not sure I am crazy about you telling me that you are blogging as a hoby, this should be part of your job!

I recently purchased my first Dell (E1505) and it likely will be my last and only Dell. Your obvious efforts here aside, the primary reason I *will never again* purchase a Dell is simple: Your customer service and tech support stink. I spent countless hours (seriously - I quit counting when I hit my 24th hour on the phone) trying to resolve "simple" issues - issues that had they occured with HP or Toshiba would have been "no-brainers". Instead, your tech support department screwed things up so badly that ultimately, in order to "fix" things, they sent out - yes, it's true - A WHOLE NEW LAPTOP. To replace the laptop that your (alleged) tech support department, based in India, turned into an expensive doorstop. The biggest irony of all? Had the first tech I talked to been even *remotely* willing to believe me when I told him that my DVD-RW wasn't working correctly, the brand new laptop would never have needed to be shipped. Then, when (silly me) I told the tech he didn't need to send a whole new laptop - just replace the hard drive that he sporked with his pitiful efforts (along with a replacement DVD-RW drive) - he insisted that "they" (meaning you, Dell) wanted me to have a whole new laptop, to make me happy again. I wonder how many times a day is something simliar to this happening? Is this why Dell has so many computers in the Outlet, compared to HP and/or Toshiba? Fix your (alleged) customer service and tech support FIRST. You want to make me happy? You want to retain me as a customer? Hire some of the THOUSANDS of U.S. citizens who would be not only qualified (trust me - I know much more than every single "tech" I talked to in India) but would be thrilled for the opportunity to work from home as an Independent Contractor for Dell. Firms like LiveOps, West, and others specialize in this kind of distributed, remote call center solution. And, their clients get a real, live American citizen on the phone. Every time. Someone who has been trained - not to just be polite, but to also be effective, efficient and focused on the customer's satisfaction. Someone who has been trained in "active listening". Someone who understands what your customer says - and someone who your customer can understand. And so you know - these Independent Contractors - people like me - are an articulate, college-educated, dedicated work force. We work from home for a lot of reasons (In my case, it is because our daughter is disabled, so I need flexiblity in scheduling) and we all have dedicated offices, with the neccessary equipment. We are happy, and relaxed, because we are at home - and we are on time, if not early to work, have far fewer sick days and best of all for your bean counters, we typically don't get a standard benefit package, so we cost the company much less than an "employee". Overall, the fit/finish/quality of your product is acceptable. The performance is acceptable - although the amount of bloatware is certainly excessive. But the deal-breaker for me has been the inability to speak to anyone in America regarding my complete disatisfaction with my tech support/customer service experiences. Whenever I have tried to speak to someone in America, I have inevitably been transferred back to India. The last time I tried to talk to a "supervisor" there... she put me on hold. For more than 30 minutes. She never came back to the phone, by the way. Just like I'll probably never come back to Dell. Good Luck with your efforts to fix things. I sense that you will need it.

I really would like to say that this blog has helped me realize when i buy a computer in the next few months its not going to be a Mac (which was my plan). I'll continue to sport a dell :)

If you want the people in charge blogging here I guess we'll have to accept it being secondary part of their job - and most likely voluntary. Whether that makes it a hoppy may be too far to go - but I also find it somewhat comforting that she (and most likely the rest) isn't forced by Dell to write here. Rather that they write because they want to and feel they have something to say...

Like Microsoft, people love to rag on Dell cause they're on top. One thing I've learned about Dell support is that they will listen to you no matter how insistant they are about their fixes. I've known with certainty that my motherboard was blown (all the caps on it were domed) and the tech wanted to run all kinds of tests. I did at first but when time went by and we were getting nowhere I simply said that I didn't think this was helping and could they just replace the motherboard. The tech agreed immediately (and without argument) and the support guy was there with a new mobo within 4 hours. (Granted, I have Gold support). On another occasion I had a video card fail and someone at Dell got in their car and drove a new one to me (60 miles away). I deal with alot of support centers as part of my job and Dell is consistant in being exceptional.

I came across the following article concerning Dell Customer Support, and the way they helped him. - http://renatawc.blogspot.com/2006/07/woe-betide-my-dell.html - http://www.digg.com/offbeat_news/Dell_tells_repair_tech_remove_1.5_GB_of_customer_s_RAM_and_leave Perhaps a response from Dell?

Wow, that's really interesting, in my experience Dell has had one of, if not, the best online ordering/status systems, and I purchase a lot of computer and office equipment online (I run a small business). Maybe it's because I live in Canada, but I've found that at least 75% of the time, the "order tracking number" provided with shipments don't work - except for Dell; the ones from Dell ALWAYS work. Every time. That said, I do have two frustrations with the ordering online with Dell, although it looks like both of these may be addressed with the changes listed above. 1) When configuring a system, the pricing can vary over time. Try configuring a desktop or server system, come back a few hours or a day from now, and the price has changed, for no apparent reason. Sometimes it goes up, and sometimes it goes down. I don't mind if it goes down of course :-) but honestly I would prefer if the pricing would not change like this, as it would often make decisions easier knowing I wouldn't have to keep poking around and maybe saving an extra $200 or $300. 2) A much bigger frustration I have lies in the options available for some of the business desktop and server systems. As with pricing, I find that some of the options can change over time, again, for no apparant reason. In fact, this very experience recently resulted in me turning to a different vendor for purchasing two new server systems. It's possible that both of these issues are related, but, whatever the case, I find them to be frustrating.

Our mid-sized company swears by Dell hardware and we've never had a problem with the equipment or during the few times we've had to call for support. Our tech support has always been a lot more friendly and knowledgable than IBM.

Hello Joseph, yes we've seen that blog entry too.  Our support team has already reached out to the customer.  No updates since then.

Laura Blogging is not a hobby unlesss you consider communicating with customers a hobby, some serious (and fun) required. You may find enlightenment if you transplant the word/verb "blogging" with "conversing" --it's easier to understand the activity. As such, I doubt anyone would suggest that conversing with customers is a hobby. Great post, and solid updated, Keep at it Laura, your customers want to talk to you, and want to hear from you!

Thanks, Laura, for your thoughts on these topics; I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who has a difficult time juggling work and blogging. Will read some of your post and contribute some thoughts.

It may be true that Dell in the past did not have the best customer service nor products..... but with that being said in the past 3-4 years the company has trully turned itself around... I am sitting here typing on a D820 with a D620 next to me as well as 2 XPS 400's under my desk... ive had nothing but SUPER service and support. The online chat works well and phone calls are harldy ever needed. There might be an unhappy customer here and there but over all... great job guys... keep it up!

Are we to believe that including the removal of off topic and offensive postings there have only been 9 legitimate comments on this posting? That's amazingly low considering this Blog should be getting plenty of hits. I'd hate to think that Dell wasn't being transparent and was only moderating a small select number of comments through! Looking forward to seeing if this comment appears online :-)

This is in response to Sarah's novel.  Look, I have no love lost for Dell and have had my fair share of support headaches but I do appreciate them doing this.  I have to wonder if you work for a rival company, are an out-of-work tech, or work for one of the tech support companies you listed.  I mean seriously, you're complaining about somone replacing your computer for you to try to make you happy?  And you're an independent contractor that is qualified enough to offer tech support, yet you can't troubleshoot a "no-brainer" DVD-RW issue?  Your post reeks...go somewhere else to vent about outsourcing, and stop pretending to be a concerned customer.  

Glad to hear of the fix to the ship/order status. That was the only problem I have had with tech support and service. The rest has been outstanding.

So I bought my Dell in June in an aggravating process regarding price and features, including getting different price quotes for the same system, which shipped (finally) on June 14. I forgot about the rebate, remembering when received the credit card statement on July 15th and saw the news articles the same day about widespread aggravation with Dell, including rebates, which mirrored my experience. I go to the online rebate site, which tells me the rebate expired. By ONE DAY. I call up Dell on July 15, explain the issue, and am told to submit the rebate, wait 6-8 weeks, get rejected, then call Dell again, who will manually fix the issue and the check will be issued weeks later. No can do the straight manual fix, even thought I've been rejected electronically. No can do nothing on Dell's side but cause me even further aggravation. This is the fix? I call my particular Dell rep to see if she can fix it (the previous person was from Dell rebate customer service), but still no can do. Nice to see the website here but the ground troops need more authority. Why even have submission of paper? What gets done with it? You'll take my orders electronically but not the rebate correction? At a certain point the warm and fuzzy of Dell evaporates. I'm there.

Jason
I also thought response to this specific blog was low...but no we are not "culling the herd."  I guess that is the natural ebb and flow of the blog world.   Posts continue to trickle in on my original (lengthy) post on July 13th.  

So I bought my Dell in June in an aggravating process regarding price and features, which shipped on June 14. I forgot about the rebate, remembering when received the credit card statement on July 15th and saw the news articles the same day about widespread aggravation with Dell, including rebates, which mirrored my experience. I go to the online rebate site, which tells me the rebate expired. By ONE DAY. I call up Dell on July 15, explain the issue, and am told to submit the rebate, wait 6-8 weeks, get rejected, then call Dell again, who will manually fix the issue and the check will be issued weeks later. No can do the straight manual fix, even thought I've been rejected electronically. No can do nothing on Dell's side but cause me even further aggravation. This is the fix? I call my particular Dell rep to see if she can fix it (the previous person was from Dell rebate customer service), but still no can do. Nice to see the website here but the ground troops need more authority. Why even have submission of paper? What gets done with it? You'll take my orders electronically but not the rebate correction? At a certain point the warm and fuzzy of Dell evaporates. I'm there.

And don't even get me started on the apparent price differences between home and small business computers, which are apparently the same but under different names (Inspiron v. Lattitude) and different prices. Commodities are commodities, except when you try to brand them differently.

Hi Laura, We are a UK based IT support organisation that focus on servicing the SME sector. We really like the Dell direct model, Dell sell the boxes and provide hardware support while we provide expert line of business and infrastructure software support services. We create somewhere between 250 and 500 baskets a year for clients to order directly from Dell. Our normally process is to create a basket, email it to the Dell business sales team, review that final specification of the quote and then forward it to the customer who places the order directly with Dell. We have spent some years refining this process and it revolved around a critical part of the process for us which is that we must ensure the client is ordering the correct equipment. Once the hardware arrives with the client we provide our value added engineering services to integrate it within the client’s environment. Recently the Dell website in the UK has changed such that we can't save baskets without an email address. Initially we viewed this as a bit of extra pain to the process, but even so we have tried changing our process to accommodate this new requirement. However we have subsequently discovered that we need to register an address for every active basket because the sales team are unable to turn round the baskets quicker that we create them. Frankly in my view Dell have a long way to go to support our business model i.e. one that entirely supports Dells direct sales model in the SME market and in the last few weeks have taken a step backwards. The bottom line is that it is getting to be so much effort for us to pass you free leads to Dell that we may well be better off reverting to reselling HP kit. This would mean that we would be: - displacing Dell at all our existing clients - no longer displacing HP with Dell at new clients. Not to mention needing to get larger premises, increasing our stock insurance and adversely affecting our cash flow - all costs that will get passed on to the customer. In short - we loose, - Dell loose, - and our customers loose. I hope there is something you can do to make it easy for us to give you new business, and I’m sure there are 100’s of other similar service business in the UK alone that would benefit from this too.

One major question I've had about the revamped pricing system is the status of coupon codes. The $750 off $1999 Inspiron codes are a godsend, especially to students like me. Do your plans involve eliminating coupon codes (or at least the effect of the pricing)?

JP:

My post (the one you said "reeks") was not just a rant about outsourcing.  If I had taken the time to type the entire story there (or here) it would have occupied far more space than both of my posts here combined.  I apologize for not being more clear in my first post about the situation.  Obviously, not all of the readers/posters here are able to read between the lines.  I'll try to clear a few things up for you.

First of all - I did troubleshoot the DVD-RW issue on my own before calling Dell.  I called to tell the tech that DVD drive was defective (it couldn't read any CD or DVD - even Dell's own restore CD's!)  At that point, all I needed was a replacement DVD drive shipped out.

I was told by Dells tech that I *had* to follow thier troubleshooting scenario - via the techs instructions on the phone - or that they could not repair (or replace as necessary) the DVD drive, or any other component of the computer.  Fine.  This was my first Dell, remember - so I complied.  I completed all the steps that tech asked me to - and in the end, I had a laptop that still had a malfunctioning DVD - and now not only was the hard drive screwed up, but MediaDirect did not work, and my restore partition appeared to be long gone - all thanks to a clueless tech.

But I had no choice.  Dells techs hold you hostage to the notion that it's their way - or no way.  You want warranty service?  You have to step through their troubleshooting process.  The techs (multiple) that I have dealt with at Dell seem to have no way of recognizing an advanced user - even when I told the tech that I had more than half a dozen citations from Dells own user forums about this drive being defective.  Even when I told the tech that there were more users reporting issues with this drive on other laptop forums.  Even when I told the tech that the manufactuer of the drive had issued new firmware, but that Dell had not yet "approved" it.  (So if I installed the new firmware to fix the problem, according to the tech it would have voided my warranty) And when I told him that I had already tried more than a dozen different CD's and DVD's, and none would work correctly... he still insisted that we had to step through a pointless excersise in order to *prove to him* that the drive didn't work.

I can assure you that I am quite qualified - I won't bother you with my credentials, but suffice it to say that I make enough money doing what I do every year to work from the comfort of my home; I have my own small business.  My clients are more than satisified with my work; thats all I care about.

As to your assertation that I work for a competitor of Dell, I find that ridiculous.  Dell could (and should) look up my case - I've used my real first name here, it won't be hard to find me in thier support database, and confirm what I have said.  I will admit to having purchased from HP and Toshiba both in the past - and have always found their sales and support to be quite satisfactory.  I had no reason to believe that my experience with Dell would be otherwise, until I began spending hours and hours on the phone with Dells tech support department.

Finally, my concern regarding a whole new laptop being sent out is simple.  Every time a Dell tech sends a new laptop or a new computer instead of simply sending out the parts required, it costs all of us.  How?  It's simple, JP - it COSTS DELL MORE MONEY every time they send out a laptop, insteading of sending out the parts.  Dell is a *business*, not a charity; they are going to pass those costs along to their customers at some point.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually they will.

I do appreciate the fact that Dell tried to "fix" things by sending out a whole new laptop.  I'm not a fool, JP.  But the point here is that a Dell employee could have resolved the situation in the first call, by simply sending out a new DVD drive.

So, the moral of this particular story is:  Bad support affects us all, one way or another.

Hopefully, Dell will take that lesson to heart.

SL, My apologies for the frustration. I don’t believe your rebate process was handled properly by the agents. We've made changes to this process that should have prevented this. Can you please submit your e-mail or phone number (not to be posted, all info will be kept confidential) via a comment so that we can investigate what happened? We need to learn what went wrong and why you fell through the cracks.

Luke Roberts, I am in contact with the web team in the UK and they are looking into why the changes might be impacting your process. Could you submit your contact info (we will not post) so that we can have them call you once they have a better understanding of what might be at issue? Also, if you have a Dell account manager it would be helpful to know who they are. Thanks.

In honor of Brian Clark's Link Karma, and in order to pass important business blogging resources on to you that I simply can't digest more fully right now, I give you ... Speedlinking Friday!First, listen to a free interview by...

Adg1034, SL, NathanLaan and others,

In regards to your questions about pricing in the consumer (home and personal user) space: Our plan is to reduce the numbers of promotions (aka “sales”), mail-in coupons and rebates needed to get to low pricing so that they are always available.  We want our systems to be the right value for our customers always... not just if you have a coupon.  Making this change doesn’t happen overnight, but the end game is to ensure that you can always, easily find the best price available on our Web site or when you call.  

There have been comments about the frustration of needing to look at all our business segments to get the best price.  We are working to drive more consistent pricing for the same product across our business segments.  For example, similar Dimension desktops should cost the same whether you are buying from the consumer home page or the small business phone queue.  All the changes above will help us get better at this.  

Lastly, some of you thought we may only be “marketing” differences in our product lines so that we can charge different prices.  While it may seem that the Inspiron and Latitude (both are notebooks) are the same products they are, in fact, different.  Here are just a few examples:  

Inspirons are best for consumers that desire advanced multimedia functionality and simple, secure wireless connectivity via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.  Latitudes are designed with the business customer in mind - most Latitudes target “road warriors” with stronger full-magnesium alloy construction and features that protect the hard drive from accidental falls.  They include more options for connectivity than Inspiron; like built-in mobile broadband and more stringent security options (for example pre-boot passwords, built-in smart card readers and optional fingerprint reader).  I thought this was a really great question that deserves more in-depth explanation.  So look for more details in future blogs about this as we recruit the right product expert(s).

Thanks.

So, if Dell "listens" to what some of the bloggers are saying and brings the call centers back to "America" I guess they will need to choose carefully what states they put their call centers in. If it is New Jersey, it might as well be India, because I have no freakin idea what they are saying half the time. It also cannot be in Texas, because they speak with a drawl and they are too close to the border of Mexico. Dell should also eliminate New York because that is a melting pot of all races, religions, accents, etc...talk about a hornets nest. Forget Louisiana. Cross off Arkansas. Nix New Mexico(too many New Mexicans). How about Wisconsin? Oh wait, never mind. Same goes for North Dakota. I got it! California. The land of no accents (Just avoid Chinatown). DO YOU BLOGGERS GET MY POINT? How about a little patience with people of different languages? I would hate to be working in a call center in India talking to a bunch of self righteous "Americans" who would rather be speaking to other "Americans" in America. Just ridiculous! Get over it people India is here to stay.

I too have had a really bad customer experience with calling to order a laptop. Currently I am studying out of the country and wanted a new laptop so when my parents visit me they could bring it over. I was surfing the internet and was quoted a price on Dell´s website and for some reason it changed. No big deal, I called Dell Canada and I got routed to your call centers. There I proceed to tell the Dell reps what the price I was quoted. Maybe their English was bad or something but then they said they could give me the exact laptop for HIGHER the price. What on earth are you people doing? Were they even listening to me? I then sent an e-mail to a new customer rep. with a newer price, with the specifications and asked for a feature to be removed. Once again, they quoted me a HIGHER price. I was fed up and then proceed to order through the internet. Since I felt by the time I could explain to your reps what I wanted it would have cost me at least 20€ in call charges. So far this has cost me 4€ in call charges because I was put on hold and the call reps were told they were not able to call me. This was okay, since I felt I would be saving a lot more with this Dell laptop I was buying. Now I have placed the order and for some strange reason I have TWO conflicting prices. My confirmation e-mail and my e-mail from a Dell rep did not match up. I have e-mailed the Dell rep twice and I have try contacting anybody through the website. I was going to call but decided against it since I did not want to waste any more money on call fees. Also, my credit limit on my credit card is not high enough for the second price quotation to go through so I figured I would be safe. There were three issues here which had me furious. The first being the call reps not being able to understand that if you are quote a lower price on the website you do NOT quote the customer a higher price. Do not waste your customers time and in my case my money. The second being whomever was looking after my order still has not contacted me and thirdly the conflicts in the pricing. If you would like to have the contact information of those two reps let me know. Needless to say I am praying every night that Dell has not screwed up my order and will not wreck havoc on my credit card. Overall my first experience with Dell has been a mixed bag. I think I got a great laptop but since it has not arrived yet or I do not know what I am being charged and I am really worried.

Hi Andrew, if you would issue another comment with your e-mail address (not to be published), I'll have a member of the team follow up with you to make sure that your order and charges are right.

Hey Lionel,

Thanks for responding. I have recieved an e-mail from one of your Dell representatives albiet a bit too late. I think everything is going to turn out okay, my order is being shipped and everything. Dell has taken the correct amount off my VISA. But if you are still willing I would like to discuss my entire experiences I have had with Dell and MY opinions on what could be changed to make the experience a lot better.

Regardless, this blog is a brilliant idea and the fact that somebody listened to me and it felt like I´m talking to a REAL person has made me feel like a much happier customer.

-Andrew

RE: "Sarah said:" Posted July 22, 2006

You took the words right out of my mouth! Thanks!  I bought the extended $200 warranty and also had my brand new Dell E310 crash for 4 days because of rude, inept, ignorant "techs" that caused a mountain of stressful and financial problems that should never have happened.

I have not been able to address this mess until now..you can see my message submitted on Oct 19th.

Thanks for your comments Sarah..I hope they, and other blog contributers opened more consumer's eyes..and especially the CEO's of Dell Corporation...at one time the very Best company in the technical world!  I'm embarrassed that I suggested buying a Dell Product to friends and family. KG

I had trouble with my dell on day one. I talked with a dell tech for over 2 hours. He was polite,friendly, and professional. He fixed the problem for me. 2 hours seemed like an awful long time but I was glad to have the help when I needed it. I bought a Dell because I heard nothing but good things about the product.  You guys have me a little worried. So far I am a satisfied customer and I think this site is helpful, informative, interesting, and many times I read things that simply crack me up.,

Wendy

I would like to add a few comments.I purchased five machines from Dell and all were very good deals.As far as tech support if you can't understand the tech's slang you can always reach them via email or live chat.Dell has been outstanding in every way

..Rather helpful information you have here. Grazie!