(Vocal Laboratories Inc: Minneapolis) -- Apple continues to lead Dell and Hewlett Packard (HP) in customer satisfaction with phone-based technical support, but HP made marked improvements since 2008, according to the latest study conducted by Vocal Laboratories Inc.  (Vocalabs).

In 1,157 telephone interviews immediately following a support call in 2009, 64 percent of Apple customers were “very satisfied” with the experience, as compared to 45 percent of Dell customers and 47 percent of HP customers.

Compared with 2008, HP customers in 2009 found it easier to reach an agent, experienced fewer problems with the automated portion of the call, and felt like they were made to go through fewer irrelevant or repetitive steps. These changes led to a 9-percentage point year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction with the agent at HP, and a whopping 17-percentage point improvement in customer satisfaction with the automated portion of the call. HP nearly tied Apple in this metric, with 39 percent of HP customers reporting they were “very satisfied” with the automated portion of the call, compared to 42 percent of Apple customers.

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