In high school I worked at a VAR that had partnerships with HP, among others (Cisco, Microsoft, etc). Our partnership gave us access to a special support line where a fluent English speaker picked up quickly, talked to you like you had seen a computer before, didn't enforce a script, and issued a return authorization with minimal hassle.
At that time, only Amazon came close on the consumer side.
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That gets expensive fast. Most phone support tech is composed of average gents who are given a 60 minutes introduction to the system and wished good luck. So cheap, so many unemployed people to choose from.