Recently MomCentral offered anyone who wanted a review with Nortons new PC Tuneup Service, a review and giveaway for three lucky winners. I jumped on it because I thought that it was Norton antivirus software and recently i bought a computer and my temporary tryout expires and i get an annoying popup all day to renew. I thought…totally easy way out, right?

I was surprised when I got it and it was a PC Tune uP service and learned my lesson to READ better.  Now, I have a new computer, so I don’t need a PC tuneup, but my DAD does. He has the oldest, slowest computer known to man. You know those “Only a caveman can do it” commercials? Even they would be flabbergasted about my dads computer. So i gave him the card and asked him to call me when it was over.

This is his review.

In the beginning he called up and they told him that it would take quite some time. He said they repeated that several times so he knew he was going to be in for a long wait. The card itself states that the service takes about 30 minutes, so he was prepared and called at night when he had more time.

His customer service agent was Muhammed from Canada and he had a heavy accent. They had quite some time in the beginning going back and forth on accents at first, but my dad assured me that Muhammed was a VERY nice guy and did his best.

The bad

1. They assumed he had a particular problem he was calling about, not just calling to do a tuneup. Once he stated he didn’t really have a particular issue, they had to start at square one and just run a gammet of tests to find out why the computer was slow.
2. In the beginning after asking all his personal info, they asked to put him on hold for a “few” minutes….which turned into TWENTY minutes. Now 20 minute just waiting in silence is a long time for anyone. My dad very patiently waited it out, but not everyone would
3. When they diagnose your computer, they take it over much like mypc.com . My dad said that they didn’t warn him before that so to see someone controlling his computer from their end, can be unnerving when personal and business info was on it. It would have been a  lot better to talk him  before they did each step. Although he could see everything the CS rep was doing, he would have liked some dialogue.
4. They didn’t go from computer name to computer name, meaning that they only accessed the computer from one screen name and because of that, they didn’t re log in on my step moms. Because of that, not all files could actually be corrected. They shouldn’t have assumed there was just one access computer log
5. Didn’t talk through the steps to fixing the computer, just did it, which created a sort of “what do i do now” feeling on the customers end
6. The service took 1 hour and 20 minutes, not 30

The good

1. They did clean up the icons and unnecessary software. They also took out some temporary files to help speed. He was able to really learn what things to keep on a computer and what to not store
2. They were able to diagnose the computer is slow because of RAM and not much more then what they did can be done. NOw he knows not to waste a ton of extra time trying to keep working on this computer, when he really needs to upgrade quite a bit first.
3. My dad said he did learn just by watching the guy move around his computer and was able to take the knowledge to his laptop to do some work there to clean it up and he learned to fix some things.
4. The rep was very nice and tried hard. He said he talked to him during some of the down time and asking about the weather and trying to make conversation
5. If you know very little about your computer, the rep takes care of it, so its not much different then bringing it in, but you get to stay at home and watch while they do it. This could be very helpful to a parent or grandparent who needs assistance, but doesn’t have the knowledge or patience to help ALONG w/ the rep. You dont need knowledge at all to get your computer fixed.

My dads rundown:

Price should be $49.99 not $69.99 in his opinion. He also said the rep let him know that laptops don’t get as much benefit from the service as desktops. He also said it would be helpful if they talked through everything so as a consumer, you know not only what is going on, you don’t feel just like your hanging on the phone, but that you also learn something in the process. His computer IS running about 35% faster and he said he would, overall, recommend the product to someone that has no knowledge on fixing up their computer.

Contest

I have THREE copies of Nortons PC Tune up worth $69.99 to give out! If you know someone, or you yourself, have a slow computer, this service could help them. Just enter here!

1 entry for letting us know why you think this could benefit someone in your life or you yourself~

1 entry for carrying a momdot banner/link

1 entry for every valid comment on a contributing writers blog post on momdot

contest ends on Nov 28th