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.

[BulletProofChen]

Wow, what a bunch of USELESS suggestions for how Dell should fix its customer support.

1. "Decide what you are"? Um, Dell has always been both a "manufacturing" company focused on the bottom line, and a customer service company. That's what their whole initial philosophy was! Have low inventory, have very efficient production processes with little waste ... PROFIT! Then they hedged people's fears about buying online by having great customer service to make up for the lack of a physical presence in stores. They lost their way because they dropped the emphasis on providing good customer support in order to make better margins as other companies adopted their production practices. There's no "deciding who they are" that they need to do, that's not part of their problem. Trying to make money on ever-decreasing margins is their problem.
2. "Customers love customization"?? Is that why APPLE, which offers NO CUSTOMIZATIONS, has the number one customer satisfaction?? Does HP offer better customization options than Dell???? These "customer service gurus" are just spewing B.S. Customization helps drive SALES, not SATISFACTION. If you don't offer a customer what they want, they don't buy it and then call you up to complain that they didn't get what they wanted ... they simply don't buy it! They don't show up on the customer satisfaction surveys because they aren't a customer!! Customization drives SALES, not satisfaction. If Dell wants more SALES, it should increase its customization capabilities. This has nothing to do with after-the-fact support.

Thanks, "customer service gurus".

Chris

[JeffW42]

I clicked on this article expecting good, fun satire. What happened? I'm not sure I saw any proposal in there.

[jrr1000]

I just returned an HP laptop because I kept TRYING to get service from a person in Calcutta, India and bought an XPS Dell laptop to go with my Dell desktop that I have had for 4 years. My service with Dell has been terrific and beyond my expectations. HP service was worse than terrible. I wonder if these complaints about Dell are recent or 2 or 3 years old. Anyway my service from Dell is great.

[gggg sssss]

Recommendation number one: Get rid of the guys in India. Clueless leading the clueless.

[kaw5]

jrr1000:



Since you're wondering. My most recent dissatisfaction with Dell was on a system ordered 12/11/2007 and received on 12/18/2007. It was returned on 01/23/2008. Seems rather recent to me, and the best part of my experience was that I got a full refund.

[open-mind]

A friend bought a new Dell tower system a couple years ago. She noticed that a few times each hour, the mouse pointer would become erratic and jump around for no reason. Yes, her optical mouse was on a clean non-reflective surface. I saw it happen too ... not a major problem but annoying. Long story short ...Dell would not replace the mouse because it still worked. I bought her an off-brand $15 optical USB mouse as a replacement ... the cheapest thing available at the time. The replacement mouse still works great.

[trainsem]

My experiences with Dell support have been great. I am an expert user so this has to be factored in. For Australian customers the support centre seems to be in Penang, Malaysia. No issues understanding foreign accents, as we have that situation in the high-tech workplace anyway.

[snoeone]

Dell, and its American corporate peers, are guilty of sacrificing customer service in favor of the almighty buck. They are also guilty of bait-and-switch tactics, and failing to honor their own return policies - fighting tooth and nail against the consumer. What happened to good, old fashioned customer service? The problem is, there are too many other people here that will STILL purchase, in spite of the poor service. BUYERS REVOLT!

I, too, have wasted countless hours dealing with such formal English-speaking technicians that they do not understand American slang and can't communicate effectively. They can't get to the point of the conversation without having to go through every, single, word, one, at, a, time... JUST ANSWER MY DAMN QUESTION!!

I have resolved to hanging up on ANY dialect other than pure AMERICAN ENGLISH, and calling back until I either reach an American English speaking person, or insisting on speaking with an English Speaking American.

If the buck is truly what it's all about, then I will ONLY SPEND MINE at companies that "get it", truly care about its customers, and serve me, and I encourage you not only to do the same, but to spread the message.. "if you don't serve me, and serve me well, I will take my business elsewhere".

[Statdoc432]

at least the days are over at Dell when all the Indian technicians were named Chad or Evan or Bob....they seem to be using their real names now...

[slickuser]

get your ears fixed!

[slickuser]

I talked to "local" customer service not indians when I had issue with Dell gift card.
It took several days, severl hours of phone calls, several customer service guys/girls and finally
the issue didnt get resolved.

Finger pointing is their way of working. One department would point to other and so on. No one was willing to take the responsibility and see to it that the issue got resolved.

This is what happens if you pay them $9 an hour and rotate them so often.

[tundraboy]

You can't go to the cheapest seller and then complain the support is lousy. I bet these are the same people who complain that Apple is 'overpriced'. They're not but they chose not to sell dirt-cheap thin-margin machines because the tech support demands are pretty much the same whether it's a 300 dollar or 3300 dollar machine.

Dell's business model is okay if you're selling, literally, nuts and bolts. For highly complex machines like a computer, eventually that model will unravel as we are witnessing right now.

[RichardatDELL]

Hi Erica

Im surprised that you chose to focus on history and cannot break out and take a fresh look at all we have under way. You raise an ACSI study that is nearly a year old and openly admits, "Dell seems to get the brunt of the complaints, at least publicly."

You Link to a blog where we are actively engaged in finding a solution to the issues experienced by that customer, without noting that Dell is usually there.....and while we dont catch them all, we try real hard. I think it is unlikely on any other blog where customers are talking about their issues you will other companies therelike we are.

The new service Dell recently annpounced is all about dedicated teams....a field we are pioneering, at the request and suggestion of customers, again something I dont see elsewhere. Just as we have pioneered the direct connections and conversations we have with customers every day. ...at Ideastorm, on blogs over the phone, in our forums and elsewhere. You could for example, check out the new "accepted solutions" where customers tag answers to issues that have been solved and look how we are making it easy for these to be found for others to use.

Fact is that the latest Consumer Reports survey illustrates the improvement around Dell support efforts. As this weeks reader's survey says, Dell performed 12 points better than HP for laptop support and 9 points better than HP for desktop support. Dell is above average for problem solving for both laptops and desktops. If customers choose extended warranties past the period of free tech support they should seriously consider Dell for the general level of satisfaction we score on that front.

Do we make mistakes...you bet. Some of them are big ones too. Do we have more to do...who doesnt? However, between our direct contacts with customers, our community forums, changes in our traditional support and our proactive support and outreach, Dell is offering to customers new ways to get help and responding to our customers and delivering support in the ways that our customers want it.

Just two weeks ago a survey from the Society of New Communications Research and NUance software found that Dell has done the best job in using social media in responding to customer care issues. Why not check that out for a new angle: http://sncr.org/?p=110

Clearly, we will continue to work to improve and clearly we have work to do....dont getmewrong. We are not perfect and Dell won't be satisfied until every customer is satisfied.....so at Dell we keep learning and improving based not on some survey but based on what real customers tell us every day....Learning from customers and getting better in ways they want us too...now that is different.

Perhaps its time you too learned more about all we are doing and some of the new initiatives in order to provide better perspective on the how times are a changin' when you think about customer service, tech support and what its all about in a connected era

RichardatDELL

[xandrospc]

I to have had it with the India tech support. I have purchased my last pc from DELL and now build my own. At least if it breaks I know how to fix it. I don't need some fake name, fake tech support Indian to tell me to format the hard drive

[mslehv]

I've been dealing with Dell since the mid-nineties. Our home has or has had at least three dozen desktops, laptops, servers and workstations. My experience with Dell support has been excellent. Here are some examples.
When I reach a tech in a foreign land who I can sense won't be able to solve the problem I simply ask them to transfer me to someone in the US who can help me. They always do and I get the problem solved.
I once had a new computer on-line order go astray - customer support apologized and added a free laser printer.
Last week, an out-of-warranty desktop died and my testing suggested either the power-supply or a front panel control needed to be replaced. I purchased both from Dell for about $30.00. After replacing the power supply the computer was fine and I contacted customer support by e-mail to determine if I could return the unused part. Within two hours, I had a reply (judging by the name) from India, telling me to keep the part and crediting my credit card.

My guess is that most (but certainly not all) tech support requesters want magical diagnoses and fixes. They don't do any common-sense tests to determine where the issues lie and expect a PhD computer scientist to immediately fly out to their home or business and provide a magical fix. Those who complain and have spent their lives watching sit-coms and reality TV shouldn't complain when they don't make sense to someone in a foreign country who's a lot more educated.

[gggg sssss]

FREE printer - just a lifetime of buying Dell toner

[74roadrunner]

I bought a high end laptop from Dell a couple of years ago, the PC itself couldn't be any better, but dealing with Dell Financial and then later on with support to try to get a Win XP CD was like some kind of circus. Between the heavily accented techs, the misunderstandings that escalated into a full blown investigation looking for my missing laptop (That wasn't missing), it was like some bad movie. When the guy calls me up and tells me that they had done a complete investigation into my non missing laptop, I cracked up laughing. Boy was he angry. He starts yelling at me, "This is serious! The investigation shows that you accepted delivery of your laptop yourself, you were identified by the delivery driver!!" Then I told him all I wanted was to be sent an invoice, so I could pay my bill! I had bought it 12 months same as cash, and didn't get sent a statement so I could make my first payment. The second one was late too.

Once he realized what a screw up it all was, he starts saying, "Oh my god, oh my god!" over and over again. I was trying to keep from cracking up the entire time I was talking to him. I got my statements on time from that point on. I think the language issue was the main cause of the whole thing. There's a point where saving money costs more than it saved. My father hired an "Efficiency Expert" years ago, and it was a disaster. My Dad finally canned him, saying "He was gonna save us right out of business!" He pissed the customers and the help off.

I build my own desktop PCs, but may buy another laptop from dell, but it won't be from the home division.

[Fil0403]

"Apple leads PC companies with a ranking of 79. [http://...|http://...] Consumer Reports this week ranked tech support among PC companies, and Dell came in third in notebook support with a score of 60 out of 100, far behind Apple with 83. It also trailed Apple's score of 81 in desktop support with a score below 60."

Does Apple pay so much to Cnet to be praised in every single article? First of all, Apple cannot lead PC companies because Apple doesn't make PCs; secondly, of course Apple leads computer companies in consumer satisfaction, most people who have Macs would consider themselves highly satisfacted with Apple products even if their new shiny Mac would explode 1 week after being purchased and Apple would refuse to replace the unit or give the money back. And why would they be dissatisfied with Apple? Just because they commercialized laptops with exploding batteries? Just because they commercialized laptops that would randomly shutdown every now and then (the infamous RSS - Random System Shutdown)? LOL. Having in mind these facts plus the statement "Consumer Reports says that all PC companies, from Apple to Lenovo, see the same quantity of service calls generally", one can only conclude it's not so much that Apple makes better quality computers, it's just that Mac users seem to have lower quality standards than PC users. After all, they seem to have reasons for that, LOL.

[Fil0403]

If you really want to evaluate the quality of a company's computers, put it next to an HP and give them the same use (don't just ask biased people how satisfied you are with your hate-company or your favourite company).
An HP computer (be it dektop or laptop) beats any Mac any time (and not just in quality, LOL).

[gdmaclew]

All you people who are referring to US support should really be referring to North American Support.
Dell has Call Centres in both the US and Canada.
Unfortunately they must be having profit problems because they just closed a 1500-person Call Centre here in Ottawa after being here only 2 years.

[wahoomurf]

All that is wrong with outsoucing can be summed up one word - DELL..A horror show.