Dell Customer Support: was I a jerk?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I had a little run-in with Dell Customer Support this afternoon in which I did a little of what could be considered, in some respects, bullying. But first, the backstory:

I am an ecologist working for the US government. I work nearly completely independently. The nearest person to whom I report works 350 miles away. Thius is a very nice setup, obviously, but it has drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is that I have no IT support. Now, I can usually dork around and figure out the problems, but I am by no means an IT person. My nearest IT support is 250 miles away.

Right. So, two weeks ago, the hard drive in my laptop crashed. I had data backups, so that was OK, but I had to replace the HD. I called up Dell, gave them my info, and the fact that the machine was still well under warranty. They agreed to overnight a new HD to me.

Sweet!

Except that the next day, the hard drive did not arrive. I called back and found that due to a technical glitch, the order had never been processed. They apologized and promised to send me a new one anon. Somewhere in there, it was revealed that the HD I had in my macdhine was no longer the current model, etc., so I had to wait for the new one. It came approximately a week later. Urgh.

I had to go to the central office at the end of last week anyway, so I decided to take my laptop to the IT guys and let them deal with it. Dandy, except that it turned out that my CD/DVD drive was shot too. It was getting so hot that it was warping OS discs placed in it.

Called Dell. “No problem! We’ll overnight a new one!”

Uh oh.

Sure enough, I come in today and the new CD drive does not arrive. Call Dell.

“Well, it’s in the ‘production queue’ because we want to test it and make sure it works. You’ll have the new one by December 1.”

Whaaaaaaat?! Suck. But I agree and hang up.

Minutes later, I start to get hotter and hotter just thinking about this. Call Dell, repeat entire story to CSR.

“Look. I want you to know that I am not yelling at you. I know this is not your fault, but I have a machine that’s under waranty, and I have a job to accomplish. This job absolutely can not be done without a computer, and if I receive my new CD drive on December 1, I won’t even be able to begin reinstalling programs and software until then…which puts my down time at somewhat more than three weeks.”

I waited for an answer, then plunged on, “Here’s what I want. I want a new CD drive, I want one that works, and I want it as soon as it is humanly possible to get it. Tomorrow, or the next day at the latest.”

The CSR passed me around to a few different people, until I got to one person who kept me on hold until he had located a different model that would work in my machine, and ordered it. He was courteous and professional, and if he thought I was being a demanding tyrant, he never let on.

I am supposed to receive my new unit by tomorrow or by the next day at the latest.

Now, I thought this was an altogether satisfactory conclusion, but I discussed it with a friend (who works in a call center) after work, and he seems to think I was a bit of an obnoxious jerk.

I was never, ever rude to the CSR’s. I was merely firm. I was annoyed at the delays, and I decided I wasn’t going to stand being run around. Is that really so wrong?

2

No. You were firm but not unreasonable or petty.

3

As long as you’re sure you didn’t yell at the CSR (and I’m not questioning that), I don’t think you were out of line at all. You didn’t ask for anything they couldn’t deliver and you had already been patient the first time.

4

Ogre,
IANACCW (call center worker), but your actions and the justifications for them seem perfectly reasonable to me. If your laptop was used for largely recreational purposes and you were being insistent because you couldn’t play your new video game, then I might attribute some degree of jerkiness to your actions. But for a livelihood-related problem, I’d say you were completely in the clear. It is also nice to know that Dell’s customer service is responsive if you are firm enough.

5

Oh no. I never let the least bit of anger creep into my voice. About the strongest thing I said the entire time was, “This is unacceptable.”

6

I read this much then backed up to look at the poster’s name: Ogre. Sorry, but that gave me a hardy laugh.

I applaud you. It sounds as though you’ll get what you rightfully deserve. And you did it without being rude or obnoxious. You were firm. You’re a business in need. Time is money.

7

:eek: God, I hope not!

8

(Provided your story is accurate, of course):

  1. I cannot see where you were in any way rude;

  2. I think you showed admirable restraint under the circumstances;

  3. I consider it despicable to take out one’s anger at corporate incompetence on individual underpaid representatives (which you do not seem to have done);

and

  1. people who choose to work for crooks such as Dell get what they deserve.
9

That’s a pretty harsh statement from someone I’ve come to associate with the voice of reason. I know there’s a backstory here. Care to share?

10

To put it bluntly, I don’t think it can ever be considered rude to scream loudly with profanities applied for emphasis when talking with Dell support people. There’s very few groups of people I despise more than the Dell technical support group. Incompetant, worthless, and non-directed. They suck, suck suck.

My company currently has hundreds of Dells. Which means we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with them. You’d think we could get reasonable support. I pity any individual who has to deal with them.

Good luck with their latest promise of delivering your part.

11

Sure. Deb had a Dell. The power unit died with six weeks to go on the warranty. Dell makes the connections on their power units proprietary, so that only Dell power units can be used on their machines (and they regularly change their own connections so that they are not interchangeable among Dell units).

We were told that the power unit was no longer built, that there was no Dell unit that could be substituted for it, and that it was not their practice to give out the names of third party businesses who might manufacture or refurbish Dell-compatible equipment–but that they could sell us a really hot new Dell for $600 to replace our $40 power unit (that was still under warranty).

The service rep was quite polite and acknowledged the unfairness of the situation, but insisted that their new spiffy machine was just what Dell needed to sell–uh–we needed to buy, to make the Christmas season complete.

Under rather intensive questioning of the rep (followed by several explorations of the experiences of other folks who had bought Dell), it became pretty clear that Dell was deliberately engaged in this practice (unlike HP, who simply couldn’t keep their mind on PC production in the late 80s and early 90s), and that the service people were all well aware of the policy and the history.

12

Interesting, tomndebb.

I purchased a Dell in 1998 (which has since been stripped for parts, and that computer stripped for parts, and so on) and never had a problem with a proprietary part other than a floppy drive integrated into the front bezel, but it doesn’t surprise me, for apparently this practice has become somewhat standard.

Some years ago, I worked for a company that provided online sales for Fujitsu among other clients, and at that time, I was in the call center, handling calls from customers who did not want to order online. One thing I quickly noticed is that the laptop batteries available for sale were only for the newest model, and our largest source of calls was from people who had laptops a year old or older who wanted a new battery.

The best we could say is “Try a third-party marketplace and buy them used,” and suggest that they write a firmly-worded letter of complaint to the corporate offices.

13

No, you were fine.

You didn’t swear, you didn’t scream, you simply pointed out that making you wait until Dec 1 for a new hard drive would cause you great job inconvience, and asked for further assistance.

It’s a shame you had to escalate it, but it looks like you did what you needed to do to continue working.

14

I work customer service in a call center and I think you were perfectly reasonable. If you’re getting jerked around, even unintentionally, it’s important to raise enough of a ruckus to make them pay attention but not so much that you make them not want to help you anymore. I wish all customers handled things that well.

15

Dell had normal parts replacement until they shipped customer service to India. The people in India are nice people, but they don’t understand American English as well as… Americans. Also, the communication between the Indian office, and the American office is more like a nice idea about something or other that someone had an inkling of once, and not an actual practice, so your orders (order concepts) go somewhere far, far, away, but not to an actual shipping center. Once I realized this, I would talk to a tech rep just long enough to find out if they were an idiot (Indian, or American, I don’t actually care) and then hang up and call immediately back until I got someone who wasn’t reading from a script, and saying nice happy things to placate me, while they send my replacement parts to Oz (not Australia, which is a real place, I mean the place with munchkins, and neurotic lions). If you were promised warranty coverage, and they just jerk you around, I figure you can do more than just a bit of bitching. You were not bitching though, you were just demanding what they promised you in the first place.

Go you!

16

Man, I wouldn’t. What you use a warrantied item for is irrelevant to the need for the company to make good on it. If he used his laptop exclusively for downloading Brazilian wax fetish photos then by God Dell has an obligation to act quickly and decisively to get him the parts and service he needs to get back to it as quickly as possible.

Something similar happened to me recently, for a lot less money. I ordered two videos from a company and one was out of print. They did not refund the money; they credited my account and they credited too little. It took four months to get a stinking $5 credit, and the CSRs to a one all had attitude about it. They would tell me that the credit check would be processed in 2-3 weeks. I would say “that’s not acceptable” and every man jack of them answered that with a snippy “well, what do you expect us to do?” Find another sucker to do business with you for one thing, since I won’t be any longer.

And no, Ogre, you were not based on the information presented a jerk in the slightest, and I speak as someone who answered phones for a living for more years than I care to remember. I wish more screwed-over customers had been like you.

17

???

I may have to do some <Ahem> research into this topic…

:eek:

Nevermind. I can skip that one.

18

So, from what you’ve said, did Dell just simply refuse to honor the warranty?

19

If the product is under warranty, what difference does it make why one wants it fixed? They have an obligation to repair it in a timely fashion, IMHO

20

I would also like to point something out, as a person who’s job it is to price maintenance and warranty for PC’s. You are paying for this coverage. It’s not a gift from the manufacturer. They fully incorporate the costs of providing 30 days, 90 days, 1yr, 3yr, on-site, mail in, whatever coverage they’re offering, into the sale price of the box, and mark that cost up for profit.

The specific level of service provided is carefully chosen to balance cost with the greater value of a longer/higher service level warranty. They offer a 3yr warranty to show good value and customer service, making their product more desireable. As far as I’m concerned, failure to perform on warranty is just as bad as failure to perform on a standalone maintenance contract, i.e. completely unacceptable. Tomndebb’s case seems especially bad, if that happened to me, I think my head would explode.