Excellent Service & Prices (novatech.co.uk)

Member Name: aljones

Product:	novatech.co.uk
Date:	07/02/02 (423 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Competitive prices, Great customer support

Disadvantages: None

Novatech are now a fairly well established company. I have been using them for all my computer supplies for the past six years, when I first used them to buy a 16Mb SIMM for my now long dead 486 PC. And so far, they have delivered the good every time. Not once have I been disappointed, not once has their been a delay, and not once have I had cause to complain.

The Novatech website can be found at

http://www.novatech.co.uk

... but they are not just an online supplier. Every month they send me their magazine detailing their more popular products. From that, you can order by phone, or by going to their website, or even by visiting them. They are based in Portsmouth so for many people it will be more convenient to drive to than have the hassle of waiting in for the courier. Arghhh, courier. That's the one problem I have had, as my last order was for my new hard disk, which the courier (Parcel Force) decided to leave around the back of our house, in the freezing cold weather, without leaving us a note to tell us where it was (and also mysteriously it had been signed for! Puzzling?). But that's another story, and lets face it Novatech honoured their side of the agreement by sending it promptly as ever, and also were very helpful while I was trying to find out where my parcel was, as we don't go out the back, we didn't see it for about 2 days!

Anyway, back to the subject. Delivery charges are non-existent provided you order on-line, which I think most people do these days. The charges aren't that bad when ordered by phone though, and consumables like printer cartridges are delivered for free even when ordered by phone. One important factor when looking at a supplier for anything has got to be the choice of products available, and also the availability of those products. Well, Novatech come up trumps on both. The choice is simply stunning. You can configure your own PC with loads of options, or choose one of the pre-
configured systems, which are built and kept in stock, so you don't even have delays when buying a full system. They have almost everything else you could imagine as well. From mice to keyboards, monitors to speakers, cables to motherboards, cameras to printers, they are all their, along with plenty more. Most have pictures, and a decent description, along with how many are in stock, and how many more will be in stock within the next 2 to 3 days.

The website itself is very easy to navigate. On the main page is a list down the side of all the categories of products, and scattered in a very easy to read way are some special deals, which are always in abundance. Along the top are links to other areas of the site, such as your basket, your account, the help pages, and their monthly competition among others. Everything is laid out in their own categories, and then subcategorised according to manufacturer. Back on the main page is a search facility, which actually works quite well, returning results that seem to match your expectations. There is also a Catalogue Code search box, so if you've seen something and remembered to write down the catalogue number, you can look it up quickly without having to hunt through other similar products to find the one you've already seen.

The website provides a very comprehensive help page, giving first time users hint and tips about the web site and the company. There are also contact pages for all areas of the customer service and support department. Only on a few occasions have I ever had to contact them but they have been very helpful every time. When I bought some memory for my current computer, at first it wouldn't work, so I was in contact with them trying to establish whether it was the right memory for my system, and what were the options if I had to return it. Again very helpful, and although in the end I think it was down to a bit of dust stopping them from working which eventually cleared, the
y came up with plenty of suggestions along the way and were more than happy to have me return the memory for a refund or replacement, which was my choice. And when I was dealing with customer services trying to find where my Hard Disk had got to, again they were very helpful and did all they could to help, even contacting Parcel Force themselves and doing all the hard work that would normally be left down to the customer. In the end, I found the package before a solution was reached, and then they were very apologetic, and assured me that a complaint would be logged against Parcel Force.

Not once have I had anything from that has failed to work, and not once has the delivery been late. The magazine they sent out is always very nice to read and gives good description and nice clear pictures of the products on offer. All prices are clear, and the delivery charges are clearly explained at the back. Like I said earlier, you can also visit them down in Portsmouth, and use their FastTrack facility, whereby you order via internet or phone before hand, and then just turn up and pick it up, with no delay. Certainly very handy for those in the area, especially when buying large items.

I am so satisfied with them that when I replace my now again Pentium II PC, which will hopefully be very soon, I am almost definitely going to buy the system from them. With their "Blueprint" design-it-yourself PC configuration tool, there is little or no point in me building it myself, as it doesn't cost anymore than buying the components separately! If you haven't already tried them, give them a go. I have always found the prices to be very reasonable, and amongst the cheapest around, so if you weren't already convinced, I hope you are now.

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