Dell is swell, customers say

(continued from previous page)

probably still go with Dell," he said. "But (the latest experience) certainly levels the playing field with the other guys."

Indeed, Dell's lower customer satisfaction among businesses and consumers represents a misstep for a company that rarely makes mistakes. The root cause of the business problem, and likely for consumers as well, was Dell's rapid unit shipment growth in recent years and the resulting rapid influx of new business customers, Perron said.

Dell executives, who acknowledged problems earlier this year, don't dispute Perron's diagnosis. But they say the company has been working to rectify the situation for some time and is also seeing better results in its own internal surveys.

Dell has begun calling customers who place multiple calls to tech support for the same concern.

Aside from launching its Enterprise Command Center, which primarily serves large server and storage system customers, Dell's enterprise group, which serves the same type of large customers as TBR surveys for its reports, has taken a new approach that refocuses the efforts of its support technicians on lowering the time it takes to resolve problems.

Some of the measures Dell took included hiring more phone support technicians and giving them more advanced case-management software tools to let them track problems as opposed to having to start over with each call. On-site techs now stay with a customer until that customer says a problem is solved, instead of installing a part and leaving, Riazzi said.

Dell's goal is to solve each problem within a 12-hour period. Right now it meets that goal about 96 percent of the time, globally, for its server and storage products, Riazzi said.

Dell, whose first Enterprise Command Center is near its headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, has added new centers in China and Ireland to serve customers in those geographic regions. It plans to add another branch in Japan in the near future, and to expand the command center's role from servers and storage products to PCs for large customers.

Dell rerouted some of its support calls from businesses, sending calls from corporations that own its Optiplex desktop and Latitude notebook PCs to technicians in the United States instead of technicians at its call center in Bangalore, India, after complaints about service. TBR's Perron said she thinks the move helped Dell's satisfaction rates improve.

Tackling trouble on the home front
Though Dell says about 85 percent of its business comes from corporations, the company still maintains a thriving consumer PC business. Home users made some of the same complaints about service as large businesses did during the last year, but Dell says it has made progress on the home front as well.

Bobbi Dangerfield, director of customer experience for Dell's U.S. Consumer business, said the company has also beefed up phone support for consumers with the aim of solving problems more quickly. To that end, it has added more staff, increasing, for example, the number of more senior, "level two" technicians available to help resolve problems.

The company has also trained its support technicians to handle so-called customer care issues, such as helping to resolve problems with orders instead of transferring calls. Furthermore, it has begun calling customers who place multiple calls to tech support for the same concern, in an effort to resolve the issue.

"We got some pretty loud feedback from our customers. (They) told us that the No. 1 thing they want us to do is fix their issue when they contact us. They say, 'Solve my problem the first time,'" Dangerfield said.

Dell has also begun an educational program to help customers avoid spyware and computer viruses. About 20 percent of the support calls it gets concern spyware, executives have said.

According to Dell's own surveys, the efforts have helped increase customer satisfaction, Dangerfield said.

Still, Dell's India-based phone support technicians, one source of consumer complaints, are staying put, although Dell says it has increased training there.

"I'm happy to report that our India contact centers today are leading the way in customer satisfaction" at Dell, Dangerfield said.

[fred dunn]

The TBR polled Execs, not users...dumb.

When was the last time the executives in your enterprise phoned in your trouble call to Dell? When was the last time the executives in your enterprise took an active interest in the user's interaction with Dell support?

With this in mind how accurate are the TBR figures?

My experiences with Dell's end-user support are that they want YOU to prove that there is a problem before they will take any action.

Dell support is no better or worse than any of the other consumer oriented computer companies even when dealing with enterprise customers.

I will give them this, their back-end technical folks do know what they are doing but unless you go through your enterprise sales rep you'll never know who they are or how to contact them.

[audiophilecc]

Proof of Dell computers poor quality

This University's lab computers have 18.55% Dell computer
failure for the last month. Thats around 1 in five computers.
Students were standing around hunting for people leaving the
lab.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.theeyeopener.com/storydetail.cfm?storyid=1552" target="_newWindow">http://www.theeyeopener.com/storydetail.cfm?storyid=1552</a>

Oh Please, What Proof?

So, I have read this link to some Girlie Man school newspaper three times! I do not see the word Dell used once, nor do I read any what percent of any name brand computer Failure. Dude, you need to get your nose out of that paper bag for awhile.

Quite frankly, we love Dell

We've been using dell for all of our servers for many years, and almost every server in our datacenter is a Dell. The machines are very reliable (we've only had one failure in 4 years) and the support (for business, anyway) as been quite outstanding. Best of all, their pricing is aggressive, and I choose them over the competition every time. My only gripe is that it can take anywhere from 7 days to 30 days to receive an order, but hey... for a 30% savings over the competition, I'm happy to wait. Obviously the just-in-time system building model is what it takes to extend great prices.

Jonathan Hoppe
Chief Technology Officer
Netriplex Premium Managed Hosting
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.netriplex.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.netriplex.com</a>

[fred dunn]

CTO Huh? So you are the one calling support?

Unless you are the one calling support then I would say that your comments are irrelevant to this story. I appreciate Dell's aggressive pricing as well. When you are the person that has to call through then let's talk.

Not True...

I have had a Dell SmartStep 250N for 3 days less than two years. It restarts automatically, the screen does not hold steady... the hinges are not working... the floppy drive does not work.. the USB broke off...

I tried to get in touch with their Support (Before my 1 year contract expired) and they did not return my calls. I am surprised that they say so... as a matter of fact I have noticed a lot of complain about SmartStep's all models...

I think they are doing a selective report.

[Olds]

Dell Smartstep 250N Little Known Fact

Today I was looking for a replacement hardrive for my Smartstep 250N and found an interesting artical that shows proof that running on battery power the CPU doesn't run at 2.2 GHz, it only runs AT HALF THAT SPEED. Being that I use this primarily on the road I only got half the processor that I thought I was buying. I have had many problems with Dell over the past few years, but this is where I draw the line. False advertising and fraud guarantee that I will no longer purchase from them. If anyone has heard any legal claims over this matter I would love to hear about it.

When I was researching this PC I never found any information that even hinted at this. Here is the URL for the site with the test results:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20021101/" target="_newWindow">http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20021101/</a>

Ed

[akhenatonelmarna]

It's a Snow Job!

Poppycock! Anybody who has spent time on the phone with those syrupy-sweet plasticly-polite bottom-level phone operators in India knows how much of a relief it is to finally work your way up to a real tech on the phone based here in the USA. Dell wastes tons of their customer's time! And another thing ... their lower-end PC's use cheap motherboards produced in China. They are inferior and have a high failure rate. Dell is riding on a history of past quality. The present is an entirely different story. But they sure put a good spin on the story and produce a nice snow job!

Satisifed with Dell? Not as much as I'd like to be.

Imagine you buy a brand new Mac or PC, and a month later there's an upgrade released for the OS. (Well, maybe it would take a bit longer for Microsoft.) Then imagine that you're told by the manufacturer that no upgrade for your PC will be available, even though the hardware is compatible and you're willing to pay for for upgrade.

That's what happened to me (and many others) with my new Axim X3i Pocket PC. Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition came out for the Dell Axim X3i a little more than a month after I bought mine, but after months of hemming and hawing, Dell announced that there would be no upgrade.

I really like my Axim - much faster than my old PDA, bright screen, nice form factor, etc. But it doesn't have 2 key features that WM2003 SE offers - landscape mode and the ability to connect to WiFi networks using Cisco LEAP. After a positive upgrade experience with an early Compaq Aero 2130, I'd come to expect the ability upgrade the OS as long as the hardware requirements were met, but not with Dell.

[ebabin]

they didn't ask me

Dell - unbelievable - in terms of lousy. Can't get the order right, inserts wayward items in your quote, screws up deliveries, can't get the customer rep to respond...what else can I say, if it were my money, I wouldn't be spending it there. I even resorted to sending an email to [e-mail] which got a phone call from some company exec. She agreed this was no way to run a business and said she would resolve it and call me back. She then immediately took a 3 week vacation without a callback.

[PCCRomeo]

All PC's are shitty...

No matter what computer you use that is Windows based, it is a piece of crap. I think a computer is only as good as it's OS.

[Bill Jelen]

Dell customer service is run by SCAM ARTISTS

I purchased my Dell demension from Dell on 4-3-01
With IN HOME WARRANTY!! ON 5-3-04 i PURCHASED A ONE YEAR IN HOME WARRANTY for $117.16.

NOW I have a problem with my MONITOR inverter, they sent me to India FOUR TIMES!!! to no avail,
(they could not reach the monitor from there)!!!!!
If the people in INDIA do not know the answer they hang up.
Yesterday I had a problem with my HP printer,today at 9:30 am I had a new printer delivered,&#38; a return lable enclosed so I could return the old one at NO CHARGE!!! UPS will pick up my old one tomorrow again at no charge!!!!
NEVER AGAIN WILL I PURCHASE ANYTHING FRON DELL
Bill Jelen [e-mail]

[coombsy16]

dell smartstep

well i dont know if you know that all laptops come standered like that. it is a setting that can be changed in the bios or system settings.
it is a power save seting. if it was running at 2.4ghz the battery would only last about 1/2hr at most. dell was not false advertising. i know this because i am typing this report on my dell smartstep 250n and i am a computer technition.
the only problem with the laptop is it overheats while on ac power.

please dont put down dell because yopu dont know how a laptop works.

[coombsy16]

pc's are !@#$

agreed
mac is better