If you’ve read this site for the past year or two, you know I’m not a big fan of Dell. I’ve had too many bad experiences (documented here, here, here, and here, with follow-ups here, here, here, and here).
So I wasn’t surprised last month when I had major problems getting a broken Dell laptop repaired. The motherboard graphics had failed, and the warranty specified that it was eligible for next-day on-site service. I’ll spare you the gory details – let’s just say that it took 19 phone calls and 27 days for a repair person to arrive at my office.
Ho-hum. More of the same, right?
So imagine my surprise when I received a call last week from Dell headquarters. This executive had reviewed my file and was calling to (a) apologize profusely and (b) find out exactly what happened so they could fix the broken process.
We exchanged a few e-mails, and I sent along notes from some of my previous horrifying support experiences. A day or two later I received a note from this executive’s assistant, offering me a fairly substantial no-strings-attached coupon as a “gesture to make amends.”
Now, Dell didn’t track me down because I’ve posted my complaints on this site. In this case, the issue that led to the call was one I hadn’t written about at all, and this executive didn’t seem to know anything about me except that I was an unhappy Dell customer.
This is a first for me, and it’s enough to make me take a fresh look at Dell. I’m still cautious, and it will take years for the company to earn back the trust they’ve lost. But at least they’ve taken a first step.
I’d be very interested to hear from anyone else who has had an unexpectedly good experience with Dell lately.
Ed Bott 
Ed, I have read your posts about Dell and always found them to be contrary to my experiences. I bought my first Dell system 7 years ago and every experience I have had with customer service has met or exceded my expectations. Maybe I have just been lucky. The company I work for switched over to Dell three years ago. I have yet to have an unsatisfactory experience. Perhaps large corporate customers get preferential treatment.
I have also had good experiences with Dell, in general. I’ve never had to call more than once for service on a machine, whether on site or mail in, and I’ve put in upwards of 100 calls to Dell in the last decade.
I will admit their general support number for consumer purchased systems provides much worse support than the support number for corporate accounts. The support for small business accounts (less than 200 employees) isn’t any better than the consumer support. But I wouldn’t classify any of them as horrible.
Sometimes the key with consumer support is to lie. They’ll tell you to do ridiculous things like “reload Windows”. If it’s something that I’m absolutely positively sure reloading Windows isn’t going to fix (like a dead NIC that doesn’t work in Windows, FreeSBIE, or Knoppix, when it used to work with all 3), I’ll just tell them “did that already”.
Their server support, whether for small businesses or Fortune 500 companies, has been awesome every time I’ve had to call. To this day, I believe it’s their only support center that’s based in the US. The people really know their stuff, and you can effectively communicate with them. Amazing, and hard to believe, I know. š
Just last week I had a great experience with Dell support, which was preceded by over an hour of frustration attempting to find the correct phone number to contact Canadian tech support. My Pocket PC’s support tag would not be accepted by any appropriate form on the site, and it was only after clicking “Live Chat” to try to get support via a chat form was I informed that my device’s support tag was Canadian, and I should call a specific number. By the way, all of this occurred at dell.ca.
So Dell’s site is WEAK with respect to helping Canadian customers, but once I got through to a tech, it took a 15 minute conversation to jump through the hoops to convince the tech that there was a real problem with my touchscreen. I was informed a new unit would be shipped to me within 2 days, and that once I’d moved my data over I could ship my defective unit back in the same box with no shipping charges.
The best part was that my call occurred at 3pm on Monday, and the new unit arrived Tuesday morning (less than 18 hours later) from across the country. I live in Vancouver, BC, and the unit came from near Toronto, Ontario. I was blown away.
I’ve had no “human” contact with Dell’s support, but their website sure made it easy for me to get some drivers and utilities. Just plug in the computer’s service tag numbers and the rest is easy. Thinkpad’s site does the same thing, but more sophisticated.
I would never have considered a Dell machine, but a local firm had some amazing deals on a very nicely equipped thin and light D410 that I wanted for travel using Streets & Trips with GPS. If it gets stolen, not really a financial tragedy.
I have had a Dell machine for 5 years without any trouble; their support was excellent. I hope they leave Alienware alone thou but reduce the prices of their gaming laptops š
Am I the only one who can’t get into Dell’s support pages? I doubt it as I’ve tried from several computers around my area. I haven’t found any mention of or reason for support.dell.com returning this:
500 – Server Processing Error
An error occurred while processing your request. Please click here to return to the home page.
I’ve been getting the above since Friday, 14 Apr 06.
I have mostly worked with dell small business and server support. For the most part I call with a hardware failure, answer the questions before they ask them and get them to dispatch a part with next day shipping. I even was able to convince them to replace all the MB and HD in a batch of 30 machines after 50% failed and before the other 50% failed. Their server support is especially good on the storage section, I get a knowledgable human on the line in minutes usually.
Dell’s business support has been nothing but good to me. Is your laptop an Inspiron or a Latitude? If it’s an Inspiron, that’s your problem. The business systems are frequently the exact same machines as the consumer systems, but they cost more. They cost more because Dell’s consumer-level support is non-existent.
Iād be very interested to hear from anyone else who has had an unexpectedly good experience with Dell lately.
“are you serious?”
Ed;
I agree that bad experiences color future expectations. Ask Land’s End how long it was before I ordered again after getting a bad pair of cords (try 15 years).
I manage a few thousand computers and deal with Dell Gold Tech support. Of course, that is serious money to spend on support, but Dell Gold is worth it.
Recently they started pushing back on defective hard drives. Seems their “IDE diagnostics” were often failing perfectly good drives. Fine, switch to another diagnostic on the utility partition. I got a few reps that were really reluctant to send me new drives, but once I left off using the bad diagnostic and stressed that I was using the other diagnostic and that I knew what I was talking about, they always cooperated.
When you can say “just send the tech out tomorrow”, they have an amazing ability to be reasonable. (Of course, they NEVER argue with your choice to have a tech come out, but if you give them the option, they’d rather send parts.)
Now if your experience with plain vanilla Dell support is different, I can understand, but I believe you can get what you pay for sometimes.
Oh I have had plenty of problems. PLENTY… ordering problems.
Small business, healthcare
At first I was a one man crew, ordering from Dell was not an option. Dont even try ordering a part if you are on the move from Dell or if you have 20 or so people clinging to you at for support.
Here is what I experienced.
I spoke with a Dell rep. to order an optiplex 170 cd burner. After speaking with the rep I had to log into Dell. Cut and paste or find my account number, verify the product I am trying to order, provide a po number, verify shipping information and correct the shipping information (done each time, the person that started the account moved on), receive the package months later to find it was not a cd burner but a cd-rom.
If you cant get to a computer to order the part, I wouldnt try ordering from Dell. Forget just calling the account rep and asking for a cd burner for an Optiplex 170 (even if you create a repour with the agent.)
The account still lists the first person that started the Dell account. They tried to correct the account info.
A second problem with Dell
Possible because Dell forced me to search the internet for their competition, I have found the same money you spend on Dell equipment you always get more from their competitor.
One example Equipment I purchase now a days allow for me to upgrade to the newer hardware available. Serial ATA drives capability, ample memory slots, ample pci slots are just a few upgrade-ables I found that purchasing through Dell’s competitors is an option that is thrown in automatically.
I had a pretty bad experience trying to get a monitor replaced. Phone support couldn’t do anything without an Express Service code or the other evil Service tag, which they don’t put on the LCD’s for some reason. Without the original order number (riiight 2 year old monitor) they can’t help you.
As a last shot I decided to try the online chat support. In the mean time I got busy doing something else and forgotten that I had the chat open and left my desk. When I returned 15-20 minutes later I noticed I’d gotten a reply. Further to my surprise when I responded the tech was still there. He asked me for a number off of a metal plate on the back of the monitor and 20 minutes later I got confirmation the new panel had been shipped. I received the new monitor 2 days later.
So here’s the ‘sitrep’ Mr. Rollins…
I purchased an E1705 from the Dell Home site back in February of this year (2006). SIX (6) days after receiving the system, it started producing a very loud and annoying buzzing sound when on battery power or when the unit was powered off and being charged.
I contacted Tech Support right away to report the issue thinking a replacement would be sent (Day 6 of 21-day satisfaction period). As I am not very technical, the agent swore to me the unit was functioning normally and this ‘noise’ was part of the break-in period.
Well, here we are – the noise is still present, louder than ever. I even upgraded my warranty to 4 year onsite in hopes to avoid any downtime. A technician has replaced the motherboard, LCD, AC adapter, both system fans and the bottom housing of the unit. I might add the housing was sent to the technician MISSING the dell service tag. Two tech visits later and numerous horrible tech support experiences, I am in the same boat. Even the QualX Technician laughed when he came out the second time. His take – ‘Why haven’t they just replaced it??’. I wish I could’ve answered him.
Here I am (4/23/06 @ 0130 hrs) on HOLD waiting for a tech support agent to pick up the phone. Been on hold for 1hr 5min. The dell.com/chat page shows a message of ‘all tech support reps are busy’. I’m starting to think that India is on lunch break… This is horrible.
All of these horrible experiences. disconnects, transfers, dell employees who dont want to to take ownership of a problem and satisfy a customer… Cmon… get it right. Customer Service makes or breaks a company. Just think eMachines. If I dont receive a satisfactory resolution to this issue, I am going to sell this broken laptop on craigslist and go right out and buy a Mac and head over to Mac BootCamp! I used to swear by Dell and it’s quality… not anymore.
If you happen to see this Mr. Rollins, you can access my contact info via my last case number (130323889).
Make this right sir… What happened to the “Soul of Dell”??
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/soulofdell/en/index?c=us&l=en&s=corp
Just a quick follow up… After posting a message on 4/23 (see above) I was contacted by a Dell Rep. I must say, I did not expect this. I was quite impressed with the way my issues were addressed by the Rep and the outcome of the conversation was very positive.
The ‘Soul of Dell’ is still very much alive!
Yea right, they hired a bunch of people to post here…
my dell is fd up my windows media player keeps sayng no cd burner detected does anyone have any advice i keep telling this girl i can burn the most awesome otis redding cd and now i look like a liying fag please help
It seems many of these people are dell plants. My experience is the same as yours, impenetrable off shore support that does everything to avoid fixing the problem. Especially if it involves paying a tech to fix your computer under an in home warranty. The laughable part is when they want youa s a consumer to spend hours on the phone repairing YOUR computer even though you paid extra for a warranty. Could you imagine that in a car warranty? “OK sir take out the manifold and undo the piston”.I have now made it my life’s mission to tell everyone and anyone the utter sorryness of dell and their indian flunkies.
I only have one question: if you do need an on-site service call from Dell, how many days will it take the guy to get here from India?
LOL
I do not understand how people can even say that dell technical support is helpful. I am a college student and in the year and a half i Have owned my inspiron laptop it has broken 5 times. Every time it is the same long process, some clueless robot of a technician “diagnoses” my problem by keeping me on the phone for hours and then occasionally sends a box or a techie to exchange the parts for another piece that will yet again break. After the 3rd replacement of the motherboard and fan I was told that if it broke again I would be given a new unit. Alas, it has broken 2 times since then and nothing has been done to rectify the problems. The most recent crash was completely unexpected. I called technical support to complain that my memory card was not working and in the process of “testing” my cards, my motherboard again died. I demanded to speak to a supervisor who was nothing but rude and unhelpful. I attempted to speak to customer care about my problems and was disconnected 6 times just to hear that they couldn’t help me. If you read this just avoid buying a dell and having your life consumed by the rude technical support.
I CANT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HECK THOSE INDIAN PEOPLE ON TECH SUPPORT ARE SAYING.
It is frustrating to call, and have to ask “Could you please repeat that?” because it sounds like they are speaking a foriegn language.
I’ve had horrible, horrible, horrible experiences with dell. Inpsiron 5150’s are horrible. The motherboard has died in the first 4 months. The video card fried in the first year of having it. I’ve always had overheating problems because there are hardly any vents on this thing, and the fan now is starting to sound like a blender.
The first problem i had took nearly 2 months to fix it. They sent a tech support guy that couldnt fix it and didnt have the right parts,so I had to call tech support again, then two weeks later they had dhl come pick it up.
The second problem I had the tech support guy didnt have the right parts again! So I had to call tech support again, they sent another technician that finally was able to fix it.
Now that I have a fan that I think is getting ready to die (It literally sounded like a motorboat, I think I could put it in the water and ride on it all the way to india) I called tech support and was reminded of how horrible it was. The lady kept asking what I have done to troubleshoot the problem and she wanted me to go through there troubleshooting process, but I already new that I needed a new fan, so I just held the phone up to the fan so that she could hear, and she asked if I could hold a moment, so I waited another 10 minutes, and she came back and said they are sending a technician to fix the fan.
Well, for the looks of things above, and some of the experiences that classmate has had at ITT, I do not believe I will be getting another Dell. The C610 I currently have will end up going to my niece, and I will be buying an MPC, Acer, or Alienware notebook as those seem to be better.
Here’s one for you. I went to Dell Outlet and ordered a Lattitude X1 for $1,059.00, also ordered a new printer for $74.00. When I put in the info for my credit card, I made a mistake and put in a wrong number in the 4 digit I.D. part. The card request was denied because of my mistake. I then descended into Dell Hell when I tried to correct my mistake and get everthing squared away. First to Austin (I guess)for a 30 minute hold, then off to India. After 2 days of trying I gave up and cancelled the order. I then went to Twinhead Corp. and ordered a notebook. I spoke to their customer service guy today to see when it would be shipped. It was great, he explained that the machine was being built and would probably ship towards the end of the week, and he also responded by email saying he would keep me informed as to what was happening. I am typing this story on a Dell Dimension PC, its an oldie but a goodie. I also own a Latitude laptop which will be going off to college with my daughter this fall. If things work out with Twinhead, I don’t think I’ll be going back to Dell anytime soon. BTW, I saved about $250.