dell technical support -- question

Gee. Only one complaint in the last year and a half.

"Irene" wrote in message
...
Most OEM technical support is nearly non-existent.
Dell is better than most, but unless you are quite computer literate, you
will find them of little help. By that I mean you will have to trouble
shoot
and be able to open your computer and work with it's insides as directed
by
the tech that you contact.

Also, this URL might give you an insight to the problems with Dell's Tech
Support.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/dell_svc.html

"Tanya" wrote in message
...
hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?
THANKS!

I guess that I missed something. I can't find anything on that page that
says how many "complaints" they have or have not received. The only thing
that I can figure is that you have assumed that all complaints that are
received are reprinted on that page. That is a lot of assuming.

You might want to glance at the last paragraph of this page.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/dell.htm

"joe_tide" wrote in message
...
Gee. Only one complaint in the last year and a half.

"Irene" wrote in message
...
Most OEM technical support is nearly non-existent.
Dell is better than most, but unless you are quite computer literate,
you
will find them of little help. By that I mean you will have to trouble
shoot
and be able to open your computer and work with it's insides as directed
by
the tech that you contact.

Also, this URL might give you an insight to the problems with Dell's
Tech
Support.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/dell_svc.html

"Tanya" wrote in message
...
hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?
THANKS!

The 2 or 3 times over the past 8 years or so that I have needed tech
support, they were able to help me first time out. I have spoken with India
twice I believe, and they were helpful and in fact had hardware orders
waiting for the US techs when they opened in the morning. That expedited the
whole affair. Tech support has slid in the industry but Dell still remains
one of the best and I have dealt with other companies. And a darn sight
better than support you never get from local VARs (value added retailers).
Now ask me about ISP tech support...grrr.

Regards,
John O.


"Tanya" wrote in message
...
hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?
THANKS!

Tanya wrote in message
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?

Basically correct. Your friend should plan to have a friend (you?) to
help. A few things to note:

While hardware support is a year, software support is only for a
month.

The clock starts at invoice, not when you receive the computer. You
also lose a week at the end, because it can take that long to get a
question answered correctly. So plan on setting it up immediately.
You only have two weeks to test.

Before calling, reboot and reinstal, because that's their advice
anyway.

Free support is only for easy questions. If they deem your problem
too hard, you will have to pay for 3rd level support.

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 13:13:59 -0400, "Robert R Kircher, Jr."
wrote:

I must just have the magic touch then because I NEVER have such problems
with email support. As a mater of fact I use email to avoid such problems.

Some how I don't think magic has anything to do with it.


I have had the same nightmare with email support. I have an Inspiron
notebook that will no longer boot - I just get several beeps at power
up. Fortunately, it's still under warranty.

It's been almost three weeks of the same crap. For every email I send
them I get the reply "the previous technician is not available today
so I will attempt to help you. Please do X, Y, and Z." Meanwhile I
have already done X, Y, and Z and reported back the results.

One tech tells me that he will arrange to have my system returned for
depot level maintenance. The next day I am told I am being shipped two
new DIMMs with no explanation as to why my system no longer needs to
be sent in. The next day the story changes again.

After two weeks of asking to speak to a manager I finally got one who
seems to have settled on getting my system returned. I just got the
shipping materials yesterday.

I worked in a help-desk type of role for about 8 years, albeit for
internal corporate users, so I have some experience with this type of
organization from the other side. These kinds of experiences on the
part of users would end up with tech support managers either being
transferred or fired.

The one huge problem Dell seems to have, which explains most of these
complaints, is simply lack of call management. None of the techs seem
to have any information about any previous history of a particular
service call and none of them seem to desire or have the ability to
talk to each other about particular service calls.

Call management should be the bedrock of this type of organization,
but if Dell uses any system at all they use it incorrectly or ignore
it altogether. They have fundamental flaws in their support system
which they don't seem interested in fixing.

I can't comment on any other PC vendors support, but based on my
experience these past weeks, Dell is the pits.

Tanya wrote:

hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?
THANKS!

hi,
i REALLY want to thank EVERYONE for the feedback experience w/ dell.

VERY HELPFUL!
the link
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/dell_svc.html
is great -- i find ALL computers are mentioned there

i'd forgotten the dell Web site discussion boards / forums -- thanks for
the reminder!
sincerely
Tanya
p.s. and this newsGroup is GREAT!

Lawrence Glasser wrote:

Technobarbarian wrote:

"Tanya" wrote in message
...
hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?

"Deteriorated" is putting it mildly. Nearly non-existent is more like
it. Individuals get Indians who get paid for getting rid of callers as fast
as possible, regardless of whether or not they solve your problem. Corporate
users talk to Americans who get paid for solving problems.

Those "corporate users" include buyers through the Small Business Division,
something that anyone can do.

Larry

for a price?

" wrote:

Tanya wrote in message
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?

Basically correct. Your friend should plan to have a friend (you?) to
help. A few things to note:

if it's me i wish them luck b/c i use 98se and the new one will be xp...



While hardware support is a year, software support is only for a
month.

i thought that dell boasts about the automatic 3-yr warranty and 3-yr tech
support???
perhaps that has changed.

The clock starts at invoice, not when you receive the computer. You
also lose a week at the end, because it can take that long to get a
question answered correctly. So plan on setting it up immediately.
You only have two weeks to test.

Before calling, reboot and reinstal, because that's their advice
anyway.

Free support is only for easy questions. If they deem your problem
too hard, you will have to pay for 3rd level support.

thanks!

Tanya wrote:

Lawrence Glasser wrote:

Technobarbarian wrote:

"Tanya" wrote in message
...
hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?

"Deteriorated" is putting it mildly. Nearly non-existent is more like
it. Individuals get Indians who get paid for getting rid of callers as fast
as possible, regardless of whether or not they solve your problem. Corporate
users talk to Americans who get paid for solving problems.

Those "corporate users" include buyers through the Small Business Division,
something that anyone can do.

Larry

for a price?

Absolutely! g

As a purchaser through Dell's Small Business Division, I opted for their
Gold Tech Support program, which affords me the opportunity to speak to
a US based tech, in a timely manner.

Larry

On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 21:31:37 -0400, Tanya
wrote:

hello,
i'm helping a friend buy their first pc and had heard that dell
technical support had deteriorated.
would anyone know whether that is the case?
THANKS!
yes, dell is almost entirely supported from India, and they do not
know damn near anything, even if you could understand what they were
saying.