In Westminster, Colorado, Best Buy offered superb service for a disabled CD-ROM audio cable. "When I brought it in (with a crying baby, for realism)," our reporter says, "a tech checked all the settings to make sure it wasn't just a software problem. They charged the minimum diagnostic service fee--$19.99--and threw the cable in for free."

In phone support tests, Best Buy and Computer City were uneven when it came to helpfulness, but all except one CompUSA store treated our reporters with complete courtesy and patience. And several stores from these three chains were easily accessible by telephone. What did the best stores do right? First, they listened carefully. Then they seemed to take a methodical approach and didn't jump to conclusions, ruling out obvious possibilities first, and then moving efficiently to the next steps.

Phone Support: A Cautionary Tale
Unfortunately for consumers, in the real world the right answer counts more than accessibility and kindness--and for phone support, right answers were hardly the norm. Only three stores--Comp-USA's Woburn outlet, and the Best Buy stores in Westminster, Colorado, and West Covina, California--gave us outstanding service, pinpointing the problem with our driver and promptly explaining how to reinstall it. More routinely, we encountered techs who either came up with a time-consuming fix (reinstalling all software from the Compaq QuickRestore CD, which overwrites all data on the hard drive) or were simply stumped.

CompUSA's $24.97 phone support charge may not seem onerous, except when you consider that only three of the chain's five stores solved our problem--and two of those used the marginally acceptable QuickRestore fix. The two other chains, on the whole, were generous with their time. While Best Buy does not officially offer or charge for phone service, its techs still provided phone support when asked. But their advice failed in three of five cases.

Computer City advertises a standard charge of $2.49 per minute for phone support, but four of five stores didn't charge us. Unfortunately, a sweet deal turned sour in three cases, when suggestions from the chain's techs didn't help at all. The Denver outlet made matters worse, advising our reporter to delete an undamaged video driver. RadioShack's lack of phone support means that the chain offers no way for consumers to screen a problem: A simple software glitch could send your computer to the shop for a lengthy and costly stay.

Overall, RadioShack was the least effective chain--generally inefficient and unhelpful, it failed to fix our cable problem three times out of five. Not a single RadioShack store fixed both the cable and the SIMM problems. Two RadioShack stores eked out C ratings--the others flunked. Computer City scored only a bit better: Three stores passed marginally; only one of those fixed both the bad cable and the misplaced SIMM.

CompUSA and Best Buy bettered this record slightly: Nearly all their stores got strong marks for helpfulness, and two stores from each chain performed well on many aspects of the consumer experience. But the rest performed terribly: Only two CompUSA stores fixed both problems; none of the Best Buy shops did so.

Average repair times ranged from about 3 days for Best Buy, to 6 days for CompUSA and 10 days for Computer City. RadioShack averaged more than 14 days per machine. This was primarily due to the chain's cumbersome system of transporting all machines dropped off at local stores to centralized service centers for repair. RadioShack executives have acknowledged this weak spot. (In fairness, the faster chains' stores sometimes suggested that we replace working parts. Had we elected to follow this bad advice, the repair process would have taken longer.)

Worse, when a store botched the cable problem diagnosis, it never ended up fixing it. Our reporter's experience at the CompUSA store in Framingham, Massachu- setts, was alarmingly typical: "Over the telephone, the technician said he'd seen my disk controller failure 'a million times a day' and it meant I needed to replace the hard drive. I really had to wrestle with him to accept the machine for a hands-on diagnosis." When the tech finally relented and agreed to diagnose the problem in the shop, he proceeded to recommend a new motherboard.

That part-replacement mentality quickly became familiar. None of the chains offer commissions that might encourage replacement of serviceable parts, but stores in every chain--three RadioShacks and two from each of the others--tried to convince us to replace parts that were in perfect working order. This could merely have been incompetence. It may also have been deliberate efforts to sell unneeded components or services.

Although our reporter left strict orders with the Best Buy store in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, not to replace any part without permission, the techs went ahead and installed a new motherboard anyway. "On the plus side, they replaced my old motherboard and its 150-MHz Pentium CPU with one using a 166-MHz Pentium," our reporter noted. "The entire process was an exercise in incompetence mixed with what appeared to be good intentions."

After the tech at Best Buy's West Covina, California, store recommended a new hard drive, our reporter did everything he could think of--short of confessing knowledge of the precise solution--to help the store succeed. "How about trying the drive in another system?" our reporter helpfully suggested. The technician's reply: "I didn't hear the hard drive make any noise, you know, like it was working. So it's a goner." He insisted that a new drive would make things as good as new--without mentioning that all data would be lost.

The most perplexing of these cases took place at the RadioShack in Carlsbad, California. The store diagnosed hard disk failure and claimed to have replaced the drive--again, without our permission. When we checked the machine, the old hard drive was still there.

"Our records indicate that a hard drive was sent to Compaq in exchange for the new one," said Bob Kilinski, vice president for service at Tandy, RadioShack's parent corporation. "If the wrong drive was inadvertently sent, Compaq's system is not designed to make that distinction." Kilinski then added, "Such a widespread system [as RadioShack] can experience an individual problem...we always do our best to correct it."

That episode reflected the generally chaotic communications we found at RadioShack. In one case, the service center claimed to have transferred our PC back to the store where we left it, but the store didn't have it. The machine resurfaced a week later.

Fast and Loose With Warranties?
Aside from what appears to be at best an inaccurate claim to have replaced a hard drive, there is another curious aspect to the Carlsbad RadioShack case. It involves warranty repairs. The Compaq PCs used in our investigation were in fact still under warranty. Our reporters, however, identified the machines as being out of warranty, posing as worried consumers who expected to spend their own cash. To our surprise, several stores took the initiative to check directly with Compaq, and learned that the machines were indeed covered. (We authorized only one repair under warranty, although two other stores replaced parts under warranty without our permission. PC World reimbursed Compaq for all warranty expenses the company incurred as a result of this story.)

On the surface, a store's investigating warranty status looks like great service. But each time we encountered this apparently beneficial service, the store urged us to replace perfectly functional parts. You might shrug and think, "If it happened to me, why not go for it?" But a new hard drive means you lose your data. In all three of the cases where parts were replaced under warranty, we were charged for labor, even though the warranty covers labor. And in the long run, manufacturers pass along costs associated with warranty abuse by jacking up PC prices.

RUSH TO JUDGMENT. Many of the stores' technicians made a firm--and incorrect--diagnosis before checking the problem thoroughly. Our reporters had to stand in long lines in many stores; pressure to move machines rapidly through the queue could partly explain the haste.

CARELESSNESS. Lapses in store oversight let bad assessments go forward unchallenged. (According to the Better Business Bureau, computer retail stores rank 7th worst among 327 types of businesses on number of overall complaints; however, the Bureau's data do not distinguish between sales and service problems.)

INEFFICIENCY. Some stores use disorganized or sluggish systems for moving and tracking products and communicating with customers.

"I'm certainly not happy with any report that says customers are getting less than they deserve," said Nathan Morton, chief executive officer of Computer City, a Tandy subsidiary that may soon be spun off as a separate company. "But it's a very high priority for us to get it right."

"I don't challenge the results," said Paul Poyfair, CompUSA's executive vice president for services. "I'm obviously not very pleased." He then said, "We have 1500 techs across the country, and we've typically fared very well, but it's something that keeps [vice president for technical services] Rick Fountain and myself up at night." Poyfair added, "You can be assured that this will be something we focus on."

"Obviously, we're disappointed. It's very disturbing. I've already addressed [PC World's findings] with our people," said Tandy/RadioShack's Kilinski. "On the surface, it looks like someone made an assumption about a product based on past experience rather than checking carefully." But, he added, "we take customers seriously, and we take service seriously."

In defense of their stores, all the executives said that internal customer surveys indicate most people are happy with the service they receive. None of the chains would release the survey data to PC World.

The executives also argued that you can't expect flawless performance--PCs are very complex, and sometimes problems can't be reproduced in the shop, said Computer City's Morton. "But that's not to excuse anything. We want to be right 100 percent of the time."

CompUSA's Poyfair and RadioShack's Kilinski argued that their stores would have caught diagnostic errors if our reporters had, for example, permitted the techs to replace a hard drive or system board. They predicted that technicians would have caught the cable problems during the installation process. Our experience suggests otherwise. In one case--at the Computer City store in Pleasanton, California--we permitted the replacement parts to be installed. At the Best Buy store in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, parts were replaced without our permission; and the Carlsbad RadioShack claimed (wrongly) to have made a replacement--again unauthorized. In no case was a misdiagnosis detected in the process.

Why did we have so many bad experiences? Is the problem mostly one of shoddy management and inept or careless technicians--or is there a training gap?

PC World learned from CompTIA, however, that of the 20 stores we tested, only 8 had more than half their techs certified A+; no Computer City and only one Best Buy repair facility had achieved this status. (CompTIA says that in some cases, A+ certified shops are not registered with them.) In any case, the distinction proved an unreliable indicator of skill. The average grades for the A+ certified stores were a D+ for our phone test, and a D for our in-shop test--barely better than the stores without overall A+ certification.

After encountering so many major errors, we naturally asked chain executives about their efforts to improve quality. Computer City is automating a system for gathering data on customer experience and for marshalling a response to problems. CompUSA says it will soon reward tech managers who score high on customer satisfaction surveys. "From time to time we will screw up, but we're trying to do everything we can to keep that to a minimum," CompUSA's Poyfair said. In light of PC World's findings, RadioShack may require a second tech to verify the need for expensive repairs.

But whichever service provider you choose, our experience suggests that a little homework can spare you major headaches and needless expense. When you buy a computer, look for one with a long warranty. Then get smarter about which problems really need fixing, and learn some troubleshooting skills. (For a head start, see the Troubleshooting charts, links at right.) When you need help, solicit referrals from friends and colleagues, and try your PC manufacturer's technical support line. You can also screen services through the Better Business Bureau. (For more tips on how to avoid exasperating and costly repair experiences, see Don't Get Taken: Checklist for PC Repairs.)

Of course, no single person will ever experience the barrage of frustrations met by our team of reporters. But consider this: At RadioShack, we faced less than a fifty-fifty chance of getting a problem corrected at a fair price, and the odds were barely better at the other chains. So unless you've gotten positive feedback about a specific store or checked its record, steer clear of the big four computer retailers. Our investigation suggests that if you must get a machine repaired, depending on the big chains is risky business.