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Dell, IBM Top Survey of Notebook Customer Satisfaction

Annual survey polls corporate buyers on service and support, total cost of ownership.

By Nancy Weil, PCWorld   

IBM once again topped the customer satisfaction list in nearly every area, but Dell made serious gains, Technology Business Research found in its fifth consecutive quarterly Corporate IT Buying Behavior and Customer Satisfaction Study.

Technology Business Research, which specializes in competitive analysis of computing vendors, surveyed 200 respondents who have buying authority at the corporate or division level for large U.S. corporations. Most of the respondents were MIS directors who purchase or lease at least 500 systems yearly.

While IBM customers gave the company%squots notebooks lower marks for total cost of ownership, volume discounts, and delivery time compared with other categories, they did not rate any area as weak. They did, however, rate long-term reliability and durability lower this quarter compared to the last quarter, Technology Business Research said in a statement today.

Customer satisfaction scores %dquotdeclined substantially%dquot among Compaq users compared to the previous quarter, the statement said. Services areas--technical support response, global service and support, and repair time--showed sharp drops. The study found the company%squots major weaknesses compared to competitors are in product design, technical support, global services and support, repair time, overall hardware quality, and price/performance.

Toshiba users again reported below average scores for technical support response, global service and support, repair time, and total cost of ownership. But the company picked up points over the previous quarter for on-time reliable delivery, availability, and price/performance. Still, compared to the competition, price/performance remains a Toshiba weakness.