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Service with a smile may be closer than you think, says Stephen Wilkinson of Lee, New Hampshire. He buys PCs from a local store called Digital Connections, owned by Steve Endsley, just 20 minutes from his office. When the graphics card in one of Wilkinson's PCs gave out one morning, Digital Connections sent out a tech to replace it within an hour. "You just don't get that kind of service from a big company," says Wilkinson, a physician with a local practice.

Sure, Wilkinson is generalizing. However, we heard similar sentiments from many devotees of mom-and-pop retailers in our latest PC Reliability and Service survey, based on reports from over 27,000 PC World subscribers.

If you're thinking about buying a new computer, this may be an ideal time to shop locally. According to our survey, customer support from the big PC companies is worse than ever. Disgruntled readers say they now wait longer on hold than in the past, and once they get through, their problems more frequently go unresolved. In contrast, customers of local retailers tended to have a better experience: Their calls were picked up promptly, and problems were handled more efficiently. Of course, local stores are not for everyone. Locally built PCs may be less reliable than the well-known national brands in our survey. In addition, you're less likely to get the rock-bottom prices and software goodies that the big brands provide.

Nevertheless, according to local-store fans, those trade-offs are amply repaid by the sterling customer service they receive.

Service Wizards

When it comes to picking up support calls, local stores earn top marks. Among survey respondents who bought their home PC locally, almost 80 percent waited on hold no longer than 5 minutes. Less than 46 percent of owners of big-company home machines could say the same thing. Techies at local stores are more likely to know their stuff, too. (See our survey report for in-depth information.)

At first glance, getting great service from local stores seems illogical. How can a little store beat a big PC company that employs a small army to please customers? Certainly, the face-to-face factor matters. Most of us prefer to deal with someone we know rather than with a faceless phone rep. But there's more to it.

Store owner Steve Endsley points to technician turnover. Whereas the big companies often use temporary workers who are here today, gone tomorrow, Endsley has six employees--four who work full-time on service--and rarely experiences turnover at his 13-year-old shop.

Endsley's phone lines are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days per week (five days in the summer). If no one can handle your call, a message service will page a tech--even after-hours or on weekends.

Customers within a 3-hour drive of Digital Connections qualify for on-site service; obviously, people who are nearby, like Wilkinson, get the fastest response. In contrast, although many big companies such as Dell tout next-day on-site service, getting that service can be a different story (see November's Consumer Watch).

Another store owner takes care not to make promises he can't keep. Shawn Haskins, owner of Computer Brokers in Greeley, Colorado, says he tries to avoid having too few techs for too many customers. Most of his customers are located nearby, and he requires them to bring their PCs to the store for service. That way, techs can work on more PCs at once. But people who really want on-site service can buy it for an extra $50 per year.

Going Local: The Downsides

According to our survey findings, lots of local stores give customers that warm and fuzzy feeling--but not all of them do: PC World editors helped television newsmagazine Dateline NBC investigate complaints about a mom-and-pop-size retailer based in New York. Some customers had reported so-called bait-and-switch tactics: They were drawn to the store initially by compelling PC ads, but they got talked into purchasing more-expensive PCs when the advertised systems weren't available. After examining the systems built by this outfit, the PC World Test Center concluded that the builder was selling shoddily constructed PCs composed of inferior parts and that their performance fell far short of what the advertised systems would have provided.

That's an extreme case, but our survey did find that local-store PCs are less likely to be problem-free: Over 39 percent of local stores' home PC customers encountered at least one faulty component that needed replacing, compared to an average of 29 percent among the big brands.

For PC novices and first-time buyers especially, a series of parts failures can be a nasty surprise. Jean Crossman of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, a real estate office assistant, bought her first home PC locally, based on a neighbor's advice. The three-year-old PC had a lot of parts fail, including the graphics card, the sound card, the floppy drive, and memory. "We thought if we had problems, it would be easier with a local store," Crossman says. But in hindsight she realizes she didn't know enough about the different manufacturers to judge the parts list before she bought.

Why are locally built computers sometimes less reliable? The answer has to do with where local stores buy their parts. To thwart potential reliability hassles, local store shoppers should insist on parts built by reputable manufacturers.

The quality of some parts is the same no matter where you buy, according to Roger Kay, IDC's director of client computing. In other words, a Seagate hard drive you buy from Joe's PCs is as good as the Seagate hard drive you get from Dell.

You face more-complex issues regarding other parts. "With memory and power supplies, you have some smaller manufacturers [whose] quality might not be as good," says Kay. You're more likely to run into gray-market parts. Such parts--typically bought by the PC store from another reseller or online--could be fine. But on the other hand they could be dishonestly labeled or cosmetically damaged generics. Ask stores whether they buy memory and power supplies directly from the manufacturer. If not, that could be a red flag.

Everything from software drivers to the soldering used on motherboards can affect whether PC parts play nicely together, Kay says. Your best strategy: Choose a name-brand motherboard that the local store recommends as its best, and then research it online. Try a keyword search at Tom's Hardware Guide for the company's name. Go to " PC Component Shopping: Resources Galore" for more links and for research advice.

Then there's the matter of price. Almost uniformly, buyers and store owners concur that a local-store PC will cost at least $100 more than a comparably configured Dell or Gateway PC--though that's not always true (see our comparison chart).

What's Right for You

At the end of the day, you must take into account your comfort level, your friends' recommendations, and any past experiences you've had with national PC manufacturers in determining whether you should choose a local retailer.

For buyers like Stephen Wilkinson, the PC shopping process comes down to this: Chances are that you'll have a computer glitch, sooner or later. "When the problems pop up, you have got to decide who you want to deal with," he says.

Remember, local stores live and die by word-of-mouth recommendations, so be sure you ask around. It's the best way to separate the stars from the bad guys.

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