Growing pains hit Dell's customer service

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Dell service on the decline

My typical experience with Dell service 5+ years ago was that it was decent, not great mind you, but reasonably decent.

My experience with Dell service over the last several years is that it is unacceptable. Here are the issues:

o I log a call, provide 3 or 4 pages of detailed debugging, diagnostics, disk formatting and so on that I have done, then request the correct replacement part. My response from Dell: here, go read this rookie web page and leave me alone. Conclusion: the script kiddies do not know how to answer such a problem.

o Replacement parts take FAR too long to replace. My CD-R/RW burner on my laptop died. It took me 2+ months to get it replaced. Sure glad it wasn't a server for my company that had the outage. Conclusion: Dell does not want to replace legitimately failed parts.

o Call handling suffers because too many techs get involved. When each new tech starts, he/she wants to know what's really going on. So I have to go through the whole explanation again as to the situations, what actions have been taken, and what I expect for Dell to do to remedy the situation. Conclusion: they REALLY need a better handoff between techs when they are passing the call around.

o Last (and my personal favorite) is that their words and actions do not jive. Almost without exception, I will have spent weeks arguing with the techs about what needs to be done. Finally, they will agree that the part I originally said needs replacement will indeed get replaced. When that happens, I will get a message that says something to the effect of "Hi, I am Raman and I will be arranging for your replacement part. I have read all the dialog for this call. For me to send you your replacement part, I will need your name, customer number, address, etc." Funny, in the VERY FIRST Email I sent them, I included all this information. I just love that part about having read all the Emails. Even funnier, the response that was forwarded to me had the requested information included further down the Email chain.

Treated like a rookie, techs who don't know what they are talking about, techs who do their job so poorly they end up lying about their actions: doesn't this just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that Dell is there to help?

I am needing a hardware refresh. Trust me that, because of their lousy customer service, Dell will NOT be the first place I look.

Posted by: drabicky   Posted on: 02/20/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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