Dell's dog days of summer

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Not necessarily India customer support

I have been following Dell for about 5 years and have dealt with their customer support through the Home and the Small Business divisions (and more recently, their EPP section.) I have found that yes, customer support quality has decreased, but not necessarily due to "Indian" call centers. My experience over the years has been quite positive thus far in terms of the reps speaking and understanding English.

One of the BIGGEST issues I have found is the inflexbility of Dell's policies (or mis-interpretation by support personnel.)

Without going into specific details, here are some of the supporting experiences:

There have been NUMEROUS cases where the rep perfectly understood what was wrong and how to resolve the issues, but was unable to do anything due to policy constraints, including warranty terms. The terms were clear (for several of the Home division cases), in my opinion (and the opinion of a Dell rep from the business division), but multiple reps interpreted the terms in a different way.

And here's an issue that isn't a case of mis-interpretation, but rather an "inflexible policy". In this case, the "21-day total satisfaction guarantee":

Ordered something online. Package was lost in transit. Dell set up a replacement shipment. Estimated ship date was set for 2 weeks later. Third week nothing happened and I noticed Dell's website stating that item was in stock and "usually ships within 24 hours." Placed a new order and contacted Dell to cancel the replacement shipment. Three separate, unanswered e-mails later, I finally received a reply on the 4th e-mail: "the item is in the 'In Production' stage and cannot be cancelled." Wait, the item hasn't shipped still. Two weeks later, it shipped. Here's where the 21-day policy comes into play:

I asked 2 separate Dell Chat reps to pay for return shipping for the item and to issue a refund since I requested cancellation 2 weeks prior to shipment. I could not refuse delivery of the order as it was left at the front door. DHL would not take back the package due to contractual agreements with Dell.

Dell asked that return shipping would be at my expense because I have passed the "21-day satisfaction period." I was notified that the normal restocking fees were waived and that they went beyond their policy to allow for the return of the item beyond the 21 days. I received the replacement order only 2 days ago and so I was curious to see how that would be "past 21 days." The 21 days started since the original order date -- that was 5 weeks ago.

I frustratingly asked how the 21-day policy can be applied to this situation as I only received the order 2 days ago? Again, they go by the original order date. But wait... Dell didn't SHIP the replacement until 4 weeks after the original order date due to the item not being "in stock." It wasn't my fault that the item didn't get shipped until recently.

I decided to just pay for return shipping (about $11 via UPS with insurance) and mark this as one of the bad experiences of recent months.

In short: Dell's customer service isn't necessarily bad. It could be because of misinterpretation or inflexibility of Dell's policies. I have seen, however, a SHARP decline in customer service in the past year.

IBM and HP have been quite good with Business division customer service. Dell's Business division support still isn't too bad, but beware of Dell Home and Dell EPP support.

Posted by: hksscom   Posted on: 07/23/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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