If I had to rate where my laptop or mobile phone stood in the top ten things I couldn’t live without, then they would have to 3rd or 4th (after food and water of course!). Now you might think I am tad crazy but I can tell you now I am not alone in this gadget geek madness.
Although you love your gadgets with your dear heart, I am sure there have been cases when you have bought a piece of digital loveliness only to find out you can’t figure out how to use it. However, it is clear that you are not alone in this. Statistics show that 56% of Brits are wasting their hard earned money by having digital stuff at home that they can use and an extraordinary 78% of Brits admit to have shouted at their technology!
Well it would seem that Virgin Group have decided to listen to the woes of us disgruntled gadget owners, who simply need a helping hand in knowing how to work their gadgets by introducing Virgin Digital Help. The company is aimed at solving any problems British consumers may have in regards to their digital stuff using a combination of downloadable tools, online and phone support, and home visits.
However, just before we think this is a genius idea, it would seem Virgin are not alone in helping the UK public solve their gadget problems as the Gadget Helpline also offer this service and have been doing this for years now. As we guest write for the Gadget Helpline blog we thought it would be interesting to do a little research on both the services and just highlight some of the plain facts so you can judge for yourself which is the better service:
VIRGIN DIGITAL HELP VS GADGET HELPLINE
Price of Service
On Virgin Digital Help it £2.99 per month you get access to an extensive range of digital handbooks however on the Gadget Helpline for a fixed price of £2.99 per month you get everything that Virgin is offering as well as the ability to talk to a live operator. As well as this Gadget Helpline offer a 30 day free trial to the service so you can test it out before you buy. Also, if you decide to use the Virgin Digital Help phone support then that is £6.99 per month and you are also tied into a 3 month contract and get allocated a monthly allowance of 20 minutes per month. It also costs £90 an hour for a call out from an engineer.
Helpline Operators:
Virgin Digital Help will base some of their call centres abroad with some of their team based here, alternatively the Gadget Helpline is based in the UK with 64 trained specialists to deal with any digital queries.
Support Services Offered
The Gadget Helpline offers a range of services which include anything from MP3 Players to TVs and Games Consoles to Fax Machines. The list seems to endless. Virgin Digital Help offer the same support service however from their list they seem to be missing AV Support.
Language & Location
We all know that explaining technical tasks can be quite challenging even for the most articulate person. The Gadget Helpline has its call center based in the UK and Virgin Digital Help in the Philipines, which could influence many customers.
[Virgin Digital Help] will field an initial team of about 100 call-center workers in the Philippines to handle queries and will have available about 20 to 30 of its engineers in Britain for home visits over the busy Christmas period. source: reuters
We’d love to know what your thoughts are, Can you live without your gadgets? Would you find this service useful? or, Do you think its possible to find most help on the internet?
Source: GadgetHelpline Blog, Reuters, Virgin Digital Help
13 thoughts on “Digital Helpline War: Virgin Digital Help Vs Gadget Helpline”
I don’t think in this day and age anyone can live without their gadgets.
too bad gadget helpline does not have a chat support and a home visit service
I work at Gadget helpline. We fix 98% of our queries on the phone first time around. We dont need to make expensive visits to our members. We can remote diagnose laptops, PCs, or PDA/Blackberry if necessary. We go to the end of the earth to help our members and for this we charge the cost of a pint of beer per month!!!
If you join as a member you can chat as much as you like.
I have compared Virgin’s service to Gadget Helplines and @ £9.99 a month (minimum term 3 months) for Virgins service why would I want to switch my service? Currently I pay £2.99 a month or £35.88 a year (so £5.88 more than what Virgin charges for 3 months!), not to mention that I can call unlimited amount of times and it’s a UK call centre it’s a no brainer!
@gadgetguru try remote connection on an iphone and i will be your slave forever ! home visit is my choice and my options if i dont want to spend a lot of time on the phone .. plus, people who have money spend have the right to decide who they want to shell out their pockets with, so lets just wait and see what’s going to happen once the virgin charisma starts to spread!
@gadgetguru : i think the remote access wont work if we have no internet connection.. and i also think that home visit is good option since if time came that users are not that comfortable troubleshooting thru phone they can just settle for home service…
@ xbar
Excellent customer service does not come cheap.
It is the value for your money that counts the most and how you are treated.
Virgin Digital Help’s call center is based in the Philippines.
Call centers in the Philippines play a major role in providing excellent global service.
Most Filipinos speak English well and they are the ones hired by call centers.
But what is very inate in Filipinos is that they are naturally warm and caring, thus you will expect excellent customer service that you may not find elsewhere.
Virgin is known for being the Customers’ Champ.
Virgin Digital Help was formed believing that UK consumers are being underserved when it comes to finding help with their digital kits.
It is therefore very timely for them to launch this endeavor to provide UK consumers with a better alternative in finding help in a very human way.
It is too early to judge but consumers will give its trust because they believe that Virgin will be their champion and savior from their digital stress.
Check out their website at http://www.virgindigitalhelp.co.uk
They do have Phone and Chat supports, and they do home visits as well.
They can remotely access your computer and your smart phones as well.
@gadgetguru – wait and see after few months.. your so called gadgethelpline will be closed… and Virgin Digital Help will reign in U.K people.. do you have remote access in smarthpones? ahuh,…you got that right…. maybe after few months.. you will apply as one of Virgin Digital Help’s support based in U.K … and you will kiss every agents’ ass!!
Gadget Helpline : sour grapes…er? blabbering nasty things as early as now because you are threatened by Virgin Digital Help’s future success!
we all know how Virgin treats their customers, Excellent customer service and really humane service they can provide. agree?
Just ran into the Vermin Media advert, which was propelled onto my desktop by AVG Free, just like a typical antivirus scamware advert.
Does Vermin Media or AVG seriously think that is remotely acceptable way to advertise the product??
It’s as close to the lowest possible bottom feeding scamware advert you can think of without medntioning fake watches or Viagra.
I am now waiting for Avast to download and I’ll wipe AVG
Parasites!!!
I have only had experience with Virgin Digital Help and what an experience ! It was regarding virus deletion at first. VDH had £70 off me before ‘ deleting ‘ the virus which turned out to be a farce. They took my computer over for 2-3 hours, said that they had deleted the virus which they hadn’t after I did a full scan straight afterwards, I re-contacted them, told them about it and they took over again for another 2-3 hours which resulted in the virus being finally deleted. They couldn’t have cared less that the first attempt had failed and more or less said ” well, we’ve cleared it now haven’t we ”
I have contacted them a number of times with promises of getting back to me but it never happens.
If I can put people off from using them then that will give me a lot of satisfaction.
Colin Harris