Comments on: Dear Dell: Customer service should be free

Charging consumers for access to American customer service agents - as soon as the computer is out of the box? This is clearly the wrong move at the wrong time.

[cwbytruckers]

What is up with the "free customer service". If you pay for extended warranties, you should be able to call customer service at any time, because you paid for it. Its Dell's responsibility to have the support in place to "support" the warranty that you have purchased. I have had war with there service for the last month. To give Dell credit, they did replace a 3 year old laptop, but the language barrier was terrible. Dell should have "American" support techs for "Americans". Let the support centers in India and the Philippines support there own areas. That takes the language problem out of the question. I have been faithful to Dell for years, but for me that may not be that way much longer.

Hell, just do what I do, Just format the hard drive and do a software rebuild every 6 to 9 months. Keep you drivers handy on another partition. If you use a computer, you should be able to at least "some" basic maintenance on it.

[Hanspuppa]

You make a good point. My problem is that I have to do this every few weeks, and as many as 3 times in one week, due to data corruption. Dell's response to this issue was, "We don't have that issue, so it must be something you are doing to cause it". I have done this every 3-4 months for over 28 years, just because of the nature of computers, but every few weeks is a little much.

[cjs_cnet_xyz]

I would gripe about the extra $155 that Dell wants for domestic customer service, but I don't intend to purchase a Dell. Dell has two things running against it. One, all its notebooks are built in China which does nothing for the local economy. Two, its corporate headquarters is in Texas, which while doing well economically for itself, has given us politicians that have wrecked the the economy for the rest of us. I foresee that as the economy gets worse there will be a silent boycott against both China and Texas. Don't sell this as an American company if your products aren't produced here.

[GeorgeO7]

Basically you pay 99.00 per year to be told to reformat in American.

[KYLEB_IN_AZ]

Everyone here needs to remember that Dell's competitor CDW offers free tech support, 100% english speaking, US employed tech support, for 5 YEARS post sale on ALL their products. Why bother with Dell?

[williamjacobs]

Their "Chat" support has served me well.
Their techs are handling more than one call at a time and the techs I've typed with are patient so I can be doing other things while they muddle about.

Dell might do well to have a "bootup" help desk. If you can get online, you should be chatting with whoever is cheap. If you can't get to the cheap team, you need someone GOOD to get you there. That might be a workable compromise.

[MaxFolger]

For some humor about outsourced tech support, check out this short video satire: http://www.pledge-drive.com

[pauseplace]

Maybe this is off topic, but I have had Dell computers for the last ten years. We relocate every year due to my husbands job, and at first the support options offered by Dell where terrific. From a tech coming to a hotel room to fix a laptop to understandable, correct support over the phone. Sadly the support is terrible. The customer service is terrible, and I believe the hardware is becoming a piece of junk. Dispite what others say I am not "cheap" and do not want to pay for support. Not being a computer guru I Know I need help. I have a problem with paying for sub-standard service. I will gladly pay if the "Fix" works. Unfortunately the last two times I had to have service where very upsetting. The idiot in India wanted me to mail back a laptop to verify that the screen was cracked, before they would send a tech to replace it. I paid for in home service since I have no permantent home and live in corporate housing or hotel rooms. I have no permantent address, and ANY IDIOT CAN SEE A FRACTURE GOING ACROSS THE ENTIRE SCREEN!!!! Needless to say I will not support Apple due to many things, but lately have been thinking of the switch. DELL NEEDS TO REVAMP THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS AND GET BACK TO GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE, BACKED BY AFFORDABLE OPTIONS FOR THOSE OF US WHO ARE NOT GEEKS!!!

[Tulsaboyw]

Ok... the idea for charging for tech support is a global deal and thats cool..


But charging for English is not...

Fortuanately Dell isnt the only choice. And as of that report, will not be till they dont do it anymore.

My employer will be rotating out Dell on our cyclical efforts to update pc's.
We will be putting current dells in the wharehouse up for sale and immediate consider HP or others.

They are considering having a very public sale since many are still in the original boxes still sealed up.
They are able to actually return only the most recent 2 shipments to us as part of cancelling the longterm contract we had with Dell.


This idea will cost Dell millions I think overall if other companies do the same thing.

Tech support - yes charge for it... but charge for English is not.

The company will be requiring ENGLISH as part of the support deal.
The tech support charing is different story.

[Tulsaboyw]

Btw, the above, was a multimililon dollar multi year contract for world wide support, and we would have considered ok, if not for the fact that 80% of our stuff is usa.

It took a a bit, but we are fully non-dell, even on servers. The last items to go were Dell oversided monitors.

We did in fact go totally HP on support, but only partially HP on user equipment.
Servers & non user are all HP, but we have Apples,Gateways and a few customized local.
But HP is supporting those too,as part of a corporate contract.

[Swd90806]

Here's my customer service nightmare:

I have been unable to use my Dell gift cards for purchases. Starting Jan of 2008, I started to gift myself a $100 card a month. Some were E-Cards ($600), some were Hard cards ($1200) sent in the mail. All have no expiration date.

Around Dec of last year, I didn't receive my card in the mail. After two hours on the phone getting passed on from person to person, I finally hung-up and called my credit card company and canceled that charge. I continued to buy cards till I had $1800 of them.

Then I decided to use one... and that is when the trouble started. I took me over a week, hours of waiting on the phone, etc till they were able to correct the E-Cards. They assured me the other hard cards would work.

Two weeks later, when I decided to use the hard cards, I was able to use 2 of them and place some orders. Unfortunately, the orders went through, but the cards were later invalidated and my orders canceled. It seems they were invalidated by Dell. One order I was not notified, the other I received an email. After speaking with Sales, they were going to contact Dell Card Service and correct the problem. I also called Dell Card Service and asked them to follow-up with Sales. Neither of them did, although they said they would.

That was almost two weeks ago. I have called daily, e-mailed daily and generally gotten nowhere with Dell Gift Service (they say their tool to fix the problem is broken) and Customer Service.

Now, I go to check the balance on the remaining 13 cards at Dell's website, and some show invalid, some show $100 original balance. Unfortunately, the ones with a balance do not go through when I try to make a purchase. There is no expiration date on this type of card, yet they show as invalid.

I average an hour a day and have used all my lunches and breaks at work trying to resolve the problem. Those hours have added up to days, many minutes on my prepaid phone, and still no resolution. The managers I call are often there on site, but let my calls go to voice mail after holding for 20 minutes or so. Often I am passed around and then disconnected. I have told this entire story to dozens of Dell employees (Sale, Service, Gift card care).

Several employees promise to call back the following day regardless of the outcome, and have not. These people owe me for my time, my minutes, the sales discounts I was unable to use, and finally the frustration of getting the runaround. Why does Dell treat their loyal customers so poorly?

[wtsdrop03]

As an American based company and the majority of your sales are with Americans, I feel Dell has a lot of guts to charge a service fee to talk to an American. I intend to notify my senator and congressman to see if anything can be done to stop this.