We have a few Acer products around the home-office here. And, frankly, we'll probably be getting more in the future. We have no complaints with the products that we have and, as far as I can remember, we never have. That's got to be going back at least 15 years and maybe 20 years when we got our first Acer branded product (a sweet and pretty unique at the time tablet laptop).
Sometimes we even recommend them to other folks, but always with a strong caveat to do your research first! With Acer you must know in advance what it is that you want, what you expect from it and, most importantly, how to get that from the product you buy!
That's because there really is very little in the way of customer service and support from Acer. It's always been that way and, after 20+ years it seems unlikely that they're going to change. That's just the way it is.
You might ask why I write about this now if we've been going along with it for 15 or 20 years ourselves. Well, it's not as if I haven't brought the matter up with Acer before and I've certainly been careful to warn friends and clients about it. And it's not as if I haven't been frustrated or even angry about it in the past -- very frustrated. But yesterday they pulled another tiny customer service boner with me and, hey, I have this blog and to hell with being frustrated alone!
It's definitely a tiny straw that broke this camel's back but it's so silly for them not to get right that it set me off.
Here's the deal: I went to the Acer US website to find the dimensions of 24" and 22" wide-screen monitors. That is simply the horizontal and, mainly, the vertical measurements of the screen itself. Actually I went to online dealers first but they only last the "height" as including the stand.
Why do I care? Well we want to upgrade a dual head set up that currently has one Acer 19" LCD and one 19" CRT. The LCD came in as a quick replacement for another dead CRT -- hence the mix and match situation. But, now when we bring in another LCD, we'd like to bring in a wide-screen version but one that matches the screen height of the 4:3 19". So we'll have a standard and a wide and later we'll add another wide to make it wide-standard-wide.
I'm guessing that a 22" wide screen will match the height of the 19" monitor, but would simply like to know that for sure before we order it. Should be simple, even without a drive to the store!
Nope. No such measurement at the retailers and, if it's available at the Acert web site then it's very well hidden. So I checked the faqs and searched the forums and searched the great Google and finally gave in and used the on-website form to send an email to "customer service."
Responses from Acer.:
1. (first hour) "Dear Customer; I'm a machine so don't reply. Wait while we get your question to the correct desk."
2. (3-4 hours) "Thanks for your note; you need to check the capabilities of your computer video card and also make sure that you have the correct drivers installed for your operating system. Use the attached number to reopen this matter if not resolved."
3. (immediate) Reply from me to them: "Thanks for your note but, please, you didn't read mine. What is the height of a 22" and 24" wide screen monitor?"
4. (ca. 5-4 hours) "Dear Customer, If you need further assistance with this matter, please contact Acer Technical Support at 1-800-816-2237 Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CST and Sat-Sun 8am-5pm CST excluding holidays." Right. Who's buying my time while I wait on hold to find a simple vertical measurement. They actually say that the hold time will be "longer than normal". Well come on Acer. That is outright bull-oney and you know it. The long wait time for customer service is only exceeded by American Airlines time-on-tarmac
Then they add that I should be prepared with my product information but, but but -- it's YOUR product information that I'm trying to get! And then, the ultimate: they say that if the answer is not adequate that I should take it directly to customer service at my country local Acer HQ. That's just a spit in my eye, of course, because that is exactly whom I did contact and, presumably the very entity behind this customer torture.
I give. I'm posting this on my blog then getting in the car to hunt one of the things down.
Bottom line: expect good products from Acer but expect NO customer service. It either doesn't exist or, where it does, it is the worst of kind. More pain than help.
