Direct2Dell

I just wanted to let everyone know that my issues have all been resolved...

I got the machine I wanted at the price I wanted....
 
 I would like to thank:
 Joanne
 Debbie
 Chris K.

 Thank you very much for all you have done...
 
 Chris

Well, here's my crack at making some problems known, but I'm not stopping until my story is heard, like so many others on the net (who's claims may not be real but they're out there).

I recently purchased a inspiron 1720 laptop, with 3 yr warranty and accidental damage protection. I'm in the military so two days after I recieved the laptop I went to Ft. Carson Colorado for a exersize before deploying to Iraq. Ever since day one, I've had problems with the laptop on shutdown, I get the Blue Screen of Death and a error code, so I keep track of the error, keep on until I can return home and deal with the problem.

I return home and call Dell Technical Support and Customer Care, and now I'm curious why I even bought this laptop. The level of technical support and customer care, if you can call it that is horrible. I dealt with a number of people, none of which are in the united states. Technical support used dell connect to have remote access to my computer twice and was unable to diagnose or correct my problem, then their advice was to call Customer Care to request a replacement. Customer care does not have the authority to give replacements for technical problems. So, they transfered me back to Technical support, who couldn't fix it again, transfered me to a manager who would not process a replacement, told me there was a 2 minute fix, which ended up taking 30 minutes, and then was unable to fix the problem again. I was able to do more diagnosis with Google, than all three technical support people. My problem was never resolved, never was I told what Dell would do to take care of my problem. So I contacted Customer Care again, was unable to speak to a manager, and was told to call back..... a customer has to call back Customer Care? That is unbelievable!! I was told that the was absolutely nothing Customer Care could do to fix the problem, and when I asked for a corporate number, the person would not give me a corporate number, told me that corporate office has no phones, and then hung up on me. I have names and employee numbers of those who "helped" me and I'm left with a laptop that still has shutdown problems, and an inflated phone bill. I am taken back by the level of customer service I recieved. I asked if it was possible to speak with someone from the united states and was told "no, there is no way you can speak with someone from Dell in the united states".

I am a Officer in the United States Military, and I cannot believe what I have experienced from a technical support and customer service aspect. I cannot in good faith recommend your product based on your customer service claims to anyone I know, or anyone I serve with. All I wanted was someone to call and tell me what they were going to do to take care of the problem, not to much to ask from somone who prides themselves on customer service. Still waiting for a response.

Very Respectfully,

Lieutenant Robert Thornton

U.S. Army, 4th Infantry Division, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade.

I think the first thing Dell needs to do is enable U.S. customers to speal to U.S. customer and technical support people if that be their desire.

My daughter and I have just had wretched experiences with your customer service support staff in India. If anybody that works for Dell reads these comments and would like to talk to me about the experience, I have case number, names, dates, and times. And, I would be happy to expand on the particulars of my experience.

The bottom line is, in my opinion, you can train people in foreign country to speak English but you cannot train foreigners to understand what is in essence, the American social experience. You cannot train foreigners to understand the the idiosychrocies of a foreign language and its people.

I also believe it is heinous to subject anyone trying to communicate to a customer service or tech support person about a problem he's having with his computer to the kind of obstacles and barriers that are naturally going to occur when speaking to a foreign person. Most people who are calling about a technical issue with their computer are, for the most part, out of their element, unsure, and apprehensive about the outcome of the call to start with. Then, they're faced with slow responses, interminable delays in communication, and the harrowing feeling the person on the other end of the phone neither understands what their real concerns are or is capable of responding to them in a way which will produce a postive outcome for the customer. THE CUSTOMER, who is the person who bought the computer, paid for it with his hard earned money, and should be entitled to nothing but the highest level of customer service a company can provide.

I respectfully submit in that endeavor, Dell has failed miserably. I championed Dell over other brands when it came to helping my daughter make a decision about purchasing a computer. After the experience we have had, I feel I have pitifully misguided her. I will neve purchase a Dell product, and will go out of my way to disuade other people I speak to about computers to do the same.

Arthur Kosmin

Dell has really taken some backward steps in customer service and care.  I started out with Dell in 2002 and have to date purchased 5 Dell computers for myself, one for my Mother and have gotten friends to purchase Dell computers. Well not anymore!!  When ever I call in with a problem or go on line it takes  too much time to wade through:  press 1 for this, press 2 for this, or follow this link to here then to here. The other night when I had a problem and waded through the press 1 and I finally got to a rep., he could hardly speak english let alone understand it.  I finally asked him to right down what I would spell to him.  What happened to a real live english speaking english understanding person to answer you question??  Bring these jobs back to the US.  Customer Service is one of the very important aspects that sell a computer.  Dell is  really falling behind in this area.  Fix the situation or loose business.

I think if Dell really wants to regain any credibility in the customer-care domain, it needs to look at grass-roots level. This means, apart from optimizing number of tech-transfers etc, it needs to address the level of competency of the tech support agents themselves.

 My own experience in this matter has been far from satisfactory. I have chronicled them at http://replays.blogspot.com/ and at http://www.epinions.com/content_5003124868

Some quick googling throws up many other similar experiences. In my case, what frustrated me most was not the number of tech transfers I had to go through... but that the lack of comprehension of simple technical aspects was *so* lacking even at the highest level of customer resolution team.

I think most people would happily spend 2 hours on the phone if at the end they go back with the feeling that the person on the other side had the capacity to solve the problem *and* did all he/she could to solve it, whether or not the problem actually got solved. What is frustrating is to have to spend unreasonable amounts of time (order of months) to fix a problem and come away with the knowledge that we have been talking to a brick wall all the while.

Bottomline: yes, tech support *process* needs to be streamlined. BUT, a bigger priority should be what kind of people you recruit to work that process.

I'm glad to hear that Dell is trying to simplify and improve the support process. From a business perspective I have never had a problem with Dell Support, but with my personal laptop half the time it has been like pulling teeth in order to get anywhere. One incident dealing with my sound card annoyed me enough to post a blog entry on it, yet other times techs have actually listened to what I have said and all of the troubleshooting steps I have already done.

I think that the most deeply rooted problem that I have run into with Dell is that some agents can't break away from the "script" of troubleshooting steps. Instead of listening to a customer explain their problem and everything they have already tried to fix it, they skip right over it and start asking us to go though some of the same steps that we may have already done(and just told them about).

 The only other minor problem besides the script problem I have had is the reliance on system tags and express service codes. I actually think they are great and do help to facilitate identifying the hardware that you are working with, the problem comes when you have a device that either doesn't have a service code/system tag(such as a monitor/lcd) or a computer/laptop that has had the part of it replaced like the bottom tray of my laptop. I had written it down, but I also recently moved and the paper it was written on was lost in the process. Unfortunately the online chats and phone menus(the last time I tried) make it very hard to get anywhere without those service codes.

I wish Dell good luck on improving their support and hope to see it the changes for myself. 

Hey, good to hear the replacement is running along, now i have a question.

I have 2 Dell XPS 710s and I am starting to read the rumors that there is a XPS 720 on its way, what I would like to know is:

Will there be an upgrade option for people who have bought any XPS 7xx to upgrade the motherboard, or will we have to buy the new motherboard out right?

 I just got them last month, and I would like to get the new motherboard, and proper support for 1066MHz memory, basically an upgrade path, which I and no other XPS 710 owner has.