities in life. They cannot diagnose problems and they quickly lose patience if given too many instructions over the phone. More importantly, they may not be able to accurately describe the issue they are having.

How do these people experience business level support? Are their experiences positive? Are the support agents trained to work with average consumer?

I've always wondered why business class laptops are not sold in local consumer (e.g. Best Buy) level stores. I'm sure part of the reason is price, but maybe Dell/HP/Lenovo business don't want to deal with a "typical" consumer because that would take too much time (per call) and investment?

I'm somewhat at the point now where I'm starting to see a lot of value in Apple's system of stores and manned support desks. They can really focus on consumer level stuff and laypeople have somebody they can sit down with for technical support.

Anybody else have any thoughts on this? I'm not necessarily looking for specific answer, but just more insight into all of this.

Thanks!

 

The short reason why business class isn't sold via retail outlets? Money.

The long answer: Some business laptops come with a 3 year warranty included in the base price, and that would make it infinitely harder to sell extended warranties (which have a high markup). Also people see those kind of laptops as overpriced (considering the average Joe schmoe walks into a retail store and buys a 500 dollar laptop, I don't think they'll be inclined to buy a 1600 dollar W520 or 3000 dollar M6600). We had an X300 at our store (Microcenter) and it was I think 2500 dollars. We never sold it, and eventually it dropped to about 1200 dollars for it to sell. My workplace is starting to carry entry level business laptops now (Dell's Vostro, Lenovo's ThinkPad Edge, HP Probook) but never any mainstream and professional mobile workstations.

Case in point; government/large corporations have business accounts with HP/Dell/Lenovo so they buy all their laptops through those accounts. Consumers go to retail stores to buy consumer laptops.

 

I certainly agree there are many business class laptops which are too expensive for the typical consumer store.

But what about the laptops (Vostro, Probook, Thinkpad Edge) that are similarly priced? I've seen the Vostro and it looks much less like a cheap POS than many of the similarly priced consumer laptops from Dell.

Beyond that, what about the X220 and T420? Decently configured versions of these can be purchased for under $900. If Lenovo chopped the warranty down to 1 year (which they do if you order directly from their website), the price could be even lower.

And I just don't believe there isn't a good space in the consumer segment for the X220. I'll use where I live as *very limited* evidence.

I live in a place that has three big universities in the surrounding area. The local bookstores always have students there. Go to the major bookstores and you'll see plenty of Thinkpads. It's fairly common to see X and T series laptops.

These people can buy these laptops at their university bookstore. The fact that they could actually see them and play with them meant they realized they exist. So they purchased them.

Are the people who go into Best Buy/Microcenter/Frys so different from these students? I was a student once, and it never seemed like students, in general, were big spenders. So I don't see them as being all that different from the typical consumer - However, I'm not an expert and could be wrong.

 

See the unfortunate thing is people see business class notebooks as visually unappealing, not to their standards, as well as having lesser specs for the money than a consumer notebook. They fail to realize that notebook construction, business class warranties, as well as having features such as a matte screen, non-chicklet keyboard, roll cage add $$$.

I always tell people to buy business class notebooks, just on the note of finding parts and ease of service vs consumer.

We were supposed to get the X220 and T420 in our store, as promised by our Lenovo rep, but this was like...April/June since I last saw them..

Unfortunately also alot of consumers just buy the cheapest crap out in the store. I can tell you, we easily sell 40-50 notebooks a day that are under 350 dollars. These have bottom of the barrel 16:9 15.6" LCD screens, rubbish construction (rubbish hinges, chassis flexes, the works of consumer crap), and overall I think they are unappealing besides the price. Of course everything leads back to consumer notebooks vs business notebooks.

 

I see it more of an issue of profit margin. Business notebooks have much less of a profit margin than the consumer notebooks. It just wouldn't be profitable or feasible to sell them in retail outlets along side their other models. That $350 notebook that Tsunade_Hime is talking about was probably manufactured at a total cost of under $250. Then you have to think about cannibalization. Sitting a $600 i5 Vostro next to a $700-900 comparably spec'd Inspiron or XPS just isn't wise from a business perspective. The Vostro will have better build quality, equal or better specs, and a lower price... it just won't look as flashy.

Personally, I think all the business notebooks look the best. Consumer Dell notebooks are just bleh. Business notebooks are understated, with classy design... and often times MUCH MUCH MUCH more rugged than the consumer notebooks.

 

Really! I didn't know that. I'd be really curious to see some of the numbers from a major retailers. I'd be curious to see what percentage of sales come from different price segments.

I hadn't really thought about the profit margin part.

I also agree with you that many business notebooks look a lot better than the consumer counterparts. The Vostro vs Dell consumer stuff is an easy example. Even the current XPS line looks pretty cheap when you see it in real life.

It would be interesting to talk to a Dell (or some other company) about this to get some real data on how much support costs them.

 

Well sure EVERYTHING is about profit. Businesses don't exist to sell things, they exist to make $$$. If they lost money on product they sold, they wouldn't be in business for very long.

My side probably again goes for business vs consumer. Business laptops are better build for the traveling/working business person. Matte screens, decent keyboards, reinforced hinges, some sort of chassis reinforcement, better construction materials. On top of business class warranties, they offer on-site repair, which most consumer models cannot get. On top of that, you can find parts for business laptops for MUCH longer than consumer ones, and consumer models change nearly every single year.

Of course what the average joe schmoe buys won't affect business sales, that's for consumer side. Again the average consumer buys the cheapest laptop to do basic word processing/email or gaming, CAD work for a fair amount of college students (at least from my prospective at my job).

 

Coming from a consumer class laptop and using the business line, I'd say the level of support is staggeringly different.

I don't have to mail in anything for repair or exchanges, nor do they question me when I truthfully say that I have done everything to get this laptop fixed.

No questions asked, replacement request is put in, and BAM. Replacement overnighted to me.

Found out that the video card was downgraded, asked them if I could give up my CPU RAM and HDD for a GPU upgrade, they simply say we'll have the GPU sent to the tech and he'll just replace it for you, just keep the rest as a bonus for your troubles.

Business class warranties really are outstanding, not only because of the length but because of the quality they are willing to put into the business support line. It is simply the best warranty experience I have ever had, I am never buying a consumer line laptop again. (I feel so spoiled.)

 

Well, I've never had to go through the wonderful experience of haggling with Dell consumer support, but I've messed with business support enough, and I think overall it's not a bad experience.

For what it's worth, I've basically been able to get any part I've wanted given that I have 1) a suitable warranty, and 2) a suitable part to return, and generally with minimal hassle.

You can take that for what it's worth, obviously everyone's experience is different. I always go through chat, too.

 

Most people (me included) would agree with you. But everybody I've talked too about their business support experiences is also fairly computer savvy.

This changes Dell's support strategy quite a bit. What percentage of calls do they get where the problems have already been investigated and properly diagnosed? What percentage are the typical consumer level questions that require a lot of hand-holding and guidance to troubleshoot?

Is Dell business support interested in those consumer level questions, or would they rather avoid them?

I'll provide an example from my own experience. I used to work for a big company with a big IT support system. It was understood that a lot of day to day computer problems were fairly basic, but many take up a lot of time because the user would need personal guidance from a tech. So the Level 1 techs were mostly part-time and low paid. We sent them to look at typical user problems.

It simply made no sense, from a time/cost perspective, to sent a Level 2 (or above) person to work with average Joe employee. Also, the higher ranked IT employees would probably be terrible at helping layman users

That's sort of what I'm getting at when asking if business warranties work for layman users.