Comments on: A modest proposal to fix Dell's customer service

A former leader in its field, customer satisfaction ranking now lags behind most competitors. Here are some suggestions.

[RobertAPierce]

I've had to call Dell tech support a few times in the past, and each time I had to talk to someone in India that I could barely understand and who didn't seem to understand what I was trying to communicate. The process was so frustrating that I'll never buy a Dell again, and I tell others to do the same. They'll have to do a whole lot to demonstrate that their customer service has improved (including not having to call someone in India) before I consider a Dell again.

[slickuser]

get your ears fixed!

[BLUED56X]

I've also called Dell tech support about 10 times and gotten VERY similar results !!! I agree with your comments !

[rbame]

Don't buy the consumer lines, buy the professional Dell product lines, either Workstation or Latitude. You always get support from the US and I have gotten next day service every time (3). Dell honors the 3 year next day service on the Refurbs too.

[powerclam]

Yer kidding, right?
Dell was BUILT on "consumer line."
Now, to get treated like a customer, you have to buy the corporate lines?
That stinks.

[baldguy61]

Bought a refurb'd Dell that broke a month later. Called India for an Return number, was told that they cannot issue an RMA to a PO Box, which was my only address in the hick town I had moved to (Everyone in town was required to have a PO Box). As a result, Dell would not honor their warranty and I simply bought another notebook from a different mfgr. Never again will I buy a Dell just because they ripped me off on that one. Wonder how many other customers they've lost on the same issue?

[armanito]

I know that back in my country of origin the hottest job is working a Dell's Call Center. In fact I know people who work there who know very little English. Those are the people anwerin the phone to give you advise on how to fix your computer problem. Obviously, Dell is trying to save money by outsourcing. They only pay about $1. an hour in those other countries.

[czmyt]

It has been my experience on several occasions that the Dell does everything that they can to get out of honoring their on-site service commitments. Their answer is that the problem is with the software and you should reinstall Windows, and we don't care if you need to waste a day to do that. I see people bash the service contracts from Best Buy, but they seem very good about acknowledging problems with the computers they sell and either repairing or replacing ones with problems.

[ibeetle]

And yet there are two lawsuits making their way through the courts seeking action as a class against both Best Buy and Geek Squad for failing to identify, diagnose, and properly repair, as well as deliberately break computers to increase repair cost.
There are other lawsuits claiming that Best Buy and Geek Squad actually copies and stores private information collected from users/customers hard drives.
The reason they are so good at acknowledging the problem is because there technicians created it.

[inachu]

My laptop memory went bad and they replaced my memory with USED BAD MEMORY.

So my laptop was still doing the B.S.O.D. thing......
They refused to give me new memory and instead they replaced my laptop.
The laptop was also bad but by then the warranty ran out and I sold the laptop for $50
which I bought for $1,400............. I will never buy another laptop from DELL ever again.

[McPlot]

Stop having people who can barely speak English doing your tech support for English speaking countries. I personally will not buy a product that does their tech support through India. While I am sure there are people in India that do a good job, I have yet to run across one. And outsourcing does NOT save a company money. The money that they claim is saved ends up in the CEO's pocket. Just look at the CEO's bonuses that do outsource, to ones that don't.

[alejandrotobon]

Hi last year I bought a Dell Laptop throw their phone service, When I did the purchase I asked if there was a way to put my laptop's display in my TV screen, and they said, yes but you will have to buy a cable, I bought the cable, and didn?t work, and steel I don?t have response from Dell, and every time I call some one that doesnt know anything from technology answers the phone.

In that moment I promised myself, never buy a Dell again.

[ron_beasley]

i'm not sure why so many people want to perpetrate the myth that Dell's customer service is still poor. There were problems some time back, but over the past year, I have had several occassions to call on Dell for technical assistance, and always received prompt, courteous, professional and otherwise excellent service. The company is doing an outstanding job here and continues to focus on improvements.

[RobertAPierce]

I had the exact opposite experience a couple of months ago, and judging by the other commants and the market surveys, I'm not the only one. Dell has really hurt itself with their continuing poor customer support.

[igl00lgi]

Maybe because it still is?

[brsanko]

Ron Beasley obviously works for Dell's PR department. I have tried several times to call Dell's "customer service" just to let them know their website isn't working properly and it takes me 20min each time just to reach a live human being who doesn't even understand english let alone speak it only to be hung up on when I mention how long I've been waiting. This exact senario has happened to me at least 3 times including 10 minutes ago. Dell has not improved customer service Dell has no customer service. I am very careful to inform all of my customers to avoid Dell at all costs!!

[RFtoo]

When our Dell desktop's harddrive died Dell sent in an independent support person to install a new harddrive the next day and he reinstalled windows and office. But we could not get on the internet. Seems he did not install any of the needed drivers. Dell told us to download them off the internet. They told us they pay the installer to reinstall the operating system but not the drivers. Good old Dell. Their service problems run deeper than merely not throwing enough money at it, there is a clear failure to think or apply common sense.

[Bill_I]

Sounds like catch-22 to me. How can you download ANYTHING if you can't get on. Never mind the install, sure to be a tricky mess.

[mbryant32]

I have had great experiences with Dell Support. They have always overdelivered on their promises and sent quality replacement equipment when needed. In addition, any issue I've had was dealt with promptly and professionally. I had no idea that Dell had such a bad name in the customer service world.

[vijayind]

Thank God.. I am from India. So atleast I have to communication gaps. But Dell Support are basically guys who repeat stuff out of a help manual....

So if you as why VISTA KB1234 is causing driver error, they just poop...
My Inspiron 1520, is full of bugs. Esp. Driver failures, I don't think DELL does any Q&A... For ex: Dell's Intel Storage Drivers cause repeated system freeze. But I can't understand how DELL never found this ??
All you gotta do... is boot up !! Add salt, to injury.... Intel has released new drivers to correct the issue...... Dell is still pushing the ye old drivers ....

I'd love to bash some DELL.... But more I saw, the more I feel like a sucker for buying DELL.

[ivorycruncher]

With my company's Optiplex and Latitude systems, once in a while I've gotten somebody in India, but it's rare. We have 3-year NBD warranties on all systems, and Gold tech support a some as well. Gold is definitely worth it, because you're guaranteed to get US support reps that are not clueless about the technology they're trying to support. I don't think I've ever had to call Dell support for anything other than replacements for hardware failures, because if it's software, I can fix it, and I can properly diagnose hardware failures before ever calling support. What's fun for me is trying to convince the support reps that I am technically-inclined and have already diagnosed the problem. I'm always searching for the magic combinations of error codes and stuff that will make their system tell them to ship me a new part. Oh, and while we have the option of having a Dell tech contractor come on-site to fix the system, at no additional cost, I never choose that option anymore. They're supposed to be here next-day, and quite often that ends up being the following day. One time the tech didn't show up until 3 or 4 says after the support call. The story I got is that the available technicians in my area were overworked and/or understaffed, which is somewhat understandable, but not really my problem. Our support contracts say NBD, and I expect NBD, especially when I have a mission-critical system dead in the water. That's why I now replace any and all parts myself, both in desktops and laptops. I have completely disassembled several laptops to replace motherboards, which really isn't hard to do once you know the mentality Dell uses to put them together. Plus Dell has technical service manuals for all models on their website (although you have to hunt for them a bit) that give instructions on how to take a system apart for any type of hardware repair. Oh, one last thing. One time one of those on-site techs replaced a laptop motherboard, and did not take the modem off one board and put it on the new one. Our user later called to say his modem wasn't showing up, which is when I discovered it was missing. I then had to call Dell support again and get them to send me a new modem. I think that was just about the last time I ever let one of those techs inside our company. I'm beginning to wish my company would let me certify as a Dell support tech so I could bypass all the red tape when we need stuff fixed.

[gggg sssss]

Have baught Gold in the past, but it amounts to 30 - 50 percent of the cost of the system. If you buy two systems you can buy a third just to keep on the shelf. Never again, except servers because there is no other good way to get parts quickly.

[Prairieperson]

It's a real shame considering how great their service was several years ago. No wonder Dell's service is terrible. They closed two call centre's in Canada this year (2,000+ jobs lost). Hey, that's the way to fix your problem! Close the call centre's that might have helped dig you out of the abysmal service hole you've dug for yourself. Hope you can understand those overseas calls! Next time you go shopping for a computer you might want to think about this. Thanks for nothing Dell.

[SaulGoode2822]

Dell Customer support went down hill the day they shipped it off to India. The day the laid off the highly skilled support techs and hired Indian outsourcing firms who just read from the manual that's the day there customer service tanked. This was in the early 2000's.

[papa_bear]

The problem is the support is no longer in the US. When my 70 year old aunt called Dell for support and they had her opening the box and unplugging cables etc on her brand new computer that was under warranty, I was done with them. US support is far superior to the outsourced. If Dell cared they would change this.

[Exnets]

I was registered to get specials from Dell, but I found I was getting WAY to many e-mails from them, so I un-subscribed, I thought it was dumb that they said it would take 10 days to stop receiving e-mails, but no big deal, but a month later I was still getting e-mails? I tried 3 times to un-subscribe without success, the last time I called them up to complain, they began to walk me through the process?AGAIN? Anyways after getting a little hyper they did it for me. Now today I?m a little nervous, it?s day 11 & I?ve received another e-mail? Will this madness continue

[kkohnen]

You didn't list gross incompetence among the reasons that Dell's customer service sucks.

Last summer, I tried to buy a replacement battery for a Dell Inspiron 700m. Dell had three shots at sending me the correct battery, all three times they sent the wrong battery (even though the part number that I ordered was the correct one).

Throughout this process, I was insulted (Did you try rotating the battery?), inconvenienced (three trips to the local UPS store to return the package) and annoyed (a 5 AM call on Saturday morning to ask me whether I am happy with their "service").

I finally bought the battery from another on-line vendor (who sold me a new battery at a better price) and they got it right the first time.

I dumped the computer, bought a new Fujitsu (never a Dell again), and went out and bought _ONE_ share of Dell stock so that they can spend the money every year servicing that share.

I also incorporate my experiences with Dell's customer service into my college lectures so that all my students have something to consider when they buy a new computer.

[cwk_123]

As a former Manager of Dell in the technical support area (call center in the states for desktop and notebooks) one of the problems Dell is experiencing is bureaucracy and a lot of cronie-ism. The people who actually perform well at supporting the customers are often eliminated and those people that play golf, laugh at the right jokes, never disagree, you know in corrupt systems the term is "play ball" have a job. Anyone interested in doing what is right for Dell is somehow eliminated. Often through layoffs (Dell provides a handsome bribe I mean layoff package to those people), because the people propagating the corruption make the decision as to who gets laid off. You will find that real talent that cares about Dell and is willing to speak its mind doesn't exist at Dell anymore. Dell's internal culture has become so riddled with corruption and power politics that very little can get done that is worthwhile or of consequence. There are raises and promotions at Dell that are supposed to be based on merit but are 95 percent of the time given to buddies or political allies. As you can imagine as your real talent is ignored or run out of the company you are eventually left with a talentless, soulless, unimaginative, workforce who feel threatened and intimidated by anybody who can actually produce something of value for the betterment of the team. Dell is literally rotting from the inside out. It is sad but the problem does not lie in Dell's product, or in Dell's overall strategy, it lies in its inability to execute plans that benefit the company because of the rampant corruption and selfishness in management. There is no magic bullet for Dell, and I am willing to bet that without a some kind of move to rejuvenate its leadership Dell will continue to fade away.

[tundraboy]

What, a culture of corruption has invaded the Dell corporate culture? That's impossible because Michael Dell is supposedly a staunch Republican. They don't do those things, you know.

[DavidSommers]

I had a next-day replacement warranty on my Dell HDTV set. When I bought that HDTV set three and a half years ago, I paid some good money for that first class warranty. When the set stopped powering up reliably, I made the call for that next-day replacement. Between the time I bought that warranty and then, they had redefined what next-day replacement meant. What it now meant was that they would ship the replacement next day, after processing the paperwork and finding a replacement to ship. Sure, this was not any kind of emergency, it was also not what I had paid for. They did finally ship me a good working refurbished replacement set and I'm satisfied with that. However, I had paid them some serious money for better service.

[taztonio]

My job uses Dell and I've always get top notch support using "online chat" or calling Gold Tech support. My wife got a pink consumer laptop for Christmas 2007. We needed a replacement cover; again I used "online chat" and received great service. I've dealt with Gateway and Compaq and their customer service is impossible. I build my own PC's for personal use, but for family and friends I recommend Dell!