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Our Dell experience said never again



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 17th 04, 05:36 PM
Rey Barry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Our Dell experience said never again

Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

Your mileage will vary. Most do. But here is ours.

My daughter's Dell desktop was 5 months from brand new when the hard
drive failed. It had a year warranty from Dell, an extra-cost warranty
extension for three additional years, an extra-cost contract for
on-site service, and of course Western Digital's one-year warranty on
the drive.

Dell was covered on the replacement part, yet refused to admit the
drive was bad long past when they knew it. That year they were over
budget for service calls due to a run of bad drives, and evidently
under orders to keep a lid on service calls.

Dell evaded, avoided, and ducked honoring the warranties until I
finally lost my patience and my cool. This was my daughter's "computer
for college." I had asked up front if they could service it in
Gambier, Ohio, if I paid for on-site repairs for four years. "No
problem," had been the response at order time. "No problem!"

The company lied and the salesman didn't know. So instead of buying
the computer her college offered for about the same price, I bought a
Dell. Hey, it has a reputation.

Read on.

The drive failed in early January and she called me. I said call Dell.
Daughter is no stranger to PCs. She complied with everything Dell tech
asked of her. This included three complete re-installations of
Windows, each one failing because the drive was bad. To do that on
Dell's time she missed 7 college classes and hurt her grades. Rather
than flunk out, after three weeks she gave up and brought the Dell 600
miles round trip to me.

I tried day after day to get Dell to install a new drive. They
stone-walled me. On their instructions I tried every fix for a drive
there is six times over. Dell still refused to replace it. Finally I
had enough. I know a dozen ways to shred a lackey by phone and on the
55th day I shredded them up three management levels.

So two months after the Dell died they finally sent someone to replace
the bad Western Digital Caviar. He replaced it with another Caviar
from the same lot, and that says something everyone should know about
Dell.

Early mortality 1996 Caviar drives were common knowledge. I learned
about them reading tech conferences and InfoWorld. That's why when I
ordered the Dell in August my invoice states: "Customer specifically
requests we not use a Western Digital Caviar drive."

They put one in just the same without identifying it on the packing
slip. It lasted five months. They replaced it with another. It lasted
five months.

Michael Dell couldn't resist the deal: Western Digital dumping drives
at dirt cheap prices. So they have a high failure rate. So what? On
Wall Street only profit margins matter.

Two last points.

I did not call Dell when the replacement drive failed. I returned it
to WD under the WD warranty. They sent me a new Caviar and I auctioned
it. The buyer got a 12-month warranty. I put a Quantum drive in the
Dell and everything was fine.

For a year. Then Dell's lowest-price bid motherboard died. That was
enough Dell for me.

The Dell salesman was outraged. By crazy coincidence the salesman who
answered my first call to Dell was a transplanted Virginian who had
grown up half a mile from my farm. His dad and I were acquaintances
for 30 years. He looked up the event ticket, saw what Dell had done to
us and for how long, saw the Caviar drive that wasn't supposed to be
there, the service contracts he sold me in good faith that they didn't
honor, and quit his job.

Deal with Dell if you want to, but you'll get no-questions-asked parts
from the lowest bidder, and you may not get service even if you pay
extra for it.

Update: forget about support unless you buy 1000 PCs. They moved
non-business support to the lowest bidder of "support tech" in India.
Now if the problem is anything beyond "Things to do before calling
Support," which is all these people know, you've had it. A friend
wrote to me recently:

"Once Dell's maybe, maybe not, bi-lingual tech ascertains your cables
are plugged in and the power is on, he puts you on hold to ask
someone, 'What do I do now?' The person he asks does not know. For
this each of them gets about 10k Rupees a month, around $225, with
close to zero non-salary employee overhead."

Michael Dell just beams but my friend, a college professor, knows the
game is up. He has a Dell and he has to pay someone in his IT
department to fix it. He's so angry he's on a crusade to tell everyone
in the university, everyone in the universe. My experience was in 1997
but I'm happy to share his crusade. I lost the best part of $2,300
buying Dell junk and a worthless service contract.

It's time I sent this to Michael Dell. He's probably 80 layers away
from knowing anything but happy numbers. They'll likely shield him
from this as well.

I'm mystified by Richard's last comment below. How does reading the
small print help, unless it says "Expect to meet incompetence and
intransigence at every stage."

Richard's Report from the UK - it's no better there

I have been a Dell PC owner for 7 years, and found them to produce
generally recommendable products. However their "next-day on-site
support" was not what I imagined. Dell Support informed me that what
it really means is: "the day after all attempts to cure problems by
phone have been exhausted." So I had about 10 very frustrating days of
very long phone calls before they eventually caved in and sent an
engineer. He couldn't solve the problem, nor could 3 more engineers
who followed him. By then they had replaced the whole of the PC's
innards.

In lieu of getting the PC running, the manager of Technical Support
informed me he was not happy with the situation.

Finally, it was only a personal email to the SVP of Dell UK which
eventually brought about the delivery of a replacement computer. The
whole thing took about 2 months and I met intransigence at every
stage. So, always read the small print! A guarantee is not always
what it seems, as I'm sure many of you have found.

-------------------------------

A matter of morality

In 2003-04 Dell Computers is spending millions advertising - not its
computers - but its telephone support. It is doing this in reaction to
national user surveys showing Dell near the top of the complaint list
on support. Is this the usual Big Lie technique, advertise your worst
aspect as your best?

Not exactly. Dell is also near the top in user surveys for good
telephone support. How can this be? It depends on who is asked.

1. If you buy 1000 Dell computers you do not get a telephone number
that rings in India. Dell tried that; it was a disaster. Now big
business gets 877-766-3XXX, a number that rings in the US and reaches
competent, trained, English-speaking technicians.

2. Individual PC buyers with problems get only 800-624-9896, the India
number. Their calls fall into two categories: users with a loose cable
or some other elementary problem, and those whose system is actually
broken. The first group gives Dell high praise, the second is
disgusted at the incompetence.

Which category are you in? Which telephone number will you get?

If it's India you will understand why a Dell user said this:

"I don't trust Dell to advise me about this. While trying to follow
their instructions they made a number of mistakes. They said right
click when they meant left; left when they meant right. They said
cold boot instead of warm. They told me to hit hot keys and chose
the wrong key. They sent me places that didn't have what they wanted
me to reach. I found the experience scary."

Scary indeed. Hardware from the lowest bidder, ignoring the specs in
your order, tech support from hell, and evading the service contract
you paid extra for. More people than you might think define that as
the Dell experience.
  #2  
Old February 17th 04, 05:57 PM
Rocket J. Squirrel
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Last year the hard disk failed on my Dimension 4500. A new one was shipped
to me and I got it within 3 days. Dell offered to send a tech to install it,
but I said I'd do it myself.

My story doesn't prove anything more about Dell than does your story. It
just goes to show that individuals have good experiences and bad experiences
with every consumer product.

Rocky

"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...
Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

Your mileage will vary. Most do. But here is ours.

My daughter's Dell desktop was 5 months from brand new when the hard
drive failed. It had a year warranty from Dell, an extra-cost warranty
extension for three additional years, an extra-cost contract for
on-site service, and of course Western Digital's one-year warranty on
the drive.

Dell was covered on the replacement part, yet refused to admit the
drive was bad long past when they knew it. That year they were over
budget for service calls due to a run of bad drives, and evidently
under orders to keep a lid on service calls.

Dell evaded, avoided, and ducked honoring the warranties until I
finally lost my patience and my cool. This was my daughter's "computer
for college." I had asked up front if they could service it in
Gambier, Ohio, if I paid for on-site repairs for four years. "No
problem," had been the response at order time. "No problem!"

The company lied and the salesman didn't know. So instead of buying
the computer her college offered for about the same price, I bought a
Dell. Hey, it has a reputation.

Read on.

The drive failed in early January and she called me. I said call Dell.
Daughter is no stranger to PCs. She complied with everything Dell tech
asked of her. This included three complete re-installations of
Windows, each one failing because the drive was bad. To do that on
Dell's time she missed 7 college classes and hurt her grades. Rather
than flunk out, after three weeks she gave up and brought the Dell 600
miles round trip to me.

I tried day after day to get Dell to install a new drive. They
stone-walled me. On their instructions I tried every fix for a drive
there is six times over. Dell still refused to replace it. Finally I
had enough. I know a dozen ways to shred a lackey by phone and on the
55th day I shredded them up three management levels.

So two months after the Dell died they finally sent someone to replace
the bad Western Digital Caviar. He replaced it with another Caviar
from the same lot, and that says something everyone should know about
Dell.

Early mortality 1996 Caviar drives were common knowledge. I learned
about them reading tech conferences and InfoWorld. That's why when I
ordered the Dell in August my invoice states: "Customer specifically
requests we not use a Western Digital Caviar drive."

They put one in just the same without identifying it on the packing
slip. It lasted five months. They replaced it with another. It lasted
five months.

Michael Dell couldn't resist the deal: Western Digital dumping drives
at dirt cheap prices. So they have a high failure rate. So what? On
Wall Street only profit margins matter.

Two last points.

I did not call Dell when the replacement drive failed. I returned it
to WD under the WD warranty. They sent me a new Caviar and I auctioned
it. The buyer got a 12-month warranty. I put a Quantum drive in the
Dell and everything was fine.

For a year. Then Dell's lowest-price bid motherboard died. That was
enough Dell for me.

The Dell salesman was outraged. By crazy coincidence the salesman who
answered my first call to Dell was a transplanted Virginian who had
grown up half a mile from my farm. His dad and I were acquaintances
for 30 years. He looked up the event ticket, saw what Dell had done to
us and for how long, saw the Caviar drive that wasn't supposed to be
there, the service contracts he sold me in good faith that they didn't
honor, and quit his job.

Deal with Dell if you want to, but you'll get no-questions-asked parts
from the lowest bidder, and you may not get service even if you pay
extra for it.

Update: forget about support unless you buy 1000 PCs. They moved
non-business support to the lowest bidder of "support tech" in India.
Now if the problem is anything beyond "Things to do before calling
Support," which is all these people know, you've had it. A friend
wrote to me recently:

"Once Dell's maybe, maybe not, bi-lingual tech ascertains your cables
are plugged in and the power is on, he puts you on hold to ask
someone, 'What do I do now?' The person he asks does not know. For
this each of them gets about 10k Rupees a month, around $225, with
close to zero non-salary employee overhead."

Michael Dell just beams but my friend, a college professor, knows the
game is up. He has a Dell and he has to pay someone in his IT
department to fix it. He's so angry he's on a crusade to tell everyone
in the university, everyone in the universe. My experience was in 1997
but I'm happy to share his crusade. I lost the best part of $2,300
buying Dell junk and a worthless service contract.

It's time I sent this to Michael Dell. He's probably 80 layers away
from knowing anything but happy numbers. They'll likely shield him
from this as well.

I'm mystified by Richard's last comment below. How does reading the
small print help, unless it says "Expect to meet incompetence and
intransigence at every stage."

Richard's Report from the UK - it's no better there

I have been a Dell PC owner for 7 years, and found them to produce
generally recommendable products. However their "next-day on-site
support" was not what I imagined. Dell Support informed me that what
it really means is: "the day after all attempts to cure problems by
phone have been exhausted." So I had about 10 very frustrating days of
very long phone calls before they eventually caved in and sent an
engineer. He couldn't solve the problem, nor could 3 more engineers
who followed him. By then they had replaced the whole of the PC's
innards.

In lieu of getting the PC running, the manager of Technical Support
informed me he was not happy with the situation.

Finally, it was only a personal email to the SVP of Dell UK which
eventually brought about the delivery of a replacement computer. The
whole thing took about 2 months and I met intransigence at every
stage. So, always read the small print! A guarantee is not always
what it seems, as I'm sure many of you have found.

-------------------------------

A matter of morality

In 2003-04 Dell Computers is spending millions advertising - not its
computers - but its telephone support. It is doing this in reaction to
national user surveys showing Dell near the top of the complaint list
on support. Is this the usual Big Lie technique, advertise your worst
aspect as your best?

Not exactly. Dell is also near the top in user surveys for good
telephone support. How can this be? It depends on who is asked.

1. If you buy 1000 Dell computers you do not get a telephone number
that rings in India. Dell tried that; it was a disaster. Now big
business gets 877-766-3XXX, a number that rings in the US and reaches
competent, trained, English-speaking technicians.

2. Individual PC buyers with problems get only 800-624-9896, the India
number. Their calls fall into two categories: users with a loose cable
or some other elementary problem, and those whose system is actually
broken. The first group gives Dell high praise, the second is
disgusted at the incompetence.

Which category are you in? Which telephone number will you get?

If it's India you will understand why a Dell user said this:

"I don't trust Dell to advise me about this. While trying to follow
their instructions they made a number of mistakes. They said right
click when they meant left; left when they meant right. They said
cold boot instead of warm. They told me to hit hot keys and chose
the wrong key. They sent me places that didn't have what they wanted
me to reach. I found the experience scary."

Scary indeed. Hardware from the lowest bidder, ignoring the specs in
your order, tech support from hell, and evading the service contract
you paid extra for. More people than you might think define that as
the Dell experience.



  #3  
Old February 17th 04, 06:23 PM
Heinz Kiosk
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...

Over the years I have bought a lot of Dells. On balance I have found them to
be good value for money. Higher quality than "supermarket" PCs and cheaper
than the likes of Compaq/HP.

I have had a couple of horror stories and a couple of shouting matches when
brand-new machines have not performed as expected, but no more often than
with machines from other manufacturers.

OTOH I never buy tech support or extended warranty from anyone. I figure
they make money selling it so if something goes wrong I just go down to PC
World and buy a replacement. People need to get over their fear of opening
the case. Most components are easy to replace. I've saved £1000's over the
years by doing that. Warranties are really a form of insurance and insurance
is a bad idea if you can afford the loss involved in a worst-case scenario.

Tom



  #4  
Old February 17th 04, 06:56 PM
Noah
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Heinz Kiosk wrote:
OTOH I never buy tech support or extended warranty from anyone. I figure
they make money selling it so if something goes wrong I just go down to PC
World and buy a replacement. People need to get over their fear of opening
the case. Most components are easy to replace. I've saved 1000's over the
years by doing that. Warranties are really a form of insurance and insurance
is a bad idea if you can afford the loss involved in a worst-case scenario.


A warranty is a requirement for a laptop. But otherwise, I completely
agree with you. Warranties are not worth the money on average -- by
definition.

I think it's dell's policy to ship out "refurbished" parts too. So Dell
is recycling on a variety of levels (selling new, selling used whole,
selling used parted out, repairing used parted out). Nothing sucks worse
than fixing a problem with a potential prior problem.
  #5  
Old February 17th 04, 07:05 PM
Robert R Kircher, Jr.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Rocket J. Squirrel wrote:
Last year the hard disk failed on my Dimension 4500. A new one was
shipped to me and I got it within 3 days. Dell offered to send a tech
to install it, but I said I'd do it myself.

My story doesn't prove anything more about Dell than does your story.
It just goes to show that individuals have good experiences and bad
experiences with every consumer product.



I've had to follow up on many of these horror stories for my clients and
I've found that many of them are customer induced. In other words the
customer causes their own hell by not supplying the correct information, not
listing to the tech, call support too late, and so on. I recently had a
client call me up and cuss me out for suggesting Dell. The story goes
somewhat along these lines.

When I ask why, she said that she'd been on phone support for days and all
over the Dell web site trying to get up to dated *monitor* drivers. She
insisted that they didn't exist and that Dell support told her they didn't
exist. Even with me, she was very insistent that she needed monitor
drivers. Well my first assumption was that the monitor may have an inf file
for windows to identify the correct frequencies etc. So I did a quick scan
on the web site myself and found nothing. At that point I asked some more
directed questions about the problem at which point she got a bit indignant
and said "I don't know why I have to go through all this, I already went
through it with Dell. All I need are the drivers." After some additional
discussion I figured that what she really needed was the proper Video
drivers. Again she insisted that she needed monitor drivers and claimed
that is what she was told by an MIS person from a company I won't name. At
which point I said I'll schedule a visit and look at it myself.

Turns out it was the video drivers.

My point? If you ever done this type of support before you know that you
will run across people that assume they are right and then don't listen to
support. I've even done it in the past myself. In some cases they are
right, but in many case they are not and a good support person can never
make the assumption that the user is knowledgeable. In any event the
customers insistence can make the support persons job imposable and hence
the support experience a nightmare. Afterall you have a first level support
person who only knows what's on the script and a customer who knows only
enough to be dangerous. Bad combination.

As with yours and the OPs story, mine doesn't prove anything. It just
brings in a different perspective. In my experience the worse support
stories are inevitably brought on by the customer.

--

Rob
Q: "What did the redneck say right before he died?"
A: "Hey ya'all watch this!!"




  #6  
Old February 17th 04, 07:36 PM
Irene
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Fortunately, we have had no "experiences" such as Richard's or you
daughter's. We have found the Dell computers to be of fairly good quality
hardware wise. However, unlike some who responded, we do depend on Dell
Technical Support; the quality of which has declined so much over the last
18 months or so, that we have completely discontinued buying any new Dell
Computers.

What it comes down to is you have to decide what you need and what you are
willing to spend to get(In our case--our three Dell's averaged over $2500
each). Then if you find that you are no longer getting what you paid for,
go elsewhere.
Which is what we are doing.

"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...
Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

Your mileage will vary. Most do. But here is ours.

My daughter's Dell desktop was 5 months from brand new when the hard
drive failed. It had a year warranty from Dell, an extra-cost warranty
extension for three additional years, an extra-cost contract for
on-site service, and of course Western Digital's one-year warranty on
the drive.

Dell was covered on the replacement part, yet refused to admit the
drive was bad long past when they knew it. That year they were over
budget for service calls due to a run of bad drives, and evidently
under orders to keep a lid on service calls.

Dell evaded, avoided, and ducked honoring the warranties until I
finally lost my patience and my cool. This was my daughter's "computer
for college." I had asked up front if they could service it in
Gambier, Ohio, if I paid for on-site repairs for four years. "No
problem," had been the response at order time. "No problem!"

The company lied and the salesman didn't know. So instead of buying
the computer her college offered for about the same price, I bought a
Dell. Hey, it has a reputation.

Read on.

The drive failed in early January and she called me. I said call Dell.
Daughter is no stranger to PCs. She complied with everything Dell tech
asked of her. This included three complete re-installations of
Windows, each one failing because the drive was bad. To do that on
Dell's time she missed 7 college classes and hurt her grades. Rather
than flunk out, after three weeks she gave up and brought the Dell 600
miles round trip to me.

I tried day after day to get Dell to install a new drive. They
stone-walled me. On their instructions I tried every fix for a drive
there is six times over. Dell still refused to replace it. Finally I
had enough. I know a dozen ways to shred a lackey by phone and on the
55th day I shredded them up three management levels.

So two months after the Dell died they finally sent someone to replace
the bad Western Digital Caviar. He replaced it with another Caviar
from the same lot, and that says something everyone should know about
Dell.

Early mortality 1996 Caviar drives were common knowledge. I learned
about them reading tech conferences and InfoWorld. That's why when I
ordered the Dell in August my invoice states: "Customer specifically
requests we not use a Western Digital Caviar drive."

They put one in just the same without identifying it on the packing
slip. It lasted five months. They replaced it with another. It lasted
five months.

Michael Dell couldn't resist the deal: Western Digital dumping drives
at dirt cheap prices. So they have a high failure rate. So what? On
Wall Street only profit margins matter.

Two last points.

I did not call Dell when the replacement drive failed. I returned it
to WD under the WD warranty. They sent me a new Caviar and I auctioned
it. The buyer got a 12-month warranty. I put a Quantum drive in the
Dell and everything was fine.

For a year. Then Dell's lowest-price bid motherboard died. That was
enough Dell for me.

The Dell salesman was outraged. By crazy coincidence the salesman who
answered my first call to Dell was a transplanted Virginian who had
grown up half a mile from my farm. His dad and I were acquaintances
for 30 years. He looked up the event ticket, saw what Dell had done to
us and for how long, saw the Caviar drive that wasn't supposed to be
there, the service contracts he sold me in good faith that they didn't
honor, and quit his job.

Deal with Dell if you want to, but you'll get no-questions-asked parts
from the lowest bidder, and you may not get service even if you pay
extra for it.

Update: forget about support unless you buy 1000 PCs. They moved
non-business support to the lowest bidder of "support tech" in India.
Now if the problem is anything beyond "Things to do before calling
Support," which is all these people know, you've had it. A friend
wrote to me recently:

"Once Dell's maybe, maybe not, bi-lingual tech ascertains your cables
are plugged in and the power is on, he puts you on hold to ask
someone, 'What do I do now?' The person he asks does not know. For
this each of them gets about 10k Rupees a month, around $225, with
close to zero non-salary employee overhead."

Michael Dell just beams but my friend, a college professor, knows the
game is up. He has a Dell and he has to pay someone in his IT
department to fix it. He's so angry he's on a crusade to tell everyone
in the university, everyone in the universe. My experience was in 1997
but I'm happy to share his crusade. I lost the best part of $2,300
buying Dell junk and a worthless service contract.

It's time I sent this to Michael Dell. He's probably 80 layers away
from knowing anything but happy numbers. They'll likely shield him
from this as well.

I'm mystified by Richard's last comment below. How does reading the
small print help, unless it says "Expect to meet incompetence and
intransigence at every stage."

Richard's Report from the UK - it's no better there

I have been a Dell PC owner for 7 years, and found them to produce
generally recommendable products. However their "next-day on-site
support" was not what I imagined. Dell Support informed me that what
it really means is: "the day after all attempts to cure problems by
phone have been exhausted." So I had about 10 very frustrating days of
very long phone calls before they eventually caved in and sent an
engineer. He couldn't solve the problem, nor could 3 more engineers
who followed him. By then they had replaced the whole of the PC's
innards.

In lieu of getting the PC running, the manager of Technical Support
informed me he was not happy with the situation.

Finally, it was only a personal email to the SVP of Dell UK which
eventually brought about the delivery of a replacement computer. The
whole thing took about 2 months and I met intransigence at every
stage. So, always read the small print! A guarantee is not always
what it seems, as I'm sure many of you have found.

-------------------------------

A matter of morality

In 2003-04 Dell Computers is spending millions advertising - not its
computers - but its telephone support. It is doing this in reaction to
national user surveys showing Dell near the top of the complaint list
on support. Is this the usual Big Lie technique, advertise your worst
aspect as your best?

Not exactly. Dell is also near the top in user surveys for good
telephone support. How can this be? It depends on who is asked.

1. If you buy 1000 Dell computers you do not get a telephone number
that rings in India. Dell tried that; it was a disaster. Now big
business gets 877-766-3XXX, a number that rings in the US and reaches
competent, trained, English-speaking technicians.

2. Individual PC buyers with problems get only 800-624-9896, the India
number. Their calls fall into two categories: users with a loose cable
or some other elementary problem, and those whose system is actually
broken. The first group gives Dell high praise, the second is
disgusted at the incompetence.

Which category are you in? Which telephone number will you get?

If it's India you will understand why a Dell user said this:

"I don't trust Dell to advise me about this. While trying to follow
their instructions they made a number of mistakes. They said right
click when they meant left; left when they meant right. They said
cold boot instead of warm. They told me to hit hot keys and chose
the wrong key. They sent me places that didn't have what they wanted
me to reach. I found the experience scary."

Scary indeed. Hardware from the lowest bidder, ignoring the specs in
your order, tech support from hell, and evading the service contract
you paid extra for. More people than you might think define that as
the Dell experience.



  #7  
Old February 17th 04, 08:18 PM
Rocket J. Squirrel
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I agree with you but didn't have the guts to say it. Many of the problems
that users encounter are their own fault.

Rocky

"Robert R Kircher, Jr." wrote in message
...
Rocket J. Squirrel wrote:
Last year the hard disk failed on my Dimension 4500. A new one was
shipped to me and I got it within 3 days. Dell offered to send a tech
to install it, but I said I'd do it myself.

My story doesn't prove anything more about Dell than does your story.
It just goes to show that individuals have good experiences and bad
experiences with every consumer product.



I've had to follow up on many of these horror stories for my clients and
I've found that many of them are customer induced. In other words the
customer causes their own hell by not supplying the correct information,

not
listing to the tech, call support too late, and so on. I recently had a
client call me up and cuss me out for suggesting Dell. The story goes
somewhat along these lines.

When I ask why, she said that she'd been on phone support for days and all
over the Dell web site trying to get up to dated *monitor* drivers. She
insisted that they didn't exist and that Dell support told her they didn't
exist. Even with me, she was very insistent that she needed monitor
drivers. Well my first assumption was that the monitor may have an inf

file
for windows to identify the correct frequencies etc. So I did a quick scan
on the web site myself and found nothing. At that point I asked some more
directed questions about the problem at which point she got a bit

indignant
and said "I don't know why I have to go through all this, I already went
through it with Dell. All I need are the drivers." After some additional
discussion I figured that what she really needed was the proper Video
drivers. Again she insisted that she needed monitor drivers and claimed
that is what she was told by an MIS person from a company I won't name.

At
which point I said I'll schedule a visit and look at it myself.

Turns out it was the video drivers.

My point? If you ever done this type of support before you know that you
will run across people that assume they are right and then don't listen to
support. I've even done it in the past myself. In some cases they are
right, but in many case they are not and a good support person can never
make the assumption that the user is knowledgeable. In any event the
customers insistence can make the support persons job imposable and hence
the support experience a nightmare. Afterall you have a first level

support
person who only knows what's on the script and a customer who knows only
enough to be dangerous. Bad combination.

As with yours and the OPs story, mine doesn't prove anything. It just
brings in a different perspective. In my experience the worse support
stories are inevitably brought on by the customer.

--

Rob
Q: "What did the redneck say right before he died?"
A: "Hey ya'all watch this!!"






  #8  
Old February 17th 04, 09:02 PM
Edward Teach
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On 17 Feb 2004 08:36:44 -0800, (Rey Barry) wrote:

I know a dozen ways to shred a lackey by phone


I don't doubt this for a moment. Your 'attitude' comes through loud
and clear throughout your entire message.

--Ed
  #9  
Old February 17th 04, 09:03 PM
Heinz Kiosk
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Noah" wrote in message
...
Heinz Kiosk wrote:
OTOH I never buy tech support or extended warranty from anyone. I figure
they make money selling it so if something goes wrong I just go down to

PC
World and buy a replacement. People need to get over their fear of

opening
the case. Most components are easy to replace. I've saved 1000's over

the
years by doing that. Warranties are really a form of insurance and

insurance
is a bad idea if you can afford the loss involved in a worst-case

scenario.

A warranty is a requirement for a laptop. But otherwise, I completely
agree with you. Warranties are not worth the money on average -- by
definition.

I think it's dell's policy to ship out "refurbished" parts too. So Dell
is recycling on a variety of levels (selling new, selling used whole,
selling used parted out, repairing used parted out). Nothing sucks worse
than fixing a problem with a potential prior problem.


I agree with the laptop warranty comment, they are too full of highly
specialised components that you cannot replace yourself.

Tom


  #10  
Old February 17th 04, 09:15 PM
Heinz Kiosk
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Rocket J. Squirrel" wrote in message
s.com...
I agree with you but didn't have the guts to say it. Many of the problems
that users encounter are their own fault.

Rocky

"Robert R Kircher, Jr." wrote in message
...
Rocket J. Squirrel wrote:
Last year the hard disk failed on my Dimension 4500. A new one was
shipped to me and I got it within 3 days. Dell offered to send a tech
to install it, but I said I'd do it myself.

My story doesn't prove anything more about Dell than does your story.
It just goes to show that individuals have good experiences and bad
experiences with every consumer product.



I've had to follow up on many of these horror stories for my clients and
I've found that many of them are customer induced. In other words the
customer causes their own hell by not supplying the correct information,

not
listing to the tech, call support too late, and so on. I recently had a
client call me up and cuss me out for suggesting Dell. The story goes
somewhat along these lines.

When I ask why, she said that she'd been on phone support for days and

all
over the Dell web site trying to get up to dated *monitor* drivers. She
insisted that they didn't exist and that Dell support told her they

didn't
exist. Even with me, she was very insistent that she needed monitor
drivers. Well my first assumption was that the monitor may have an inf

file
for windows to identify the correct frequencies etc. So I did a quick

scan
on the web site myself and found nothing. At that point I asked some

more
directed questions about the problem at which point she got a bit

indignant
and said "I don't know why I have to go through all this, I already went
through it with Dell. All I need are the drivers." After some

additional
discussion I figured that what she really needed was the proper Video
drivers. Again she insisted that she needed monitor drivers and claimed
that is what she was told by an MIS person from a company I won't name.

At
which point I said I'll schedule a visit and look at it myself.

Turns out it was the video drivers.

My point? If you ever done this type of support before you know that

you
will run across people that assume they are right and then don't listen

to
support. I've even done it in the past myself. In some cases they are
right, but in many case they are not and a good support person can never
make the assumption that the user is knowledgeable. In any event the
customers insistence can make the support persons job imposable and

hence
the support experience a nightmare. Afterall you have a first level

support
person who only knows what's on the script and a customer who knows only
enough to be dangerous. Bad combination.

As with yours and the OPs story, mine doesn't prove anything. It just
brings in a different perspective. In my experience the worse support
stories are inevitably brought on by the customer.


Consumer support is incredibly difficult. The number of times users give you
wrong information and then blame you when you find their problem difficult
to solve because of the poor information is a *very* high proportion of the
calls that are hard to close out. End-users with a dangerous amount of
knowledge (too little to be useful and too much to be placid) and a bad
attitude are the worst, and the combination is common.

Unfortunately this results in situations like the original poster's where
the support teams refuse to take anything a customer says at face value and
repeatedly leads them through a scripted response. Support staff soon learn
to assume that consumers are cretins as this is the safest assumption. I
seriously doubt in the cited case that Dell was doing this to save money.
The cost of endlessly recycling the same support call in the knowledge that
the client really needs a replacement part is far higher than simply
replacing the part.

Tom


 




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