Direct2Dell

3mos ago I bought  an Inspriron 1525. Right out the box this comp. has worked better than expected. The vista has crashed twice, this last time  we had to go to total default and boot up like the first time. Our support was dell, even tho the fault clearly microsoft.  Yet it was Dell support that took the time as well as the credit for our problem.  I commend Dell for its support staff.  So.... couple mos. ago I bought 100 shares of Dell for 24.00.  Ive since lost half my investment.  I just dont get it. My product and support is fine...but the stock sucks.

Hi,

Dell wants to increase sales. How come in some of the European Union that you cannot buy a DELL Dimension computers?

 I want to buy a small home PC for my son's who are 3+ years old. Slovakia does not have a sales point, so I was redirected. Czech Repulic who referred me to the UK who will not ship here. check Poland no sales of Dell Dimension there either. So that is a market share of some 60 million + customers you are not selling to.

Do some research and see what competitors are selling here, they are very expensive and poor quality and low specification.

Pity that, so maybe I have to go an buy a PC from HP, your closing competitor.

Do you wonder why HP is within 1% of sales of DELL. Maybe because they will sell you a home PC.

Regards

David

Tried to post this several times over the past two weeks, always got errors.  Here goes again...

As an attendee to the roundtable, I was very disappointed.  The roundtable was explained to the six of us that were Dell customers as a PRIVATE meeting with Michael.  Instead it was clearly a PR event, including press and bloggers as well as photographers.  Not at all what we were led to believe.  I gave up 4 days to attend, and my sole focus was that 45 minutes with Michael.  I had a list of issues that I wanted to raise, and barely got to raise some of them.  This was clearly something that got "taken over" by the PR department and turned into something it wasn't supposed to be. 

The Dell forum contains years and thousands of posts from Dell customers, most of which have issues, and it's clearly should be a primary source for Dell's senior managers to hear the issues.  I'm not asking them to post, I'm asking them to READ.  Simple example of an issue:  In 2004 Dell installed Dell PC Restore and stopped shipping CDs to save money (bad idea, but they now know that).  Then, they installed Maxtor hard drives in desktops, which began mass failures in the past 1-2 years.  When a drive fails outside of warranty, and the customer realizes (if they do) that they don't have CDs, they contact Dell and often get told that since they are out of warranty Dell won't send them CDs.  They post, we tell them to call again, and use the words "media reduction initiative".  Then they get CDs.  I raised this issue with Michael, he said they can order the CDs online, and I pointed out that unless it's something new that option requires them to be under warranty...  The point is that this has been on the forums for months and months and months...

Another issue I wanted to raise is that at some companies the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.  At Dell, it's an octopus with many hands not knowing what's going on.  2 1/2 years after Dell installed Dell PC Restore the reps still say "format" instead of "CTRL F11".  Then Dell starts shipping CDs (10/07?), but doesn't tell the forum or the moderators.  Communication is a huge weakness for Dell.

I had hoped to talk with Michael and these other 5 customers for 45 minutes, as promised, WITHOUT confrontation.  Unfortunately, due to the recording of the meeting and the attendance of bloggers and press, that wasn't possible.  I have nothing against bloggers and press, but they shouldn’t have been at this “private” meeting.

While I appreciate the opportunity to attend CES and "meet" Michael, I was disappointed at the outcome and remain unconvinced that Dell has the ability or intent to rectify its customer service issues. 

There's plenty of negativity flying around the blogosphere right now with regards to the roundtable host by Michal Dell at CES.  As one of the attendees who has plenty of complaints..err..feedback.., I also want to say that the opportunity for "direct feedback" is greatly appreciated. Some interesting and pertinent questions were answered, and a few good genuine laughs were shared. Overall, I found it to be a valuable experience, and hope it hasn't put Michael off trying it more often.

The questions Michael Dell answered fully were direct, seemingly honest, and I believe will turn out to be harder on his company than the ones he waffled on. As Lionel mentioned in the OP (Original Post), "We are in the early stages of a long-term commitment to listening to our customers in new ways." I do see things getting better from here for the customers. Dell unfortunately has a rockier road ahead of them as they strive to address the concerns brought to light.

Thanks again for the invite, and I do think that the majority of people I met from Dell "gets it," including and especially, Mr. Dell. Their interaction has kept me as a customer this time around, and if this Dell 2.0 continues to improve, it may stay that way.  Does that mean I won't give them grief when I see a problem? No. All systems vendors have problems that need addressing.

What this means is that when the problems do occur, I have confidence Dell will work with me to resolve them.  And, eventually, they'll improve communication to the point where the majority of their customers feel the same way.  At least I hope they will. Now if only they can snap their fingers and make it all better...

-Ryan/DL

Lional,

I found this posting very informative and the video link was excellent. Great to see a head of a major company listening to real problems from real end users rather than boardroom/logisitcal problems as it can be quite easy to loose track of what is important (i.e. the customer).

I know the question of motherboard upgrade option for XPS 700-class customers was asked during, and I would think that for the company to expand revenues going forward, paid upgrades available for dell computers would be a great addition (especially in areas where there is local presence to support such a service such as ireland etc). However, I would go one step further and suggest that all components could be upgradable such as additional blu-ray drive, graphics card updates etc.

I think the benefits of this are 3 fold for both Dell and the Customer:

1. Most users do not know how to perform even the simplest upgrade task such a ram upgrade, Disc drive while moderate users such as myself  would be very fearful of changing any major component such as a chip, motherboard or PSU. Making this service available to exisiting dell customers would unlock an untapped global market demand which is currently only provided by local computer repair shops. The scale of Dell would ensure that the costs levels associated would be significantly less that of a local shop and would provide a lot more assurance regarding impacting warranty etc. 

2. Prospective Dell customers (such as myself) would be very hesitant in buying a PC mostly due to the fear of something bigger and better coming along a month later rendering the new PC out of date (from the perspective of the customer). It is especially prevelant in a high end PC where if a large investment is made in a high end computer such as the Dell XPS 710 H2C, that the customer would like some assurance that a service is provided by dell to upgrade computer parts if a new highly desired part becomes available. (it is similar in nature to the vista upgrade offer to entice people to not put off buying a new PC right now)

3. Most customers when upgrading, buy parts from various sources, for the most part outside of Dell. By offering this service, customers would buy the parts directly from Dell, therefor increasing revenue.

Regards,

Noel