Back in the summer, vnunet.com's sister title Computeractive sent a team of undercover journalists to the nation's high streets to gauge the quality of advice on offer to shoppers looking to buy their first PC.

Our findings revealed the pot-luck nature of the retail shopping experience and prompted a deluge of letters from readers. The theme of many was that if it was difficult to find good guidance locally, could buyers expect more dependable service from centralised operations?

In other words, is better advice to be had from the national sales centres of the numerous firms that market hi-tech wares directly to the public?

With Christmas fast approaching, Computeractive's team of journalists decided to forgo the traditional earmuffs in favour of warming their lugs by taking to the phones.

Working undercover, our not-so-callow callers targeted the sales lines of a selection of well-known direct-selling outfits in order to test the quality of counsel on offer to telephone shoppers.

We wanted to judge whether or not the sales-line operators were up to the job of providing useful information to inexperienced buyers.

As our cover we echoed that of our previous report: in essence, Mum and Dad want to invest in a computer to benefit both themselves and their two school-aged children.

As with our earlier undercover investigation, we'd like to make it clear that our findings give a snapshot view and are not representative of a particular firm's everyday operations: staff come and go, in-store specialists have lunch breaks, holidays and 'off' days, just like the rest of us.

In respect of this, we have changed the names of the assistants we encountered.

Emails away
Because each company on our eight-strong hit-list also runs web-based sales operations, we launched a two-pronged survey.

Before embarking on our round of phone calls, we sent emails to each firm. As important as the information we received was the time it took for the firms to respond.

However, many vendors secretly believe that it's not worth using resources to give out free advice because customers will take it and spend their money elsewhere.

We decided that one working week was an acceptable cut-off point for receipt of responses, although we watched our undercover inbox for a full three weeks. We sent emails to eight companies - Dell, Dabs.com, Jungle.com, Evesham Technology, Hewlett Packard, Mesh Computers, PC World and Sony - and the missive requested information specific to our undercover family's needs.

R.S.V.P. A.S.A.P.
We waited all of two minutes for the first reply. An automated response arrived from Jungle.com, promising the attention of the next available 'agent'.

The follow-up arrived two days later: a politely-worded but ultimately empty message telling us that sales advice was available only by phone. Opening hours were included and the response did exhibit a personal touch.

A couple of hours after our email request, Mesh Computers responded. Like Jungle.com, the content wasn't particularly useful but the sales assistant promised a tailored response in exchange for an address and telephone number.

In contrast, the reply from Dabs.com was effectively useless to computer novices: arriving 24 hours after the request was submitted, the note told our family that product information was available only at its website.

It was friendly enough but neither it nor the website information addressed our specific questions.

Next was Sony, with an amusingly honest response to our request for information about the company's range of family computers.

Here it is in full: "Thank you for your email. At the moment we have only one kind of desktop in our stock, which is the PCV-RX300 series. Please visit our website at www.sonystyle-europe.com."

To paraphrase Henry Ford: you can have any computer you like, so long as it's a PCV-RX300.

Evesham assured us that the firm had a "number of systems that would suit" our requirements priced from £704, but subsequently referred us to the website for further details and an online quotation.

We had a similar reply from PC World, as the author of the email advised our family to call the company's helpline or visit a local branch. All in all, not terribly useful.

If you're wondering where the responses from Dell and Hewlett Packard got to, well, so are we. Neither company responded within our week-long time frame. In fact, we're still waiting, three weeks on.

The plot thickens
To be honest, we didn't expect a flood of useful advice to pour into our inbox. Computers are complicated devices and, for the best guidance, novices really need someone knowledgeable to talk them through the pros and cons. Surely it's naive to expect a computer vendor to offer unbiased advice - or is it?

Plotting our voyage, the first port of call was Dell, one of the two non-respondents in the email investigation. Having worked our way through a reasonably painless automated switchboard and one living, breathing receptionist, we were connected to a sales assistant, whom we'll call Alex.

The conversation got off to a shaky start, with us declining a request to provide personal details, such as our telephone number and home address.

We pointed out that we were merely calling for buying advice and didn't want our information to end up on a mail-shot database. Alex said that without our details, he wouldn't be able to tailor a specific system but could talk us through typical deals.

A moment later, having asked only for our budget - £1,000 being the figure we chose - Alex recommended a Dell Dimension 4550: "It's got a Pentium 4 2.5GHz processor, 20Gb hard disk, 256Mb of memory ... all that stuff."

We asked if it was suitable for family use, bearing in mind the needs of our two youngsters, and Alex was forthcoming with assurances. He was also obliging with the profit-generating extras: "Don't forget that these systems only come with a one-year collect and return warranty. We could upgrade you to three years' on-site for just £129 plus VAT."

Having many more companies to call and compare, we explained our desire to mull things over before moving on.

Don't dabble with us
Having persevered past a recorded announcement warning us that all sales information and advice was available only on the company's website, we should have been prepared for the abrupt discussion about to take place with Dabs.com:

"We don't conduct telephone sales; our operation is entirely online."

"Perhaps we could ask a few questions about computers suitable for family use?"

"I'm afraid we don't have the facility. You'll find all the information you need at our website."

Dabs' position is fair and clear but of little use to anyone in our position.

It's a Jungle out there
Our adviser at Jungle.com didn't give his name, which is a shame: so friendly was his manner that he deserves to be singled out for praise.

Our chat didn't start well as his initial words of advice were peppered with jargon. However, our innocence explained, he metamorphosed into Mr Fantastic.

He started from the beginning, slowly explaining each specification of his recommendation. "The 'Haus' name is just our company's own brand," he said. "I suggest a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 processor, which basically means the machine will run fast. 256Mb of memory is plenty for most software [applications] and a 40Gb hard disk, well, that's quite a big place to store documents and so on."

Sound advice, but the most remarkable tip was to follow: "At the moment, we can do that system with a Lexmark inkjet - that's a colour printer - thrown in for £699 including VAT. From what you've told me, I don't think you need to spend as much as £1,000." Full marks.

What's in a name?
Identity crisis aside, the twice-renamed Evesham Technology (previously called Evesham.com and Evesham Micros) seems to know its customers well.

"So you're a total beginner, Sir," confirmed our telephonist adviser, 'Steve'. "That's not a problem. I can talk you through some options," he assured us.

Unlike the Jungle.com employee, Steve took the decision to invest the bulk of our £1,000 budget. "We can do you an Evolution 2400KE with an Epson printer and scanner bundle for £931," he explained. "And since you've got kids, you should consider our education software pack."

That was another £58, including VAT. Sadly, on this point at least, Steve's earlier insight evaded him: while Evesham's education offering does include some good software packages, we can't envision our imaginary toddlers taking full advantage of titles such as GCSE Physics from Letts or Age 11 Maths from SATS.

Pass the HP
Apparently Hewlett Packard doesn't want our business. Perhaps it's unlikely to want yours, either. "We don't really deal with home customers direct," was our telephonist's opening gambit in response to our request for guidance.

We persisted, explaining that we just wanted information about the range of HP computers. "You probably want an HP Pavilion machine but we don't sell them here. We only really deal with business customers. We sell base units without monitors. Your best bet is to go to PC World."

That was it. Thank you and goodbye. Except there was no 'thank you'.

Another fine Mesh
At Mesh Computers, 'David' was much more welcoming. He asked about our needs, our budget and, uniquely, whether we had sufficient space to set up a burly desktop PC and monitor.

We advised him that this was not a problem. "You don't need to spend all your budget, for your needs," he told us. "Our 2200SE machine looks ideal. It's got 256MB memory, 80GB hard disk - that's a big hard disk - and a 128MB Radeon graphics card. You'll need powerful graphics for the kids' games. They'll want to play games."

David finished the call by asking for our postcode. We explained our junk mail concerns, and he assured us that Mesh Computers does not send out unsolicited post.

The postcode would allow him to generate a reference number, should we wish to call back later and place an order. Had we been real customers, we wouldn't have had any hesitation to do that.

Where in the world?
Within the PC World website, the Customer Service section recommends that customers unable to find the information they're looking for should contact a sales adviser.

It seems strange, then, that calling the listed number results in a message advising: "If you require product information or advice, please visit [the PC World website] or one of our stores." In other words, whether you want buying advice over the phone or online, you are directed to the stores.

Sayonara Sony
We experienced a similar problem with Sony's SonyStyle outfit. Dialling the main contact telephone number results in an automated menu system and customers looking for more information about Sony's Vaio computer range are instructed to press one on their touch-tone telephone keypads; doing so leads to a new number to dial.

This second number leads to an automated switchboard with a gateway to a chargeable after-sales support line. One option held the promise of a sales line; we chose it. The announcement gave us a third telephone number, similar to the first one. We tapped out the digits and waited.

The call was answered and we were met by the original automated menu system. Aware from the email survey that Sony only has one desktop model, we gave up in despair.

Hanging up
Like our previous undercover outing, we weren't surprised by our varied experiences. On email, the indolence of giants like Dell and HP shines a light on the dull reality behind the brightness of their respective internet operations.

Fancy presentation doesn't answer customer queries and, if nobody can be bothered to respond to a potential sales lead, it raises serious questions about email's efficacy as a support channel.

Also, we weren't overly charmed by either of the big-hitters' telephone operations, particularly the complete lack of helpfulness exhibited by HP.

On the other hand, we found the smaller firms such as Evesham and Mesh more attuned to the needs of first-time buyers, perhaps because they field far fewer calls than multinational corporations.

By far and away the biggest single frustration encountered when telephone shopping is the automated switchboard. Sometimes they can be straightforward, like Dell's one-choice-and-you're-through system, but most of the time they're frustrating enough to elicit screams. The left hands of PC World and Sony need to be introduced to the right.

Our advice remains simple: read up, do your research and know what you want. Telephone advice can be a help but don't rely on emails to provide free suggestions or to answer all your questions.

CONTACTS

Dell 0870 152 4699
www.dell.co.uk

Dabs.com 0870 429 3220
www.dabs.com

Jungle.com 0870 728 7777
www.jungle.com

Evesham Technology 0870 160 9500
www.evesham.com

HP 0870 474747
www.hp.co.uk

Mesh Computers 0870 046 4747
www.meshcomputers.co.uk

PC World 0845 601 4901
www.pcworld.co.uk

Sony 020 7365 2947
www.sonystyle-europe.com