Letters to PC World, March 2003

PC World in the Beginning

When I recently looked again at the premiere issue of PC World, I noted the advancements in hardware and software over the past 20 years. For example, a 5MB hard drive was advertised for $1995. If prices per megabyte had remained the same, only Bill Gates could have afforded to buy my new 60GB drive. The articles back then were as informative as they are today. The only sad part of this nostalgic trip was remembering the loss of your late founding editor, Andrew Fluegelman. As I recollect, he initiated the shareware concept. It's hard to imagine what will fill the pages of your magazine 20 years from now.

Allen Clewell, via the Internet

Systemax Replies

We appreciate the opportunity to address certain inaccuracies in the December 2002 article "You Call This Service?"

The article states that Systemax was focused on original equipment manufacturers, when in fact only 15 percent of our PC sales are nonbranded. The other 85 percent are sold with a Systemax nameplate. Also, the article states that our initial success was from the sale of "generic" PCs. This is untrue and should have been corrected prior to publication.

As part of our total commitment to quality customer service, we survey all our customers on an ongoing basis to get their opinions on their experience when calling our technical support hotline. Our surveys show significantly different results from those of PC World. Overall, our statistics show our representatives answer calls in an average of 23 seconds. In our October/November 2002 survey, 1199 respondents reported that:

• 84 percent of the calls were answered in less than 5 minutes; 93 percent, in less than 10 minutes.
  
  
• 95 percent rated the knowledge of the tech support rep as good or excellent.
  
  
• 95 percent rated the attitude of the rep as good or excellent.
  
  
• 90 percent stated that the rep tried everything possible to resolve the problem.
  
  
• 91 percent rated their overall satisfaction as good or excellent.
  
  

Systemax takes customer support very seriously; we analyze our numbers internally and verify them using customer surveys. At Systemax, we stand behind the quality of our products 100 percent.

Chris Archer, VP of Customer Support, Systemax

Why Tech Support Is Poor

In your article "You Call This Service?" I found this quote:

"'When we hire reps, we look for people with good customer-service skills first,' says James Sherin, an account manager at Alorica, the company that operates the Emachines call center. 'We can teach them technology,' he adds."

This is one reason PC service is poor. For instance, would this statement make sense? "When we hire reps, we look for people with good customer-service skills first. We can teach them medicine."

To give better overall PC service, companies should hire technicians--then teach them customer-service skills.

James Warren, via the Internet

PC-Damaging Copy Protection

In January's Letters, Paul Sarran wonders about copy-protected discs crashing or damaging PCs. This concern is no longer hypothetical--I just had my first encounter with a copy-protected audio CD.

The disc's proprietary player prevents tracks from being copied or used in a portable player. On first use in a PC, without asking for permission, the player performs system changes, including a reload of audio drivers, requiring a reboot--and as a result, I lost my audio card.

A "Copy Protected" label was on the packaging, but no further warning.

Robert Walker, West Milford, New Jersey

Keep Legacy Ports and Drives

Don't be stupid, PC makers. Keep your legacy ports and floppy disk drives ["Disappearing Ports and Drives," in "What's Hot for 2003," January].

I run a high school computer lab filled with IMacs. Nearly every day, students need to use floppy disks for their files. IMacs don't have floppy drives, so we must use an external drive on a USB port.

Why buy a computer without serial ports and/or floppy drives if your peripherals and floppies need them?

Jim Long, Victorville, California

MSN 8 vs. AOL 8

When i tried to install MSN 8 recently, it wreaked havoc on my PC ["AOL and MSN: Duel at 8," New Products, January]. I was told that it had a problem with Windows Me, that it couldn't run with AOL on the same PC, and that I must try MSN 7.

AOL may have improved spam blocking, but it informs the blocked sender of the refusal (confirming the e-mail address is valid), and one is limited in the number of blockable senders--perhaps 100.

Leigh W. Lockwood, Doylestown, Pennsylvania