Dell Customer Support
This morning while checking my order status for my XPS M1530 on Dell.com I suddenly realized they had the wrong shipping address. With an estimated shipping date of August 28th, I promptly called customer support to correct this error. The nightmare began.
My first try at fixing this issue ended in a Dell customer representative hanging up on me because I didn't have my order number. I told him I could provide him with my name, phone number, "incorrect" address and whatever else he needed but I was met with silence. I looked at my iPhone and saw that the call had ended. Down, but not out, I signed into Dell.com to retrieve my order number. This time I would be prepared.
Upon calling I punched in the appropriate keys and provided the proper verbal responses and was met by the voice of a nice young lady who asked me for my order number. Upon providing it, she transferred me to the department who could "assist me". Well apparently, there is no communication between the co-workers at Dell as the next guy asked me for my order number and insisted that he too, had to transfer me to the "correct department". While patiently waiting on hold I decided to stroll down to the cafe at work and grab a cup of tea. After about 8 minutes, the third Dell representative decided she had time for me.
"What's that? You need my order number? I just provided it to the last two people and now you need it again?" Sadly, I didn't have the order number since my craving for a nice cup of hot tea was so overpowering that I had to leave my computer. Luckily, she offered to look it up by my name. I gave her my information and she placed me on hold...for 14 MINUTES! By the time she came back with my information, I was back at my desk, had the order number and only half a cup of tea left.
Anyways, I could finally right this wrong by providing her with my correct address. Simple right? Nope. It turns out, she would have to cancel my ENTIRE order and I'd have to place it all over again, which meant I'd have to wait another 3 weeks to receive it. By this point I just said forget it and figured that when DHL failed to locate the bogus address, they'd call me and I'd go pick it up. Well that thought lasted about 30 seconds and I realized that there was no way I was going to have them deliver MY laptop to the wrong house.
I quickly called Dell customer support back to have them just cancel the order so I could place it again with the correct address. Surely it couldn't take as long to reach someone as my previous two attempts did. There I go assuming again. After 3 transfers, providing my order number 4 times (yeah, I said 4 times and to only 3 people), I was transferred again. This time they didn't ask for my order number but I waited on the "cancellation department" for 19 minutes. Imagine that. At that very moment I realized two things: Dell outsources all their call center employees because not one of them spoke English very well and I was going to cancel my order. But instead of canceling it and placing the same order under the correct address, I was canceling it completely. The frustration just irked me to the point of no return and I didn't want to deal with this again.
Now, the frustration level is slowly residing and I'm back in the market for a laptop. Though at this point, I think I'm going to wait a few months for some of the new production lines and holiday deals. But, if you have any suggestions on a nice laptop or want to share your stories about Dell customer support I'd love to hear them.
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Comments
Outsourcing: The Root of All Evil
It's funny (not your situation) how much outsourcing has ruined our views of companies that used to once be great, and have great technical and/or customer support.
I used to recommend Dell very highly (bout 10 years ago) when I was working at an internship at a CC as a network admin. They had about 5 Dell Poweredge servers that always needed support.
So I was always sitting in this tiny server closet on the phone with a Dell tech. At that time, they were based in America, and actually quite helpful... and they even understood the PLAIN FREAKING ENGLISH that I was using!!!! How amazing is that!!! If I could only go back in time, and give those american job holders a medal!
Prior to recommending Dell, I was a fan of building my own systems from scratch, and I'm actually back to that again, and won't buy from any major company... Of course that poses a small issue when buying a laptop, but I currently have a Toshiba Satellite that I picked up very impromptu at the local Comp USA on sale, and it's been great, but ONLY after I formatted it, installed my own copy of vista, and installed what I wanted on it...
After this laptop, I'll probably go with Alienware... even though they are owned by Dell now, I have to think that their systems are still completely Alienware... (hopefully)
Good luck with finding another system, but maybe this situation was a warning for what would have turned into an even worse issue if you recieved the laptop the way you should have...
Love the XPS but...
I love the XPS models but as you said, maybe this will save me from issues down the road. I bought a barebones quad core (q6600) Inspiron 530 awhile back and just upgraded it with the primary components from newegg. Didn't have any issues then, but things seemed to have changed quite a bit.
Dell is #1 in my heart
I'm not sure what I have ever done differently with Dell but I have never had these issues. It's unfortunate that they gave you all of this trouble. Possibly I can help Dell out with a quick summary of my circumstances with them.
1) When I had ordered my first laptop one of their inspiron line, they sent it with the wrong HD.. it was a 5400RPM instead of the 7200 that I had ordered. I contacted them with no problems over the phone and they had a replacement harddrive to me in 3days. 2) My screen on this same laptop went out. With their full warranty coverage they sent someone TO MY HOUSE and he replaced my screen on the spot. Because I had an external 22" LCD I didn't go a day without my laptop and was back in business with his 10min visit. 3) Then again on this laptop my video card went out on me and I blame my heavy 3D processing I was rendering during the time. This time I had to send the computer in to Dell. They sent me shipping material next day, had it shipped that day, then had it shipped back to me in 5days. 4) After my house fire and losing this last laptop I had to order a new laptop obviously.. so I call in and look at getting another inspiron, made the order over the phone with a rep, no problems nothing and it was going to be shipped to me asap because of their understanding in my circumstance. 5) The next day after making this order I realized I'd rather get one of their Studio 17s and gave them a call and in 15min had my order canceled and replaced with my new order. 6) They estimated 10-17days due to batteries being back ordered.. I had my computer in 7 days and exactly as I ordered it despite any confusion during my replacement order.
So I guess to say, Dell used to be really bad at customer service and I know that through what my father and friends have experienced with them in the past, but with my situations as of late I have had flawless service with them over the past 3years. So maybe we can give them another chance ;)
As far as the outsourcing issue I suppose that all depends on who you are talking to. When it comes to English you can speak it OR you can understand it, so depending on their skill level they may be having heavy issues... but I say to keep jobs in the country anyways.
...and in response to Alienware, not worth the $
Seems like a lot of issues
Matt- seems like they came through on replacing what was broken, but that should go without saying!
With my customer support experience and all the hardware issues you've had makes me even more satisfied that I canceled my order.
Don't you think that is a bit too many hardware failures?
As for alienware you do pay for the name, but they are built with high-end hardware...at least they used to be.
No I think the issues were
No I think the issues were called for.. I buy my laptops as replacement desktops and run them very hard. I do a lot of heavy 3D rendering and may at times do that while I am working in After Effects and other heavy resource required apps. I feel the troubles I had were due to my lack of care for the system and really just over working it all the time. I carry the system every where with me, its a 17" heavy bulky and can't say its the lightest to swing around so between home, work, and school the machine takes a lot of abuse and for having only the few issues (graphic card and monitor) on the last laptop I think it did quite well.
Sure they will have ordering issues, they put out a lot of systems at a time. The slip of dropping a 5400 instead of a 7200 HD in my system takes simple human error it was of the right capacity.. cant say that upset me too much (especially since I wasn't under any strain of getting the system.. no deadlines.. no real need to have it right away, they can take there time to get it right).
Then to have no problems with getting my new laptop, I think they have done a very good job with keeping me as a customer.
I will concur with the idea that HP is worse though, I have had my share of issues with HP and swear to never go back to them.
I Hate Dell.
Sorry to hear you had an equally ridiculous experience as I did.
I was shipped a broken computer (screen and tower were both broke) upon arrival. I could live with a few pixels broken in the screen, but the tower? I don't think so. All of DELL's customer support is outsourced so not only was the language barrier a huge issue (because they only read out of a book and have no idea what you are trying to say otherwise), but it took over a MONTH for me to get a new computer.
I was FORCED to run a system restore on a computer that wouldn't even turn on! I told them a ridiculous amount of times that I couldn't even turn on the computer, but the insisted I do a restore! SAY WHAT?! Because it wouldn't even power up, I had to "fake" my way through the entire "system restore" TWICE before they would accept the computer back. "Oh ok I guess it's broken". Uh yeah no shit, didn't you hear me say it wont turn on? God...
I'll never buy from them (or HP) again.
I think HP is slightly worse.
I'm in the market for a new laptop and sadly, I think I'm going to choose a MAC because they do not outsource their customer support. Sad but true.
WOW!
Faking a restore? Not to laugh, but hahahaha! What morons. It is obvious the language barrier played an issue when you blatantly told them the thing wouldn't even power up. Classic!
As for a Mac, I hate to say it but I may do the same. I have no problems running vista on my desktop, but it has a full 4GBs of RAM and a quad core processor. While I know nothing out there is really optimized for even two cores, when I'm running web dev and design tools, they can each utilize the additional cores and you can definitely see the strain occur. I never bought into the Vista FUD but it is bloated and has a lot of things going on in the background. I'm just not sure I want to deal with this on a less spec'd laptop.
Although, if I go Mac I'm going to wait until their new line launches in September (rumor). The price point will have to be reasonable though.
If you go Mac I will cry..
If you go Mac I will cry.. but understandable. I too think I may stick with a Windows laptop and be moving to a Mac Desktop (once I have the CASH to get a nice one, especially since they are NOT CHEAP at all). So don't expect me to go that route for like 3-4 years, lol!