What The Fuck is with Dell Technical Support?!

Dell really blows. I've been trying to pay my bill for weeks now and I refuse to pay them the $10 check by phone fee for a credit card that I am paying 20% interest on... I mean, just how much is the 'privelege' of buying from them worth?

Grr... On a funny Dell note, when I got my EVDO card from Verizon it wouldn't work with my Dell laptop so the tech suppor guy, after an hour of uninstalling and reinstalling the same software, the guy said he had found my problem. He had me take down this long number and he said that Dell needed to replace my motherboard so the EVDO card would be compatible LOL

I bought a Dell laptop for my sister when she started Law school with the 3 year warranty. She had the motherboard replaced 3 times and then finally they gave her a new computer because they didn't have the old motherboard anymore. How they make money selling products that don't work is beyond me.

"The Dell 2405FPW UltraSharp Flat Panel LCD Montior I recently purchased ..."

That was your first mistake... :) Of course, isn't it silly you can't get the help you need on the Dell web site? I mean - phones? How 20th century...

Hey, this montior kicks ass. Well, the working one on my desk at work does...

http://flickr.com/photos/jzawodn/59409632/

There's a reason I deal with HP and IB...erm, Lenovo... Dell really has a terrible service. However, if you can buy their business systems then your tech support call won't be routed to India!

Silver linings...

Happy New Year, Jeremy!

That's not a monitor... THIS http://www.flickr.com/photos/spullara/1134457/ is a monitor!

Even more reason to just deal with HP ;) They seem to believe in customer support, even helped debug via their little javachat sessions when there are issues without even having to phone them ;)

Interestingly, I ordered a Dell monitor (the same model, in fact) through an employee discount, and had a similar horror story. In my case, my monitor order was mysteriously cancelled silently (I only noticed because it never arrived!).

I spent a full hour and a half on the phone with Dell, trying to get my monitor. At one point, I had a sales associate try to raise the price on me, lying about the discount for that month being over! Numerous reps had poor command of English, at least one was rude and deliberately transferred me to the wrong place, and the experience just plain sucked.

By way of contrast, at my first job in Silicon Valley, I knew a guy whose Inspiron died. He called up their tech support for help, and was waiting on an answer, when _Michael Dell_ called him, to make sure that everything was all right with the support he was getting. Evidently, at one point Dell would just call up people at random and see how they were doing. I was deeply impressed at the time, which is why I'm so sad to see Dell support so far in the toilet.

On the plus side, their flat panel LCD's kick all kind of ass -- almost worth the customer service nightmare!

Sam: you win. My monitor is a mere second to your 30" beast.

How is it that you (and a couple of others) have been getting the 24"? I just got my crappy 19" CRT swapped out and they gave me a 20" LCD (HP). I'm not complaining, the 20" LCD is far better than what I had. I just want to know who's leg to hump when the 30" Dell comes out. ;)

I really have no idea. I had asked for a 20" to replace my *personal* 20" LCD that had been on my desk at work for 2.5+ years. And I ended up with a 24" monitor.

Maybe you need to buy your own first and then ask them if they can do one better? :-)

That's the problem with outsourcing CS to India. Soon these companies will realize it probably does more harm then they save in $$.

What's that saying? "If I had a nickle for everytime..." I had a shitty customer service experience with someone in Inida I'd be a rich man!

I guess my question to you is, will you continue to do business with Dell? I sure as hell wouldn't. To many other companies that would bend over backwards to have a customer that we don't need to deal with this BS.

Wow, that's even worse than Yahoo! customer care...

it's the same here in Europe - got to stay clear of dell just in case you have to call their tech support, or even sales to be honest - I remember a client that ordered 3 70gb hot swappable drives, nothing arrived for months despite tons of calls and hair pulling then 7 arrived at once - (actually maybe that is a reason to use them!) nah the phrase piss up in a brewery springs to mind - HP and IBM all the way, at least you know they'll sort you out....

Dell lost the plot completey. I just wrote two stories about them on www.brandscribe.com (under Dell). What is sad is that when they started out they set the standard for customer service. Now Service doesn't excists anymore. At least not for the single user. And then they find it strange that they don't make the numbers anymore for Wall Street.

Walt Mossberg wrote a good story about Dell last Thursday in the WSJ. Worth reading.

Please stop blaming this on India -it sounds racist. I've been in the USA for 15 years now, and Customer Service has always been terrible, even when calls were most frequently answered by Americans. Today, Customer Service is _still_ terrible, but it has little to do with India. They follow the same scripts and procedures Americans used to. So please stop blaming this on Indian people. Grow up.

Indian,

I don't think anyone is blaming this on India, the qualms are with Dell, not a race or country. Let's be clear on that.

Yes, support is known to have sub-standard service than front line sales or fulfillment, and that's common in many industries both domestic and foreign, why?

Because support is the bastard child, it's often an 'afterthought' a 'costcenter' and receives less resources.

Sound familiar? This is likely the original driver why Dell outsourced their support overseas to a cost effective solution.

Here's what I believe the issue is, companies downgrading the value of support and finding a lower cost opportunity.

The age old value continues to hold true:
"you get what you pay for"

The only way to get Dell (and other companies) to change their way is to stop giving them business. But the thing is Dell is probably giving you a great price that's hard to beat, especially with the employee discount. As a previous post mentioned, you get what you pay for. Even if home customers stopped buying from Dell, they still have a huge corporate customer base. In general, Dell provides relatively decent support, but then again there are not many other companies to compare them to in terms of price and discounts. Sure they will screw you over every now and then, but I think their major customers' satisfaction is enough to keep them in business.

Personally, I prefer Apple, but the cost is so much more than PC hardware. For me it is worth it, for others maybe not.

Indian: Where'd that chip on your shoulder come from? I didn't write "What the Fuck is with Indian Tech Support?", did I?

No.

I have many friends in India who work in technical jobs. They do a fine job. But this bullshit that Dell tolerates is the problem, not the country in which it happens.

Indian,

I'm Indian too and I *am* squarely blaming this on call centers in foreign countries like India. In the years that I've been in the United States, the customer service has been steadily declining ever since call centers started to be moved to cheaper countries. The simplest things take an immense amount of time to convey. They either can't speak english or can't understand. And if they can/do then they can't or won't help. We all now Dell has their own share of problems besides sucky customer service but callous Indians are certainly not helping. It was a factor when I decided to move away from Dell and to Apple. I get excellent customer service every time and they can speak in English!

Wash off your psuedo nationalism and recall the customer service you used to get back in India and come back to reality.

Anjan

This could have been accomplished on their website in 5 minutes. Use their "Chat With Us" feature, and have an IM-style conversation with a human.

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop for my wife. While purchasing, I was having trouble locating the correct port replicator for this model. I used the chat feature, and after 2 minutes of explaining that I really knew what a port replicator was, and that I really wanted one, the representative had added it to my cart.

A week later, when I received the package in the mail, no port replicator. So I hopped on their chat thingy again, and explained the issue. After asking for my customer number, and looking up my account info, the representative was able to tell me that the port replicator had been shipped separately, was shipping via DHL, where in the world it was currently located, and a link to the DHL tracking website.

All in all, I thought they did a fantastic job. Maybe you just need to stay away from the phone :-)

Btw, some tips on dealing with Dell support:

If you have some piece of hardware that is not working, state to them that you have another identical hardware. For example, tell them you have 2 LCDs. Claim that the old one works fine, and when you put the new LCD in the same system, it does not work.

Next, claim that you also have an identical PC. The old LCD works fine in both systems. The new LCD does not work in either.

You can make alot of variations of this to cut down time. I think my shortest support call to them was 10 minutes, resulting in a replacement part shipped out.

In short: lie, lie, lie.

I have Dell computes and I think they're like anything else these days. If they work, they work great and you get years of good service out them. However, if they're defective, you're in trouble because most companies don't have real support anymore. (Note: there a few that do and god bless them, they're great).

What's sad in Dell's case is that at one time, many years ago, they're technical support was superb. That was before the call site based support and the IVR's.

I would add re: Indian outsourcing that there ARE cultural differences between India and the United States and that opens the door to confusion, misunderstanding and frustration. To make matters worse, and this is in general with other countries than your own, there are often cultural no-nos that can be incredible insults to one culture and are completely benign to another. I don't claim to know Indian culture so I have no idea if something like this exists, but one would think if you make an off-hand joke to an Indian and it turns out to be a highly offensive item, the tech could just shut down on you and not offer quality support. As a customer, I shouldn't have to worry about the delicate balance of not pissing off or insulting someone that might not be in my country. You know??

I'm sorry to learn of the problems you have had with this monitor. When you get one that's working I reckon you'll be very pleased with it.

Here's a curve ball for you all:

Dell support is shite, but then I put it to you all that that is why we buy from Dell...

I buy Dell because I know that they aren't leveraging expensive-to-maintain support into the cost of their products. It's why I **don't** buy from HP, IBM, etc.

Like most of the readership to this blog, I won't ever need technical support on my computer - which I've witnessed from friends and family how draining it must be for the computer company (People calling up to find out how to install a product or recover a deleted file, etc).

When I receive my computers the first thing I do is reinstall windows to my liking - which for Dell seems to invalidates the support (it used to back in the day, anyway).

The Dell monitor in question here is identical (other than outer case) to the same sized Apple Cinema screen. It's the same LG/Phillips LCD component with generic electronics added. But the reason I didn't buy the Apple one, is because the Dell one is half the price of the Apple.

Apple support ain't the best, but it's not bad, and certainly better than Dell. But I don't want to pay for premium support, so I choose Dell.

Sure, if it's dead on arrival than that's about the only time you do need support – but it’s a valid gamble because other than that there's little reason to ever need to call them again (and after 12 months the guarantee is gone anyway, so if it breaks you might as well buy a new one).

I do think Dell should manage expectations better upfront - but I don't think they should improve the support (assuming it would hike up the cost of their products to pay for it).

As a footnote, we’ve had the whole “outsell support to India” thing for sometime here in the UK. It’s not as good, but then the irony is that the companies know this. It’s just part of the progression towards leveraging their business as a value/budget proposition instead of a premium proposition. This polarisation is something we’re seeing a lot in Europe (Ikea, etc) , and no doubt in the States too – WalMart, etc. Let it continue, I say. The choice can only be good for the consumer.

Just went through a phone exchange (under warranty) with Cingular - can't be more happier. Filled out a form on their site, a replacement phone showed up 2 days later. The box includes return label and even the tape needed to seal the box. Total time spent on the process is about 3 minutes with no human interaction involved.

I can't imagine hiring a call center in any country can be cheaper than operating a web server.

Dealing with Cingular's human customer service (and it is based in US) is simply infuriating however.

Jeremy: Sorry for the confusion - but my comment was not directed at your original post, but at Cameron Olthuis' comments.

Anjan: Bullshit. I have called Dell numerous times before and after their call-centers were moved to India and I have recieved the same quality of tech support. I've never had a problem understanding the Indian call center folks - they seem to speak english quite well. Please do NOT accuse me of indulging in 'pseudo' nationalism - thats quite uncalled for. Perhaps _you_ are insecure as a minority in this country, and I guess it is easy to fit in if you openly participate in criticizing Dell's problem on another RACE. What a jerk.

Aaron Brazell: You don't need to worry about cultural differences. Just be patient and polite - as you would when you speak with any human being, be it American or Indian. Its a TECH SUPPORT call, if you are worried about offending someone's culture, just stick to a formal discussion and stay on topic. I really don't see how this can be a problem. Its a global world today, stating that you want to only speak with fellow Americans due to cultural differences with others is quite closed minded. Just my honest opinion.

Speaking of call centers (this one appears to be in US not India)

My wife sound someone's purse last night in SF. I'm trying to find her, and I just called the Call Center of Washington Mutual to let her know I found it.

Unlike your experience Jeremy, the Support Rep Cynthia said she'll call her, and give her my cell number.

I hope this call center experience works for me...

http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2005/12/delia-desmond-i-have-your-purse-but-i.html

The customer support problems with Dell have been what has kept me from buying the same monitor. Where I worked prior all of our servers and desktops (including monitors) were from Dell. When the hardware went bad (it often did a on servers particularly 10 to 18 months ago when all 15 servers purchased needed replacing in 3 months) it was living hell to get any decent response from Dell.

Now that I am a small business I can not afford the pain of downtime that comes from Dell. It is also why I have been a very happy Apple customer. This said the savings on the same monitor is tempting and has held my purchase in limbo for a few months now.

Oddly, in the past two days I had excellent phone support from Adobe (in the past it has been 40 to 50 minutes just to get them to answer the phone) and has a voice system work beautifully when exchanging flight miles for a magazine (the voice service took 20 minutes of harassing me and not understanding (when asked where I found the offer I said the internet, which the phone guy asked when I opened that software) before saying he could not help me an hanging up). Both of these I was really impressed by. This should be or could be the way things normally work, in fact I make most of my purchase decisions these days on customer service after finding the product I want.

I have had one personal experience with Dell and several business related:

Personal: My laptop adapter/charger broke and after locating the 800 number in my original papers I called them at 10p on a Friday night. Now don't take this the wrong way, but I always find it funny when someone with an obvious foreign accent say their name is "Thom" or "Frank" or whatever. Short story even shorter; my experience was great and by Monday morning I had DHL at my door with a replacement!

Business (here's the bad stuff): A year or two back, we chose Dell to be our vendor as we were really impressed with the 1750 server line and probably spent upwards of $200k in less then a year. Their support at first was OK and we were able to have Dell either come to our network center and fix a server or send us a replacement. Then they introduced the 1850, which by the way is an AWFUL server that draws A LOT of power, and stopped selling the 1750. That's when everything hit the fan. We had close to 50% failure rate on those servers and 1 year later we still have 5-6 defective 1850's that Dell refuse to take back or fix. They even had their head of sales in the NW come to visit, and he personally wrote down the serial numbers for the defective servers; guess what, nothing happened. Also, guess what, we don't shop at Dell anymore but they sure as hell like to contact us via email or phone weekly. "Sure, we may consider buying more servers from you IF YOU FIX THE BROKEN ONES WE ALREADY HAVE".

On a sidenote, Silicon Mechanics (a local, to us, Seattle company) has EXCELLENT hardware and support. I have never seen servers put together this well and cleanly. :)

India:

Nothing personal or against Indian people. I'm sure I'd have the same problems if I called Russia. I should've probably said problems with CS in other countries in general.

I think it comes down to language barrier, cultural difference, and the fact that outsourced customer service doesn't care about the customer.

Again, my comment wasn't meant to be racist and I don't think it was, but I'm sorry you took it that way.

Jeremy, I fully agree with you. Dell support sucks. I once ordered a Laptop for my wife. In the process, I had to contact the sales for some reason. It went to an Indian Call Center. They gave some bull like the model I ordered is out of stock and they will try to give an equivalent one. I was not satisfied with what they offered. But what pissed me off is the attempt made by the sales rep. to convince me to go with her offer using "fellow Indian" card. I thought it was throughly unprofessional. She started asking stuff like which part of India I am blah blah blah. Then trying to pitch her offering saying something as if she is doing this because I am also an Indian. I got so pissed off I cancelled my order with them and then bought one from Toshiba. Dell sales and support techs are totally unprofessional.

I bought the same monitor this summer. The first one that arrived was defective -- there was something wrong with the DVI connector such that not all of the channels were connecting. The image had either a green or purple cast depending on how you jiggled the DVI cable.

I called Dell and managed to get the problem resolved in a single call. Although it did take about 60 minutes, most of which was hold time while the rep checked various things with his manager. They initially wanted to send me a replacement DVI cable instead of a replacement monitor.

Fortunately, I happened to have a spare DVI cable lying around, and was able to prove that the fault was in the monitor and not the cable while still on the phone, thus saving me probably a week of waiting for a useless cable to arrive, and another call.

They were very courteous though, and my replacement monitor came quickly. The replacement works flawlessly and is one of the best purchases I've made this year.

That's why I like Dell's corporate tech support, which they moved "back" from India. When I call the Premier support line, I get someone either in Round Rock, TX or Nashville, TN. A recent conversation went something like this:

them: How can I help you?
me: Got a bad hard drive in a server. I'm the IT guy here, it's definitely toast.
them: What's the service tag of the server, and what size HD?
me: gave them the info
them: Sorry about that! New HD is on the way, you should have it tomorrow. Just stick the bad one in the same box and use the return label.

No scripts, no "have you plugged it in", etc. To contrast, their India-based tech support is completely useless.

I'm considering one of the 2005FPWs for when the Intel-based Mac Minis come out soon, after exceedingly positive experiences with the 1702FP, E171FP, and two E173FPs.

I'm waiting for the personal apology from Michael Dell for ruining Jeremy's happy holidays. ;-)

Oh that reminds me I have to call Dell once again to get the $50 discount they promised after they mysteriously cancelled my order twice, and I spent 3 hours talking on the phone.

Oh that reminds me I have to call Dell once again to get the $50 discount they promised after they mysteriously cancelled my order twice, and I spent 3 hours talking on the phone.

I worked for one of Dell's many many many outsourced tech support call centers for about two weeks until I'd had enough and quit.

They aren't interested in solving your problems, or in being friendly, all they care about is keeping their call times down to a couple minutes. That's how they keep their contracts. For some reason, eventhough anyone who has ever called tech support knows, corporate head honchos haven't figured out that we all know, or that just because a call time was short it doesn't mean that the issue was resolved, or resolved quickly.

You are better off reading your owners manual and online tutorials in how to fix issues with your computer, and as with a company like Dell, just hit up one of those guys at a Dell cart in your local mall and make him help you with things like returns or defective product.

get a Mac :-)

I went through a similar nightmare this past month taking care of some problems that arose on my daughter's Dell Inspiron 600. Dell support sucks, but so does Microsoft, IBM and the others.

Good support? Apple. No question about it. I am a very happy, very satisfied Mac owners. I've had a number of them. When problems have arisen, the Genius at the Apple Store or their technical support via phone has been great.

I'll never buy another Dell product as long as I live. It's Mac, all the way!

Too many senior managers are simply using the wrong metrics. Some of the metrics are probably self-serving, getting them the next promotion out of customer service hell.

There was a story about a company with lousy customer service that was tolerated by their suffering customers, until one day when the director's wife rang up for service.

Things turned around pretty quickly after that.

Dell is a Stock.

There are Three Jeremy's writing posts about Support Centers today...very intersting

Jeremy Zawodny
Jeremy Wright
and myself Jeremiah Owyang

My story has evolved...this Jeremy has had a good support center experience.

http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2005/12/call-center-that-worked-washington.html

I'm happy with my Inspiron 600M but also have issues with Dell. Here's my anecdote on how their ordering system does not reflect accurate info on anything other than systems.

As an idiot, I left my power converter at a remote office. Luckily, I have a second battery in the DVD slot and always have 8 hours of battery life. I called around LA and of course no one stocks the Dell power supply. I ordered two power supplies from Dell with next business day delivery (ordered on Monday night, expected it to ship on Tuesday, receive on Wednesday). Late Tuesday afternoon, I checked my order status and it was set to "build" with a ship date of that Friday. I called up Dell, did the cue dance for 40 minutes, and told the nice Indian representative that if I couldn't get it tomorrow, I wanted to cancel the order. He researched the order, said it was due to ship that Friday, and said he'd cancel the order. I then went to eBay and bought one nearby.

What happened? Of course the two converters from Dell showed up on Wednesday with the one purchased from eBay. A smaller retail site would have been able to give me an accurate status. Dell, of course, has to put a small order into its system which can't produce accurate information. Oh well, better to have too many than none at all. If anyone needs some extra 70W Dell power converters . . .

BTW, I would recommend that you be really careful with return shipment. In past, On top of their terrible customer service, dell support claimed that they never received my return shipment. My account never got credited and I ended up paying again to get the same item. :(

I STILL don't have the correct RAM configuration in the new Dell computer I purchased. They sent me replacement RAM which was identical to what was already in the system. And when speaking to support outsourced anywhere outside the US there are problems...the kind caused by language barriers.

Does Dell have an Email address to process these requests? It might be easier to do it that way.

I don't think it matter which country the customer service rep is in, if he/she doesn't have a vested interest in the work being done, then there will be little work quality. To a service rep in India doing contact work for a foreign company, it's just a job that has to be faced every day.

It's true; you get what you pay for. Which reminds me of a story:

MUJIBAR

Mujibar was trying to get a job in India. The Personnel Manager said, "Mujibar, you have passed all the tests, except one. Unless you pass it you cannot qualify for this job."

Mujibar said, "I am ready." The manager said, "Make a sentence using the words Yellow, Pink and Green."

Mujibar thought for a few minutes and said, "Mister manager, I am ready." The manager said, "Go ahead."

Mujibar said, "The telephone goes green, green, green, and I pink it up, and say, 'Yellow, this is Mujibar.'"

{Mujibar now works as a technican at a call center for computer problems. Apparently, Jeremy spoke with him}

This also boils down to (as others have mentioned) the change from "Tech support exists to solve your problem" to "tech support wants to spend as little time on your call as possible".

I started my career in '95 as the sole tech support guy for what ended up being the largest ISP in Oklahoma (before it was Earthlinked). By the time I moved from support to system administration, we had a crew of about 20 guys who knew their stuff - and remained on the phone as long as was necessary to solve a customer's problem.

Nowdays, if a tech support rep spends more than five minutes on the phone with a customer, they're punished for "taking too long". It's not about metrics, its about providing real technical support.

Bill

When listening to full sentences, you could at least guess from the context. Entering a long activation code (guess for which OS :-), mumbled in some inarticulate dialect, that was really a special kind of experience...

Guess I got lucky. I have 2 of those monitors on my desk (http://rodrigo.typepad.com/english/2005/11/desktop_10.html).

However I also had to spend ONE hour with tech support to figure out how to get the card readers from one screen not to conflict with the other (they will NOT work togehter, and had to unhook the USB cable from one screen, and disable the card reader from one...). And it's all running DELL harware with a dual DVI card, etc.

That's why you use American Express or a "premium" Mastercard or Visa. The magic word for these sorts of situations is "chargeback". The cc people won't put up with the indian call center either, and you'll get your money back.

Jeremy Zawodny :- You have not named your blog entry as "What the Fuck is with Indian Tech Support?" but your article sounds more like it, tell me is it Indian call center support persons fault if he does not have enough training at what or how he/she should respond. Is it not the responsability of Dell to make sure that happens. I also want to point out that you have mentioned Indian call center in your article. Why dont you tell everytime you mention 'Dell' put 'American Company' along with the name of the company.
You must remember something Dell will be spending only one tenth of the cost in maintaing a call center in India. Why dont you people as a customer convince Dell to spend more and give the same salary as a call center prof in US would get back in India. You may get the quality of sevice. You asked for, you only get for what you pay dont expect more.

Neither of these is a 30" monitor, but the service on an Apple justifies the investment :-)

http://flickr.com/photos/raganwald/71950017/

To the guy who said that Cingular support was bad let me just say that Cingular's Lubbock call center is second only to DirecTV's in terms of being the most useless and clueless call centers that I've ever dealt with.

Companies like Dell, Cingular, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, and other large companies put customer service somewhere above picking a color for the trash cans in terms of priority.

They know that once you've got their product, it's next to impossible or highly cost prohibitive to switch and so they've got you.

They will treat you badly and you can either deal with it, or do without.

Me...I switched from Cingular to Sprint, from Time Warner Cable to DirecTV to Dish, and I quit using Dell PC's a lot time ago.

And since today is January 1, 2006, I figure I can tell you that I spent New Year's eve 1994/1995 sitting on hold with Reveal's Technical Support.

I was placed on hold the minute my call connected and I got to witness the rollover in the ET, CT, MT, and PT while sitting listening to the lovely hold music on some San Diego radio station they were using.

Boy, I'd sure hate to use Jeremy's blog to chastise you for selective reading but your ranting does need some rectification. This was never aimed at race by either me, Jeremy, or anyone else that agrees that outsourced customer support has gone to the dogs. It is interesting though that you immediately construed it as a race issue. Hmm...

If you were attentive in your reading the observation applies to tech support in Bombay, Beijing, Budapest, or Buenos Aires. Forget Jeremy's personal experience. If you think Dell's precipitous fall from high customer support ratings have no connection with offshoring then you are not only riding the high horse of misplaced nationalism but ignorance too. Breathe some of the fresh air outside and realize that the specific instance of the accented, callous, and ill-mannered rep in India is a specific instance in question here and the rebuke aimed more at Dell. The trend applies to ALL offshore service centers.

It seems you need to address *your* insecurity as exhibited by your COMPLETE misapprehension of the topic and being hyper-sensitive about anything even including the word India. You just opened your mouth again and validated my original point that you're running in the opposite direction. Jeez, chill out and refrain from effeminate name calling.

Sorry, the comment above is for "Indian"

Atle,

Wikipedia also uses Silicon Mechanics, around 100 servers, afer a recommendation from LiveJournal a few years ago. Ours are shipped to Florida. Good people when it comes to dealing with the inevitable problems which happen from time to time.

For anyone buying database servers with write caching controllers and battery backup, do ask them to turn off hard drive write buffering. Not sure it's automatic yet and at least two of their controller vendors didn't do that in the controller, so you could suffer disk corruption on loss of power.

Better customer support experiences:

IBM - I bought a 20" IBM CRT that was slightly defective (one bottom corner was distorted). I called them up, reached a person immediately, no waiting and no voicemail tree. After explaining the situation, they overnighted (!!!) a new replacement monitor to me, along with a return label and free pick-up service for the defective monitor.

Apple - Bring defective hardware to Apple store. They diagnose/fix it there if possible, else they ship it out to the repair centers, and it usually is back in a week.

Neither company offers $500 laptops and $800 24" LCD screens, but you can certainly see what kind of cuts need to be made to offer such deals.

I personally called Dell trying to assist a friend of mine with a new computer his parents got him for Christmas (yes, just last week). You see, it came with no CPU. After being on hold for over an hour (thank goodness for speaker-phones) I got a real person that claimed they never purchased a computer from Dell, yet all the paperwork was in order. I ended up getting to a supervisor named Mark, whom seemed almost decent at first. I was asked how I knew there was no proccessor in the computer, so I told him "after seeing the bios display when trying to bootup, I opened the case and looked for myself." Then they refused to help and claimed that I voided the warranty there might've been by opening the case.

This issue with Dell is still being dealt with. Just another reason Dell sucks ass.

Malidar, just in case you don't know what you wrote is a joke: the CPU runs the BIOS code, so seeing the BIOS screens proves that there is a CPU. If this isn't intended as a joke post, best to tell the Dell people what isn't working, not what you think the cause is.

DELL Sucks!! I dont know how many times my DELL computer has caused me problems since I purchased it. And dealing with the customer service is even more frustrating!! Well I've learned my lesson..

James Day:

Uh, no, the CPU does not "run the BIOS code". The motherboard chipset does that. Most motherboards will post with no CPU or RAM, and just beep at you with an error message.

I had similar experiences many times with Dell back when I owned an Inspiron laptop.

I was so angry after one three-day exchange that I wrote to their European Customer Services Manager and demanded that they pay my phone bill (it came to something like 28ukp which gives you an idea of how long and frustrating my phone calls were).

Amazingly he wrote back and said that although they didn't normally do that in this case he would because (he agreed) my experiences were waaay beyond stupid.

Maybe try something like that?

The difference between good call centers and bad ones is one has knowledge about the product and is also empowered to make decisions without having to consult any manager. This was most evident in my dealings with my Netgear router. (BTW: Both service centers (India & Texas) in the end were not able to solve the problem I called about)

Foreign call centers are talking heads following a script which is friggin annoying. Real tech centers (whether it be American or Foreign) have used the product or know the product, and understand the in's and out's. But the ones which follow scripts are just extended troubleshooters. Which can be annoying if you have already done your homework.

India will continue to be the call center hub, I hope 1) they empower these individuals to make decisions which means 2) cutting down on the bureaucracy 3) better training to know the product and 4) they need better tools (software) so their jobs are easier to do 5) Companies like Dell have to be the responsible because they choose who gets their business which means 6) they will make look for better alternatives which means 7) more competition and 8) better service.

<badpun>"Thank you for calling the new Dell-ee technical support line, my name is ... umm... Bob? How may I be of helping you today?</badpun>

One place I've got to give props to for their customer service is Macromedia. I ordered Flash Pro 8 from them not too long ago, and the disk arrived cracked. I called them up, praying that my call wouldn't get routed to India... even found myself praying out loud at moments "Don't go to India. Don't go to India." Sure enough, spoke to someone with an excellent grasp of English that was able to take care of my issue right away. I had a replacement disk in my hand the next day. That's customer service.

The poor experience with Dell Support is exactly the reason our company stopped buying from Dell.

Saw this list today and thought I would post it for all to have. Enjoy!

http://paulenglish.com/ivr/

I don't want to violate your policy and do not believe I have. "provide a URL to a non-weblog. If you don't have a weblog or don't want to link to it, leave it blank too". I've linked to my own weblog containing pdf files of the documents I quote. If I have violated your policy it is by mistake so please do not "randomly screw with [my] mind". Thank you.

Hello,

I will write about an article from PC Magazine and another from PC World. Both articles provide incorrect information regarding Dell XPS support. I will also provide a brief log of a chat session to obtain software support which ended with the specialist telling me I need to pay $99.00 for software support.

---

Article 1 from http://www.pcmag.com
"Dell's New XPS Luxury Line".
09.28.05.
By Rich Fisco.
Link to article, http://brianzad.sdf-us.org/weblog/pcMag_log2.pdf .

Excerpt from article, "Upon purchase, each owner will receive the phone number and e-mail address of a special XPS customer service representative, which will remain the same throughout the life of the product. ...chat-based support, and an XPS support card that will get you quick access to information and VIP treatment when calling for support or a sale consultation. The XPS support personnel are also trained to deliver "how to" software support, assist with wireless installation and data migration, and will also support popular third-party devices and applications."

My experience with Dell has been different than expressed in the PC Magazine article "Dell's New XPS Luxury Line".
1. The following statement from the article is false, "Upon purchase, each owner will receive the phone number and e-mail address of a special XPS customer service representative".
- The truth is there is no e-mail address.

2. The following statement from the article is false, "The XPS support personnel are also trained to deliver "how to" software support".
- The truth is that Dell charges $99 for "software support".
To receive software support for Dell Pre-installed software will also cost customers $99 per incident.

----

Article 2, From PC World Magazine:
"Dell Aims High With New PCs, Services"
09.28.05.
By Tom Krazit, IDG News Service.
Link to article, http://brianzad.sdf-us.org/weblog/pcworld_log2.pdf .

Excerpt from article, "An XPS-only customer service representative will be assigned to customers who purchase XPS systems over the phone, starting with their first call for help with the new PC. That customer service rep will maintain a relationship with the customer over the life of the product, George (Mike George, vice president of Dell's U.S. consumer business) said. Web customers will be able to access special support pages containing information about their products plus a chat room attended by Dell support personnel dedicated to XPS customers."

My experience with Dell has been different than expressed in the PC World article "Dell Aims High With New PCs, Services".
1. The statement of Mike George is completely untrue.
2. There is no "chat hat room attended by Dell support personnel dedicated to XPS customers".
- The following excerpts from the chat session log indicate that the Dell chat room support personnel were unable to help. The topic was fixing Dell Pre-Installed software named Sonic DigitalMedia LE v7.

----

Excerpts from log with session ID ending in 2168. This "chat" was to resolve pre installed Dell software named Sonic DigitalMedia LE v7. The "chat" ended in a failure to resolve the issue.
***Begin Excerpt***
12/31/2005 12:33:26PM - ME "Hello, I got 1 of your systems with Sonic DigitalMedia LE v7 pre-installed. It doesn't work. This program is not listed on Sonics web site for support. Error: You are using 400 MB of a 700 MB CD-R. Your disk is full. How do I add data to my CD-R that has 300 MB free space?

12/31/2005 12:44:39PM Agent (Nitin Aggarwal): "After reviewing your request for assistance, I show that our technical support department will be able to best address your concern. To resolve your issue, please contact Technical Support directly at: Phone: 1-800-624-9896 Extension number: 7266955"
***End Excerpt***

Please delete the link to PC Magazine in above post. And please replace with "Article 1 from PC Magazine".

Sorry.

That's almost as bad as Yahoo web-hosting customer service. I've been trying to upgrade from domain name service to web hosting service with them for a week and they can't get it to work. They're craptastic.

The issue is not an outsourced call center. I have had good/bad experiences with both US based and India based call centers, and I am sure most of us have.

With Dell, the issue is really that once Kevin Rollins [a classic MBA] took over from Michael Dell metrics took precedence. And Dell has been under increasing pressure from Wall Street to hit their numbers.

Sridhar

After sitting under the tree for three weeks, we've past out 21 day return policy even thoug the new XPS never worked properly out of the box (and now I have to pay a 15% restocking fee to buy the HP i should have in the first place).

And why do we speak with Mitch in Round Rock when we buy the unit (who was very knowledgable) but get Mike from tech support (in some foreign land making a stellar wage I'm sure) who's challenged saying anything that was not on the script and actually knew less about the PC than the 7 year old we bought it for...

I plan on personally delivering the back to Round Rock and letting them know exactly what to do with their 15% restocking fee. Another fine indication of the errosion of customer service in America today, thanks Dell.

I have an internally cracked LCD, have been trying to find a Dell Tech Support person to either tell me where i can buy this part and/or solve this. No luck so far, maybe later on this month i will find some way of dealing with this,. Fuck if i would have known how much a hassle this would be, i would not have bought the damn Dell thing in the first place. suggestions?

You are all dumbass idiots and deserve what you get. Only about 2% of the total population that buy any brand of computer actually have any issues with the system and need to call tech support. Maybe if you removed your heads from your asses and had an original thought your lives would not suck so bad.

I am having a hard time with Dell too. I bought a Ispiron 700m and it had techncal isuues like overheating and a lower hard drive capacity than what I had actually ordered. After several attempts, I could get my computer replaced, but this time the replaced computer had one of the USb ports broken and a metallic sound coming from the rear back. My isuues have not been sorted out yet, inspite of my repeated emails and telephone calls which kept me holding for even two hours at times and then getting disconnected. Now I am receiving phone calls at wee hours from an extremely rude customer care representative saying that if I don't return the original computer they will be interuupting my service!! Both technical support and the customer care of Dell suck!!

Hi all:

I read the entry on Dell tech support, and yes, it's screwed up.
But not just for the reasons mentioned here in the comments.
I'm coming at this from the point of view of someone who works in a call centerI'm not going to stick up for the call centers just because I work in one, but I can tell you that your problems aren't entirely the fault of the agents taking the calls.
First, the hold times.
The reason you guys sit on hold for ungodly amounts of time is because there are too many calls and not enough agents, literally.
The companies don't want to staff enough agents to make sure there is no, or very little, hold time because they make a profit according to the number of calls coming in.
As far as information being accessible, that's a yes and no.
We don't have access to the IVR system, so we have no choice but to ask for the information again, which should prompt our superiors to just get rid of the damned thing, but logic never prevails in these situations, which totally sucks.
The worst part about it though is the fact that they'll hire anyone who can breathe, and once you've been there for a little or over a year, or once you start displaying the capabilities to make decisions for yourself, (in other words, if you're not a puppet), they frown on that.
They don't want people thinking in this line of work, and they'll pay as little as they can get away with.
If it weren't for the fact that there's still a lot of discrimination in the workplace and job market directed at people with disabilities, and the fact that call center jobs are plentiful, and the fact that I like to eat, I'd have quit two years ago.
That, and the people who aren't doing their jobs, (the people who pick up, let you hear part of their office conversation, and then lie and tell you you're going to be transferred to a supervisor because they've told the super about your problem) should be fired, but aren't.
It's one huge corrupt business.

do all of you realize that less than 10% of ALL Dell system owners have to call in for tech support, it's true, look it up!

Re Dell on-line support.
I have spent more time than I care to recall trying to find the email address of Dell Technical Advice. I have found their telephone support quite good but costly in terms of dialling an 0870 number and the difficulty of understanding an Asian accent. I should be able to contact them on line but seem unable to do so. Does anyone else experience this difficulty?

My own problem is that the printing on my screen loooks as though the font needs cleaning,(I know this cannot be so) The letters seem half formed or indistinct, but how can I correct it without an expensive call to India?
Has anyone got their email address?

Many thanks, Keith.

I ordered an Inspiron through my brothers work and it didnt come with any os/drivers. After trying to reach dell support on the phone (800wwwdell) for couple of days, with no luck of course, I came across this site and dialed the number that Jeremy had posted: 18008228965. I got a customer representative within 30 seconds and problem was resolved in 10 minutes. Personally I really dispise Dell and their shithole service, but I guess I got lucky this time.

Well I have had quite alot of experiences with the crappy Dell service. It initially started off with me getting my Inspiron 5150 a week late, and then when it arrived it didn't work properly, the fan was totally busted, so it kept crashing. I had to send it back to get a new one, so it took another 2 weeks, and I got a free printer and $50 rebate on it. I purchased 3 years of Complete care, after hearing all the trouble people have gone through, and boy have I used it. I have had so far with my Insrpiron 5150, 3 faulty Hard Drives, 3 faulty dvd-roms, 4 faulty keyboards, 1 faulty heat sink, 1 faulty touch pad, 1 faulty internet connector, and 1 broken screen after I got extreamly angry at what was happening with the computer. Now this is a lot, and I have constantly recieved PATHETIC SERVICE from the reps, and the last time I had a problem it took over 6 weeks to get everything up to where I am now, with the faulty internet connector after having a faulty heat sink. So I complained and wouldn't take a sorry as an answer anymore. I asked them what they would do for me for causing all of this trouble, they said i can keep the box that they were shipping the computer in. At that point I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle the guy talking to me. So I asked to speak to his manager, who then sent me to customer service. 2 days later, they told me that I would get another year of complete care for free, making it 4 in total.
So I took it and shut up, but the fact of the matter is I have recieved the crappiest product ever, and the customer service is aweful. I will never ever buy another Dell or allow anyone I know, ever buy one either.
FUCK DELL!

i just got a new dell 2005fpw. Same old blacklight issue..called them up..and in less than 25 minutes of hold/troubleshoot time, the only person who i spoke to authorized a exchange for me!. I guess i got lucky this time.

I'm just an innocent PC user and I am having problems with my mouse, why is is so damn hard to get a questioned answered by dell's so called customer service page? Who can I just ask advice on how to check into an erratic mouse? Thanks for the funny Dell bullshit stories above. Chris

Thanks I found your website on accident, My "customer care" rep. some how made it so I couldn't use my keyboard while we were "chatting" she gave me the legal office. I just wanted to get help with an additional keyboard, had just paid my $1400 balance and my keyboard wouldn't work w/them, works fine now, witchcraft? Now what do I do w/this very expensive elephant in my living room? Thanks for letting me vent.

I purchased a Dell Computer last year for my son. They advertised 1 yr 0% so I took advantage of THEIR offer. 5 months in I get a statement balance is due the next month or finance charges. I call in ask if my offer was good for 1 yr 0% the representative confirmed that it was. I asked why I was told on last statement its now due or finance charges would incure? He checks again and says " oh yes it is due" so I ask him if none of their people know what they are advertising or presenting as offers? Long story short these people are misinforming customers on their phone sales- then they proceed to make your life hell call you continueously at your work number "even when they are told not to call you there" I was in continueous contact with them via mail and home phone regarding their misrepresentation. They sent me to collections I filed a report with full documentation of all calls etc and they pulled the account from that collection agency and gave it to another one and the bullshit started all over again! They are so big that they can get away with illegal harassment. I was in collections for 10 years and the shit they pulled on me was illegal! By the way we purchased a computer the year before paid it in full one payment and had no problems I dont know what the hell is going on with this this past year piss poor customer service and Quality. I WILL NEVER BUY OR RECOMMEND ANYONE BUY DELL do your business locally!!!!

Nancy

I work as a dell software support. Most of my supervisors push us to get of a call in 30 minutes or less; which i find crap. Don't get me wrong but I feel that if you pay $100/An Issue to talk to me that you should get your $$'s worth. They try to push Quality & Quantinty per call; but when you ask them which is more important they say its 50/50.. but in doing so it feels like im half assing it for the customer. To do a Format Reinstall it takes on the average 1 hour; They tell us to tell the customer after we start the format that they should push in the valid entries for the question and call us back whenever that finishes so that the next technician can start the installation process; which forces the customer to wait another 1/2 hour to have to call back in again just so they can get drivers reinstalled. btw. my advice to you is if the technician asks for you to call back after this or that just say "No.. I want you to stay on the line". Unless their supervisor is listening to the call then they will more than likely stay on the phone.

my 2cents

Never again will I purchase a Dell. Every aspect of dealing with their products short comings and customer service is ridiculous. When ordering the lat d800, I was told 30 days, then 3 months later a computer arrives. It's not the $3700 one I specifically ordered with everything I asked for. Junk, just junk. I could have picked up a laptop for under $1000. CS, please, run around. Crashed first time turning it on. A key pops off and they want to replace the entire keyboard. I could go on and on. But the bottom line is, "What a mistake." My advice, don't bother with Dell anymore. Let them get their act together, maybe in a few years. Sell their stock too.

My update from 1/21/06 that I forwarded to Dell. Contacted Dell this a.m., 1/21/06, and got coaxed into the $99 support fee!! No service, long delays and extremely frustrated! I do not want a charge on my credit card from Dell!!!! I have bought two Dell computers, own 100s of share of Dell and I'm fed up with the support. Nice soothing talk, long delays, difficult to understand personnel and no satisfaction. I expect a reply confirming removal of my Visa Charge (nothing was done because I asked for them to just stop after the lengthy delays) and an explanation as to where Dell is headed. Eventually, I was supposed to be routed to someone to get the charge removed, but guess what, I was disconnected! What a company!!!!

Dell computer... It crashed, paid 200.00 for a tech to solve problem.... is not solved, give me someone who speaks english....PLEASE........... they will pay hell getting the 200.00... no fixie problem,no payeeeeee....

Humans are a disease and my farts are the cure!

Hey before you pin your blames on any country ..( I've heard Dell is establishing support-center in Manila cum February and being pioneered by indians) ..let's make it clear that on this blog it is the Indians who provide sub-standard services..

Dell has the worst customer service I have ever experience. I paid all the extra money to have 4 year in-home warranty so that it would last me throughout my college years and they have yet to make it worth the money. The first issue I had it took them almost a month to send someone to me to fix my ethernet port. I am currently on the phone with "Austin". This is the 3rd time in 5 months that I have called them for them to send a technician out. Ever since they fixed my ethernet port my battery no longer works. This happened in July and here it is Jan 2006 and they still have not fixed the issue that they caused. Now they are saying that after a year of having the laptop I am no longer covered under my warranty for them to replace batteries so I need to call another department to BUY a battery. I would not recommend Dell to anyone. My computer was running perfect off the battery until the technician "fixed" my ethernet port. Now as soon as my ac adapter comes unplugged from my laptop the whole system shuts down. Dell can literally kiss my ass!!!!

i work as tech support for an ISP off shore. im from the philippines and i understand your complaints bout Dell tech support. i only wanted to get a direct # to Dell for one of our customers having a problem with her pc. and ALL the numbers i got were busy. tech support? more like radio station. at least radio stations have better songs

I can't even begin to tell you the horror story I am having. I learned my lesson the hard way, you see I was warned and didn't listen. Don't make the mistake I did and buy a Hell computer. Dude, You Got A Hell!

I am (actually was) a loyal Dell customer. Bought a dimension 400 and two Inspiron 600s in past two years. Have been recommending Dell to everyone.

I never move one of the laptops. Use it on a table while watching TV-didn't want a desktop in my den. One day I open it up and there is a triangular blotch on the screen. I call Dell and am told that it is a cracked LCD and since I bought the extended warranty, they sent me a box and a shipping label.

Two weeks later the unit is returned unfixed with a note saying that since I have not paid to have it fixed, they are returning it. No one jad called me during the interum asking for money. I call the number on the note and they tell me cracked LCDs are not covered by the warranty. I look at the warranty which says no such thing.

I went through the calling Dell game as many of you above did. After 5 hang-ups and misdirected calls and 2 1/2 hours of my time, I was told again that cracked LCDs are not covered.

I wrote a complaint letter to Michael Dell. Never answered, of course (Usually "customer service " people intercept letters like that and respond. Guess they can't read English or don't really give a damn about unhappy customers)

So, last night I tried their online IM help. After 20 minutes of listening to script reading (For instance, I started out by saying I have a cracked LCD. His first comment to me was, "I see you have a cracked LCD." Duh!

I asked where in the warranty it says cracked LCDs are not covered. He read from his script that "accidental damage" is not covered. I explained I had no accident. Opened the laptop one evening and it was there.

I asked why the original person diagnosed my problem as a cracked LCD and had it sent in for warranty repair. He checked his records and said that person made a mistake and it will not happen again. (Definitely will never happen to me again cause I've joined the "DON'T BUY DELL" club.)

He says there is nothing he can do for me and will put his supervisor on the line. Supervisor gets on the line and his first line to me is? "I see you have a cracked LCD." I pointed put that he and his assistant were very astute in these matters. (I havce a print-out of the whole conversation. (Some of it would be very funny if it wasn't such a bad situation.)

After going back and forth about accidental damage, he tells me an LCD can only crack from an accident. I tell him I'm not an engineer but isn't it possible the LCD had a minor fault when it was shipped and only now did it crack. He babbles on with his script and tells me he will "escalate" the problem to a higher level person. I explain that I will also "escalate" my compaint to a higher level like the BBB of Austin and the Texas Attroney General, and the Postmaster General for consumer fraud-selling warranties that are not honored.

I am also escalating by joining every site that talks about Dell Hell and adding my two cents. I am telling everyone i know or who will listen-DON'T BUY DELL!

I think they will lose a lot more than the $500 they want from me for a new LCD. And you never know, the Texas Attorney General might agree with me.

I am pretty sure this blog will somewhat enlightened other Dell users

I was contemplating getting a Dell for a family member but have decided to stay with IBM/Lenova. We have many IBM laptops and desktop for our professional services firm and have zero problems. We paid more but got higher quality machines...will stick with IBM and not get involved with junky computers. I feel bad for all those people who have to deal with poor service and all that wasted time.

One follow-up to my note. The day after I wrote my tale of woe, I did receive a call drom a Dell representative based on the letter I sent. Would you believe his name was "Jeremy."

The reason for his call was to tell me they would not honor the warranty. that accidental damage is not covered. He said a crack cannot occur by itself. I told him I would contact all the agencies I mentioned and tell everyone online who will listen.

He politlely did not care.

Ron, I don't know which note above convinced you to stay away from Dell but that's one for us losers! Thanks!

You're right Dell support sucks. I have dealt with it and had the very same experience. I also had the same e4sxperience with HP. As a meeter of fact, it was even worse with HP, because they refuse4d to support the software linking theor PDA two weeks after I bought the device. HP claims the software support was expired, at least according to Gupta or his boss in India. What America needs is jobs and some good tech support from one of the majhor suppliers, and then I will gladly buy with out regrets.

guys, it has nothing to do with the call centers in anywhere in the world. the problem is AMERICANS ARE DUMB AND IDIOT! they DONT even know how to use their own mouse. what the heck! i suggest you go get some lessons from school so you guys wont need tech support service or be LITERATE (read the policy first and other details)enough to know a product before purchasing. that would solve your problem.

I have spent so much time on the phone with Dell ... mostly holding and redialing the # as I have been cut off/disconnected. Charged for something I did not receive and can't get the problem straight. I am so tired that I can't even go into depth about it. I don't have the patience or strength. I agree with everything you people are saying about Dell but 100 fold!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope I never buy a Dell product again.

Let me start by laughing hahaha at you for buying anything from dell, secondly i work for dell and what you went through is no big suprise at all. I work for DELL ON CALL.. and u know what, i get paid 13$ an hour to listen to u get pissed off ?? haha ya right... nobody cares there... the work envoirment... let me explain a bit about dell call centers=

age of average workers= 18-26
average knowledge base = shit all
resources for all dell oncall agens = dell intranet ( suackage), www.toughadmin.com, support.dell.com, training.dell.com
my hours = 3 : 30 pm - 12 am
you think i really care about your monitor and how long u stay on the phone with me

and only hardware for dell is in india.. most of the other call centers for dell PC support is in canada

average education of each employee = high school ( i am serious if you apply for dell tech support all u need is high schoo and some tech background)

since the people there dont know shit. we hang up on you everytime we dont know how to take the call, you see the release button on my phone .. so easy....

and god damn you americans are dumb...as if you pay 99$ per incident to get your mouse fixed...

haha all i can do is laugh at yous peoples misfourtunme

i called in sick today, i think i am thinking about quiting my job....

yaaa FUCK DELL.

Have been trying to get my CD drive replaced for weeks. After three hours on the phone and me doing all their diagnostics and taking my machine apart they decided I needad a new motherboard.
New motherboard came and even the repairman said that was not what I needed.
Called back and was on the phone for three more hours...more diagnostics, more taking the machine apart, I had to hang up to go to work.
Called back on the extension I was given the next day and the nuumber had been DISCONNECTED. Started over with a third technitian...he asked if I would mind doing some diagnostics....it was 12:15 am and I had to go to work the next day. I hung up on him. He calls me back and says we have been disconnected, I tried to tell him that I hung up on him and his service stunk. Said he could not order a new CD drive unless I did the diagnotics, I told him he could fill in his work sheet as if I had done it and get me the new part.
Can't do that in India, surprise....we left it with me refusing to do any more with the machine and I told him I will send it back to Dell if he does not get me a new CD drive.
He will tell his manager how displeased I am. Think this will get me the drive I need? Time will tell

GREAT!! I just got home from a 4 hr drive and noticed that some how my Comm Port 1 has gone bad. So i was looking for the dell support # and I saw this post on Google. After reading through most of these post it seems and seeing all the "Great" things yall are saying about Dell. I better get prepare for a long night. I have to get this port working by the moring or get my old comp out and start trasfering some programs and files. Wish me luck boys!!

Hello there:

First I request that my e-mail address be use only to poste this message. I do not want no correspondence or anything of the sort.

I just received an invoice from dell for $99.00 dollars for a "Dell on call, Incident,Spyware and Virus" they say they shipped it. I have not being in contact with dell for over 5 months. I was on the phone for an hour and a half and I was sent from one system to the other and back to the begining and then I hung-up. I am going to try the internet connection. On the invoice it has all my inf. yet I did not order anything.

I REGRET PURCHASING FROM DELL

Jeremy, Jeremy and all...

I LOVE DELL! Before Dell PC computers, I was a Mac freak and swore I'd nEVER switch to PC's. Well, as time went on, a lot of the software was usable ONLY on PC's. I had no choice, an my choice was Dell. I paid$2,000 for a Upgraded to the max Demension 2400. But get THIS. THIS IS THE KEY: I plopped down the cash for the extended warranty. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about buying a PC with bundled software KNOWS (or should know) you HAVE to, because you will need it, the extended warranty.
I've had to call Dell about 4 times and only ONCE did I have to request them to transfer me to someone who didn't have such a heavy Indian accent. Otherwise, NO long telephone waits, NO invoices for support, and the ALWAYS FIX my PC!!!
I saw a show; I think it was Dateline that showed what these poor people have to go through to earn the $2.50/hr. I'm a two year degreed accountant and I know I COULDN'T do what these people do. They have to work the graveyard shift because we are "awake" during their midnight to 6AM time, they are constantly taught EVERYTHING about EVERY DELL product and have EXAMS AFTER working all night long sometimes! Show some respect. The reason you are not getting the "service" in customer "service" is because you didn't pay for it (and by the sounds of it, probably won't, plus most of you are just plain "A" Personalities...you cannot be in a hurry when it comes to fixing hardware or software! If you're a tech, you KNOW that already. I'm not here to insult anyone. Just please remember that in order to make the world a better place, all countries need jobs and it isn't like the United States has a shortage of jobs (especially if you went to college).

I had the same experience as Mike K, and think Dell's IM-style chat service is the way to go. In November, when the hard drive in my Inspiron 5100 notebook dropped dead, I got online with "Chat with Us," explained the problem, and three days later Fedex delivered a replacement drive, with a prepaid mailing label to send back the dead one. No more telephone customer service for me--no matter where the customer service rep is located!

The same horror stories I've just read!
On hold way too long, disconnected, wrong information, unable to understand the "representatives" of Dell.
I was ill & lost my strength to continue so I called back a few days later. After more draining calls to everyone & their brother, I felt like choking someone if I could have gotten my hands on any one of them! Finally Mary said "no problem" & took care of it immediately.
I couldn't believe it!!! I still can't.
Horrible experience, I'll NEVER buy another Dell as long as I live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had problems with my dell desk top. I couldn't take it off of safe mode! I know a little bit about computers enough to troubleshoot myself out of a problem! But this one had me beat so i called dell about 3:30 pm i kept getting disconnected or transfered to someone who said it was another division problem. It seems as if nobody wanted to give me the time i deserve to help me solve this problem!
After 4 hrs of talking to about 8 different people they decided i had to buy a new hard drive! it cost me time and money!! Trying to find answers from there customer service who became very frustrated when i couldn't understand everything they were saying because of there accents, I WILL NEVER BUY A PRODUCT FROM DELL AGAIN !!!

Hi Guys
i have worked for Dell tech Support for a year (ID : 3276686)
and we used take 15 to 20 calls a day ..
well i completely agree with all the points mentioned above ..and also feel that its Stupid to have this question to ask a customer who is already facing a problem

But the situation is :
we are rated less if thease questions and not asked ..
and the voice and accent traners are the people who Dont allow us speak Like normal Humans .. as they have there on matrix to maintain and will mark u less if you dont follow their rules and having a less marking would cost you your Job ..

More over its a night shift job( Which will be accepted by the tech while Joining the company ) and every call you take is a new challenge a new issue that you have never heard .

we do! have all the information about the customer but we need to varify it for security reasons ( or we will get less marking :P)

if there is something to be changed in tech support .. it must be the scorecard that they follow and the stupid ratings they do ..

so the next time you make a call
Please be co-operative with the person on line coz he cant shout at you even if he wants to ..

and Once again .. if some thing has to be changed in the tech support for dell in india ..it must be the stupid scorecard they follow and they need to allow the techs speak like Humans speaking to humans and not like wouldbe english scholors or some thing like that

: Khadri@gmail.com

sorry, i have a dell, at work we have a server and 30 new dell machines (over a year) only one was broken out of the packet and they fixed it pretty quick. I have been a fan :S sounds like i shouldnt be tho! who do you all buy from then? dont say build your own. like thats gunna happen!

anyway, i always find the guys at the indian call centres much more helpful than the people in the UK. belkin's support is awesome! one day we have to learn that you get what you pay for, you pay for shit and thats exactly what youll get.

Viraj Alankar has it right. I know of a guy that when he bought his computer from dell he would call the next day after recieving it and say that he hooked it up, turned it on and only got a blue screen. nothing else just a blue screen. they then tried tech support but he kept insisting blue screen. they gave in and said the hard drive was toast and sent him a new one. needless to say the old hard drive was perfectly fine. so now this guy has 7, 300gb sata hard drives from dell. with his three computers he bought.

I personally don't have the guts to do this.

btw i didn't read the entire forum its way to long. I stopped after Viraj Alankar's post. about 1/10th of the way through.

also I do like the dell telescopic lcd monitors we have at work. and we have replaced over 100 power supplies on our dell gx270 pc's. all under warranty. hp and ibm might be good but you have to pay the price. money is everything. If anyone is thinking about laptops, i would have to say that toshiba is NOT the answer. almost every toshiba laptop we have is nothing but junk. dell's are not much better with ibm comming at the top of our supply.

btw I work for the department of national defense canada. Computer technician.

Hi! I purchased a dell xps system in Jan. 2006.By the third week in Jan. and after countless hours onthe phone with tech support they decided that it would be better if I returned the entire system to be replaced with another which I did. I have recieved the replacement and within 2 days I have spent approx. 15 hours with tech support not to mention the hours spent on hold to speek with tech or customer support. I will be returning the entire system for a full refund while I am still within the 30 day money back guarantee and will purchase a real computer system at a reputable dealer. I am deeply dissapointed, frustrated and bitter with Dell. Dell sucks and they can all go to -ell!

As someone else has pointed the dell chat feature is a little better atleast in my case with laptop problems.
And depending on the time of the day it can be pretty snappy as u are directly connected with a CSR. But its pretty bad during the day... often requiring 30minutes wait time in queues... i have always used it at night mostly after 11pm with zero wait times.

On January 24th, my Dell Inspiron XPS GEN1 decided to give up the ghost. I'd been playing World of Warcraft in my basement with my son when he decided to go upstairs and I closed the laptop to follow, figuring I'd simply power her up and play later. When the time came to resume killing mobs, I pressed the power button and nothing. Dead, cold silence. No leds to indicate charging of the battery, no notable attempt to power up whatsoever.

30 minutes online with Dell XPS support and the tech determined that the motherboard had crapped out, and that he'd have a box sent out for me to ship to a repair depot.

My system is out of warranty, so I was ok with this. a new XPS costs too damn much, even on sale, and it's by far underpowered compared to the GEN1.

So I send my laptop out, get it back 10 working days later (the 15th of February) and upon opening the box, I push the power button and nothing. Dead, cold silence. No leds to indicate charging of the battery, no notable attempt to power up whatsoever. (sound familiar...?)

Now I'm not only upset, but I'm pissed off. I call Dell tech support and give the poor Joe on the other side fair warning and lay into him. He informs me that he'll send out DHL to pick up the laptop and the repairs will be expidited. WTF?!

I call today and ask the tech "So.. what's up with my laptop" and he tells me "Well sit, the motherboard was replaced, it was fully tested and shipped on the 14th of February and.." I cut him off, explained that I recieved the laptop on the 15th and sent it back on the 16th to be repaird AGAIN and I wanted to know WTF was happening NOW!!!

He gives me the "One minute sir" and commences to tell me that they now repalced both the LCD panel and LCD screen (both of which were OK before it was shipped back to me the first time beacuse they TESTED it, remember?) and that I should receive it tomorrow.

Needless to say, the tracking number he gives me says that they actually tried to deliver it today at 10:38am and no one was there to receive it. So, $500+ nearly a month later, and a day late, my laptop is supposedly going to work tomorrow when I take the day off to make sure it get's into my hot little hands. Needless to say, I'm going to make the DHL driver wait at the dor until I can verify it works, so if I have to, I can simply call Dell, SCERAM over the phone, put the laptop back in the box (if I had any incendary devices to replace the battery with...) and send back to their repair depot in Memphis.

Or... simply keep the broken laptop and prepare to take a roadtrip to Tennessee...

I'll keep ya posted.

-Phil

DELL FUCKING SUCKS HADJI'S STINKING CURRY ASS!!!

THE PHONE AND THE CHAT HAS INDIANS READING THE EQUIVILANT OF A THIRD GRADE SCRIPT!!!! I'M CERTAIN THAT IF THIS CONTINUES FOR TOO MUCH LONGER THAT SOMEBODY AT DELL WILL GET THREATENED OR WORSE!!!

Every INDIAN I've ever met in person was very nice indeed...Every INDIAN I've talked to at DELL was an ASSHOLE!!!!

March 1st. I got the call today from Dell that my Laptop will be replaced with a unit that meets or exceeds my XPS in configuration specs since they no longer ofer the XPS GEN1. In addition, I'll get a standard 90 day hardware warranty with the option to buy an extended warranty should i choose to do so.

When I get the new laptop, if it works, I plan on buying the extended warranty immediately. I'm assuming they're sending me either a Dell Inspiron XPS GEN 2 or a M170. If it's an M140 we're gonna have problems....

Will keep you posted. :)

Well... Sad to say this was near the top when I searched for "Dell on Call".

I work in the first and only (so far) US based Dell tech support. When and if you ever ask to talk to a supervisor or manager it is me who you are gonna talk to. We are still fairly new and getting situated as US and India have totally different aspects. As far as calls go they get routed by a computer although we do have a direct number. The problem here is communication not necessarily knowledge of the techs. My personal team of agents that I train can usually handle a call in under 40 minutes or less and have a happy camper and on your way to surfing the web and such...

In regards to the February 1st post many agents are actually retired military/mcse certified or getting it/or have more degrees in IT field than you would need. Although I do agree some may not have as much IT experience...note this...

There are just some things that people do to computers that is seriously the users fault and do the wierdest things to them especially when they try to fix it themselves. A lot of these kinds of issues cant be taught in a