DELL Customer Service Stinks!

Harsh words, but warranted. Normally I am an advocate for DELL, really I am. I purchase DELL for work, everything from laptops, to Desktops, to Servers and I have been supporting DELL products for at least ten years now.

When I call DELL support no problem I tell the tech I am a certified DELL tech and viola, door open my part arrives the very next day. Life is good.

Until I purchase a DELL Dimension. For those who may not know, DELL has a home product line and a business line. Normally I only deal with the business line, but recently I had an opportunity to purchase a DELL Dimension for a friend.

The unit is delivered and the friend starts setting up the computer. In the middle of installing the printer software, the CDRW/ DVDROM ceases. Just stops with the cd still in it.

So they call me and ask if I can take a look, they feel they did something wrong. I take a look, and the CD has died, simply went bad. No connection nothing simply gone.

Huh, strange, but easy enough to remedy. I told them I will simply call DELL and get a new part delivered the next day as my warranty states I can do. The computer is less than two days old after all.

And there, what I can only describe as a technical nightmare begins! I call, get a tech, he asks me to go through all these hoops, testing over and over, even running diagnostics on the hard drive! I tell him I am a certified DELL tech and can assure him the CD is bad, simply send me a new one. But no, he decides to give it to me at this point.

I resigned myself to say sure, no biggie if you need me to run diagnostics on the hard drive, memory and any other component he can think, whatever, lets get it done so we can move on.

After over an hour doing this, he then tells me that his computer system is down, and he can do nothing more for me, he will have to call me back in a few days with a resolution! What I said are you kidding me. Fine I am easy to get along with, whatever, call me back.

three days pass no phone call. I get on-line and start an on-line chat with DELL. The guy wants me to run diagnostics after 20 minutes of getting every single piece of personal information he elicit from me. No kidding here 20 minutes as clearly he was instant messaging several other people as well as it would take him two to three minutes to respond to my chats.

So I vehemently state I am not yet again running diagnostics. I again state we did this several days ago, and I am absolutely not doing it again. He gets nasty, yes nasty. I tell him i am disconnecting because he clearly can not help me. We disconnect.

I call the next day. After a 10 minute hold time I get a tech who again wants every single piece of personal information he can get from me. i think the only thing he didn’t ask for was my sons name! This even after I give him my order number, my customer number so on. yet he still wants my home phone, work phone, email, address, and so on.

So I tell him stop. Lets get to the replacement part thing. he says he can not until I run diagnostics! there at that point my head blew off. I told I did this twice now, and can not for the life of me understand why running diagnostics on the Hard Drive will tell them that the CDROM is bad! I mean the other guy had me reset the BIOS, clear all devices in the BIOS, run thorough a diagnostics on the hard Drive and so on.

So I tell him I am not running diagnostics period. I asked him politely to simply send me the part, to which he told me unless we run diagnostics he will not. So, I told him at that point then we are done talking, I want his superior. So I am on hold for five more minutes. We are approaching an hour phone time yet again.

Super gets on the phone, and all I say to him, is that because DELL is being so hard headed and wont simply send me the desired part, then I want a technician dispatched the next day as my warranty calls for. He says he will send me the part, but I tell him that is no longer an option, clearly DELL feels I am not qualified to install the part as they would have done so by now.

So, because I not qualified to install a CDROM though I am a certified DELL technician, then I want a technician who they deem qualified. To his credit he simply tells me a technician will call me and set a time for the repair, however, he could not allow himself to quite leave it there.

He said that because he can not determine if in fact it is the CDROM that is bad, because I wont run complete diagnostics for the third time, that the tech can not be assured to bring the right part! So, at that point I told to not bother sending the tech because as we speak i am boxing up the computer and returning it to DELL and no longer need the part or technician.

And I further told him he is directly responsible for my no longer deciding to refer DELL or make of further DELL purchases both personal and business. That my job requires, as it does, that I bid to three vendors, DELL, Gateway, and IBM, and I will be sure that DELL does not fit in there any longer. I loath Gateway, but would sooner deal with a loathsome company over DELL at this point.

He relented and said fine, a technician will call me shortly to schedule the part installation and he will trust in my decision that it is indeed the CDROM. finally, it was all I wanted. This whole ugliness could have been avoided.

So, the next day the tech arrives, i take the part from him and install it myself test, and send the tech merrily on his way. So what did it cost DELL to sell me the computer on the cheap to begin with, then incur the cost of dispatching a technician to repair the thing. Surely that cut into the slim margin they had. All because DELL refusal to acknowledge I knew what I needed.

Story not quite done. The next day I get two emails wanting me to fill out the satisfaction survey. Usually I don’t, but I am mad now, and I am going to. I fill out both surveys one from DELL the other from some outsourced company. I figure that’s that.

Oh no, today I open my inbox, and what do I find. i find 14 emails from DELL all with the same survey results. the results I filled in, sent back to my inbox 14 separate times!

Some years back I was a certified Hewlett Packard and Compaq tech. That was until DELL squeezed in and I preferred them. Well, guess whom I am going back to.

This is completely unacceptable behavior from a company such as DELL. Maybe to them I am just a little peon and of no great concern to their bottom line. Maybe I only purchased 4 computers for myself in the past year, and at least 500 business units this past year. Maybe I only purchased a total of seven servers this year, and perhaps seven or so last year, but to me that’s allot. To DELL I guess it does not mean anything.

So DELL if you are listening, you did the perfect job of losing a loyal customer simply by treating that customer like crap. You know I heard the stories and I always ignored them. People on the net talk about how bad DELL customer service is.

I never experienced it until now. On the business side I may still work with DELL but the temperature is defiantly cooler. DELL is going to have to win me back if they want my business. They had me from the beginning and have determined to lose me.