Advice to Dell and potential customers - Beware!!

I took delivery of new laptop last Wednesday (24/5). Within a couple of
days, the "F2" key fell off and on closer inspection I found that the
plastic hinge had snapped. I wrote to Dell on their support page using
the exact words above.

Even though they state a 24-hour response, they bust it by another 24
(OK, so there was a bank holiday in between). That was excuseable but
the email I had back wasn't as it informed me that such a fault was
classed as "wear and tear" and therefore not covered by warranty.
Huh??? It was the first time I had even touched the blasted key!!!
Pretty fragile keyboard if a single keystroke constituted wear and
tear.

The email gave me full instructions on how to order a new keyboard and
how to fix it myself. Very helpful and technically brilliant but as
useful as an ordinance survey map of the moon.

I rang their Customer Service number and got India. The very nice lady
spoke very good English but I doubt if she understood it. She merely
kept repeating "it is not a warranty issue" in as many ways as I could
phrase my protestations. Even demanding to speak to a manager drew the
response "I will transfer to the parts department so you can order a
new keyboard".

Sadly I very rudely and uncharacteristically slammed the phone down on
her and tried the parts department in desperation. I spoke to an
equally nice lady in India who appeared to understand a tad more than
the previous one and after a few instances of "hold on please", I was
informed that my laptop was under warranty and that a colleague will
call me back with further instructions.

That was this morning. I have heard nothing since and in the meantime
fired off a snotty email quoting the Sale of Goods Act in reply to
their very unhelpful Customer Support (allegedly) department.

My advice to would-be Dell customers: Great if you receive a lifetime
fault-free product. God help you if you encounter any problems not in
the script in front of the call centre employees in India.

My advice to Dell: Ditch the Indian connection. Talking to call centres
is bad enough at the best of times but to speak to people alien to your
own culture, who have no understanding of the commercial laws governing
the UK (or the EU for that matter) is very bad for business. You will
only get loads of disgruntled customers and bad reputation spreads...

wrote in message
oups.com...
I took delivery of new laptop last Wednesday (24/5). Within a couple of
days, the "F2" key fell off and on closer inspection I found that the
plastic hinge had snapped. I wrote to Dell on their support page using
the exact words above.

Even though they state a 24-hour response, they bust it by another 24
(OK, so there was a bank holiday in between). That was excuseable but
the email I had back wasn't as it informed me that such a fault was
classed as "wear and tear" and therefore not covered by warranty.
Huh??? It was the first time I had even touched the blasted key!!!
Pretty fragile keyboard if a single keystroke constituted wear and
tear.

The email gave me full instructions on how to order a new keyboard and
how to fix it myself. Very helpful and technically brilliant but as
useful as an ordinance survey map of the moon.

I rang their Customer Service number and got India. The very nice lady
spoke very good English but I doubt if she understood it. She merely
kept repeating "it is not a warranty issue" in as many ways as I could
phrase my protestations. Even demanding to speak to a manager drew the
response "I will transfer to the parts department so you can order a
new keyboard".

Sadly I very rudely and uncharacteristically slammed the phone down on
her and tried the parts department in desperation. I spoke to an
equally nice lady in India who appeared to understand a tad more than
the previous one and after a few instances of "hold on please", I was
informed that my laptop was under warranty and that a colleague will
call me back with further instructions.

That was this morning. I have heard nothing since and in the meantime
fired off a snotty email quoting the Sale of Goods Act in reply to
their very unhelpful Customer Support (allegedly) department.

My advice to would-be Dell customers: Great if you receive a lifetime
fault-free product. God help you if you encounter any problems not in
the script in front of the call centre employees in India.

My advice to Dell: Ditch the Indian connection. Talking to call centres
is bad enough at the best of times but to speak to people alien to your
own culture, who have no understanding of the commercial laws governing
the UK (or the EU for that matter) is very bad for business. You will
only get loads of disgruntled customers and bad reputation spreads...



Yep the trick is to make sure you go through to ireland and not india.
Dells indian call centre must be a right slum their call centre staff are a
joke.

I was thinking about the above post. I build my own pc's, I get what I want
from reputable suppliers. But where would one go to get a decent laptop, and
who is recommended to be the best for customer service in the UK. Do you
have to pay big bucks for Savrow? I am sick of seeing Dell et al laptops,
which people bring me to look at, invariably I recommend bunging in as much
RAM as they will take, even to speed up the damn things starting up! I know
that Windows will run on 512, but they crawl along!

Laptop equipment is now the last bastion of closed computer
manufacturing. If someone can come up with an open design so that
builders can build laptops as openly as they can with desktops, it will
drive the performance of laptops up and the price down. I think we are
all looking forward to that day so if there are any laptop component
designers/manufacturers out there, please make yourselves known and
save us all from the likes of Dell and Microsoft. Fortunately I can
Linux so that's one evil out of the equation. Break the monopoly of big
manufacturers and it will be heaven.

I have now heard from Dell in Ireland and they have agreed to send me a
new keyboard which I have to fit myself. In all honesty, I would be
very happy if they just sent me a new "F2" key or even just a new
plastic hinge. There must be so much profit in laptops that they can
afford to send a new keyboard out to fix a 10mm bit of broken plastic.


Carl wrote:
I was thinking about the above post. I build my own pc's, I get what I want
from reputable suppliers. But where would one go to get a decent laptop, and
who is recommended to be the best for customer service in the UK. Do you
have to pay big bucks for Savrow? I am sick of seeing Dell et al laptops,
which people bring me to look at, invariably I recommend bunging in as much
RAM as they will take, even to speed up the damn things starting up! I know
that Windows will run on 512, but they crawl along!

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when
opened his gob and said:

I have now heard from Dell in Ireland and they have agreed to send me a
new keyboard which I have to fit myself

I hope you are going to invoice them for your labour!

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Laptop equipment is now the last bastion of closed computer
manufacturing. If someone can come up with an open design so that
builders can build laptops as openly as they can with desktops, it will
drive the performance of laptops up and the price down. I think we are
all looking forward to that day so if there are any laptop component
designers/manufacturers out there, please make yourselves known and
save us all from the likes of Dell and Microsoft. Fortunately I can
Linux so that's one evil out of the equation. Break the monopoly of big
manufacturers and it will be heaven.


Never thought of this. Very good point.

On Wed, 31 May 2006 12:34:54 +0100, "Ant C" wrote:


wrote in message
oups.com...
Laptop equipment is now the last bastion of closed computer
manufacturing. If someone can come up with an open design so that
builders can build laptops as openly as they can with desktops, it will
drive the performance of laptops up and the price down. I think we are
all looking forward to that day so if there are any laptop component
designers/manufacturers out there, please make yourselves known and
save us all from the likes of Dell and Microsoft. Fortunately I can
Linux so that's one evil out of the equation. Break the monopoly of big
manufacturers and it will be heaven.


Never thought of this. Very good point.

Don't know if this is any help but I had a problem with Dell a few
months back and found that an email explaining what was wrong sent
here worked absolute wonders.

Phil.

Yep, me too/
Dodgy screen a few years ago. No luck from Customer Services.
An email to Michael with a polite explanation of my dissatisfaction and it
was sorted within 72 hours.

I've no doubt that these emails are answered by someone else at Dell, but
they do seem to get escalated when the case is sound.


Don't know if this is any help but I had a problem with Dell a few
months back and found that an email explaining what was wrong sent
here worked absolute wonders.

Phil.

Thanks for that. The major problem with Dell is that their escalation
procedure is crap and their first-line support is in India. I got the
impression that they were running through a flow-charted script and if
the problem ran outside their scope of responsibility, they wash you
off their hands instead of trying to be helpful. Without a decent
escalation or problem handling procedure, you are then left with that
feeling of total despair. They have yet to learn that the old trick of
giving-you-the-run-around-you-will-give-up-and-go-away doesn't work any
more in 2006. There is no choice but to try all their numbers and email
contacts (and I am sure I ended up in the same menu selection that
connected to India no matter what I dialled) until you strike lucky and
end up in Dublin, which I must qualify, is not brilliant but better
than that awful sub-continental place. In the meantime, I await my
replacement keyboard and I am sure I will have an easier challenge
fitting it when it arrives.