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  • #2154534

    Dealing with Customer Dis-service

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    by zpunky ·

    One of our accounting staff, Cindy, had to contact Dell Financial Services (DFS) because they sent us an invoice with 4 months of lease charges due on a leased server I?d returned last April. They were claiming we hadn?t returned the server; this in light of the invoice they?d sent in July charging us for a hard drive they said was not with that server when they received it. Cindy kept asking, ?So was there no hard drive or did you not receive the server?? The ?receivables rep? kept saying she didn?t have this information.

    The rep did keep demanding a proof of delivery. Our shipper has sent us one that I will make available to Cindy. As the contact for all communications IT, I never received word from Dell that they did or did not receive the server, nor did I receive any word about a missing drive. We simply got invoices months later.

    What was most astonishing was the more Cindy pressed for information and resolution, the more the Dell rep refused to provide information saying, ?I?m just Account Receivable, you have to talk to Customer Service.? Getting no where fast, Cindy asked for the Customer Service number. Cindy hung up and immediately called Customer Service (now here?s the kicker), Cindy recognized the voice of the Customer Service rep, who asked for our account number. When Cindy gave it to her, the rep paused, stuttered and said, ?Oh, I just spoke with you. After you hung up I talked to my supervisor and we found that you are supposed to get credit for the missing hard drive.?

    First, there was not enough time for the rep to check on anything between phone calls, and then there was the rep?s prior claim that she was only Accounts Receivable.

    Cindy got through the issue of the lease billings for the returned server and before hanging up asked for a confirmation number. The rep responded, ?We don?t provide confirmation numbers for these kinds of transaction.?

    I cannot see the logic in treating a customer this way. We’re not a big company, but we spent about $100,000 on our leases over the past three years. Do they really think we’ll do that again after treating us this way?

    Dealing with DFS over the past 10 months is probably the most frustrating customer service experience I?ve had in my 15 years of working in IT. Is this just my experience with DFS, or is this SOP dealing with these large computer manufacturers?

    Besides walking with your wallet, how do you handle this kind of behavior from your vendor? What is the consensus out there?

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    • #2792732

      Sadly, Dell’s CS used to be famous, now it’s imfamous.

      by locrian_lyric ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      Walking with the wallet is always a good option, but raising all kinds of Caine is even better.

      When you have a CS dept like that, the folks are pushed to give you the brush off.

      This trick requires an initial investment of time, but gets VERY QUICK RESULTS after that.

      Get someone to call them on a daily basis, send letters to higher ups, including the board. make a website, detail your adventures, and include links to the site on all your correspondence.

      The point is to make it MORE COSTLY for them to ignore you than to support you.

    • #2792718

      Dell has gone down hill

      by jmgarvin ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      They’ve have issues for a few years now. The worst part is they try their hardest to just get rid of you.

      I’ve been transferred to nowhere, hung up on, placed on hold for over 2 hours, all the trick to just remove the customers will to fight. However, when I have nothing better to do, I’ll spend my time getting what I need.

      Dell has killed all good will towards them…I’ve noticed a lot of companies migrating to IBM, HP, and Toshiba, rather than deal with Dell’s worthless CSRs.

    • #2792703

      Consider a VAR or outsourced service/support

      by nicknielsen ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      The business models for the VAR and the support provider both rely on customer service for their success. To achieve success, their customer service reputations must be exemplary.

      There are additional costs for taking this route, but those costs can be offset in other areas. With a VAR, the initial cost for the PCs may be higher because of the third party. With outsourced support, you pay directly for the PCs, with the service provider doing the installation. If possible, choose a VAR or support provider who is a warranty provider for your PCs/servers of choice. The offsets are usually in the speed of response and equipment repair/replacement.

      Caveat: I have worked for VARs in the past and am currently employed with a support service provider.

    • #2792692

      Dell CS does suck

      by wanttocancel ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      I had to call them on the behalf of a client whose computer I was repairing. It wouldn’t boot and the self-check that Dell implemented within the hardware returned a code which research on their website showed was defective hard drive (which I suspected). Well, the computer was still under warranty and I called, got one rep that agreed with me about the failing hard drive and said they could send a replacement part. I spoke to the customer and asked if that’s the way he/she wanted to go. He/she agreed and I called Dell CS back. After giving the second rep my case number the CS agent wanted to argue with me about the cause of the system not booting even though the first rep said it was probably a defective hard drive. I had to basically be mean to the CS to push him into sending me the hard drive, something I didn’t want to do. They finally sent it but I shouldn’t have fought that hard.

    • #2791696

      Different Dell Support Experience

      by jon_saxon ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      I have had a very different experience with Dell Enterprise Gold support. I am VERY satisfied with Dell Enterprise Gold support. They offer service nearly at the same level as I used to get from IBM and HP mid-range support (for which we paid a lot more money).

      But, if you are talking about Dell support for home or small business, I have found that to be every bit a problem as you are describing but HP and IBM/Lenovo home/small business support is even worse than Dell.

      From my persective, Dell and HP and IBM/Lenovo are providing practically NO support for the home market. Essentially, they are “offering” support services that they have no intention of fullfilling.

      I have had to call and argue with reps for hours to get parts and information (often totally wrong). To counter this problem I usually initiate at least one call and two on-line chats hoping I will get one helpful rep. More often than not I just hang up after getting the run-around from two or three people and try to resolve the problem on my own.

      Recently, I had an experience with an HP rep that convinced me to never by an HP computer again. After installing some Vista upgrades the keyboard and mouse on an HP laptop stopped working. I started an on-line chat (from another PC) and the customer rep instantly told me it was a known hardware bug and that I would have to mail the system in for repair.

      They were so obviously wrong that I kept pressing. The rep continued to offer the same response and said there was no information available that she could send me. After pressing for a bit longer she eventually said I could try removing any failed devices in device manager and rebooting and that might fix the problem. Of course, that fixed the problem. But if I hadn’t pressed I would have shipped the PC back to HP support for several weeks for absolutely no reason. This would have crippled this small company as they don’t have a spare computer.

      Dell, IBM, Lenovo and HP are making so little off the home systems that they obviously can’t afford to provide support to home and small business users. But, they can’t admit that or it would send customers fleeing to other vendors.

      • #2791682

        Enterprise Gold Support? Do you pay more?

        by tink! ·

        In reply to Different Dell Support Experience

        That sounds like something you’d pay extra for. Most companies have different levels of service plans you can purchase. I believe that most of the negative experiences are probably from the average consumer who doesn’t pay for extra service/support. But that’s just my opinion based on what I’ve heard. Could be some of those on the higher plans have bad experiences too.

        • #2791643

          We Do Have Gold Support

          by zpunky ·

          In reply to Enterprise Gold Support? Do you pay more?

          I just posted to the original response. That’s why I’m so shocked, we do have Gold support and it did cost a lot more, but apparently, this doesn’t matter to Dell Financial Services. They still treat me like CRAP. I’ve had to use Gold Support frequently (not a good thing) but they are friendly and responsive at least. It’s trying to return the leased systems and get new ones that they’ve made impossible.

      • #2791671

        I agree on the lack of service on the home/sb front

        by wanttocancel ·

        In reply to Different Dell Support Experience

        I guess it comes down to price. How can Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. afford to build and sell desktops and laptops under $600? Offer little to no customer service.

        • #2791639

          Not cheap systems

          by zpunky ·

          In reply to I agree on the lack of service on the home/sb front

          Our systems, with our bulk purchase and business discount were about $1,200 a piece (36 systems)including the Gold Support we purchased. I’ve responded to a few of the previous responses already, so more details there. But basically, this was nto a small or cheap transaction with Dell, and it was their Financial Services arm, at a time when we are poised to spend $55K on new systems that this happened.

        • #2791631

          That IS cheap

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Not cheap systems

          Actually 1200 a piece is pretty cheap for a business desktop. For a consumer product it is not, but for properly configured and tested business systems, that’s a good price.

          for example, a company IO was with wanted new workstations. At the time we had a good running deal with a Compaq dealer in Toronto, free freight to Vancouver and business class machines. NOT Presarios and other retail crap that is passed off as a workstation.

          The Compaw Deskpro EN (at that time) was a hard core business machine, they cost nearly $1500.00 EA, with CDROM optional, integrated basic chipsets for audio and video etc. Not great SPEC hardware for retail sales. But they were well tested and custom BIOS was written to ensure it all worked efficiently with major business apps, had hardware standardization, ensuring the same hardware is available for 5 years (which matched the onsite warranty terms) etc.

          I COULD have bought Dell’s for less. BUT, weak warranty, weak customer service and weak hardware, in an untested system with no standardization. It just wasn’t worth saving the money on.

          ‘You get what you pay for’. There’s a reason that saying has rung true for so many years now.

      • #2791648

        Not so much Dell as Dell Financail Services

        by zpunky ·

        In reply to Different Dell Support Experience

        All of our systems have Gold support and three year warranties, thankfully. In the past 8 months I’ve had 2-3 systems a month go down with bad memory. The Gold Support is helpful, if not slow; it take about 2 hours of my time to perform all the tests on the memory before they will agree to ship out refurb’d replacement modules. Still, I can live with that and knowing we’ll be up and running the next day.

        I guess that’s why I’m so shocked at the way I am treated by Dell Financial Services (DFS). All of these systems are on leases, our model was to lease and return on perpetual 3-year cycles. That’s money in perpetuity, monthly lease payments with interest, that DFS has lost Dell. This year I have over $55,000 to spend on new, leased systems (that’s face value cost, not lease cost) but with the rude, deceptive, aggressive, uncooperative, disorganized, condescending and patronizing individuals I’ve had to deal with at DFS, Dell will see none of that money; I’m going with Polywell, 10 miles away.

        This decision is based solely on dealing with Dell Financial Services, not the significant system failure issues, or Gold Support (which is actually friendly), but the Financial Services people. Their bungling causes me at the very least 5 hours per lease, and we have 10 leases for all of our system; we purchased in staggered groups. I cannot justify the time they waste.

        • #2791633

          Financial PR is lacking all around

          by tink! ·

          In reply to Not so much Dell as Dell Financail Services

          I’ve seen/heard of that all over. Especially when it’s Accounts Receivable. But I think part of that can be accountable to the customers that fight against paying and have no justifiable cause for it. So many businesses and customers fight to save every possible penny and often that means finding frivolous issues to dispute. This, unfortunately, makes the A/R departments wary and unwilling to work with customers in general. Therefore when they encounter a customer such as yourself, who [b]does[/b] have a legitimate issue, they are not very receptive.

          Again, it’s another case of the majority being illegitimate and making it harder for the minority that is legit.

      • #2791545

        Mixed experience with Dell support

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to Different Dell Support Experience

        Normal support is best described as non-existent. Gold support is excellent.

        The first time I called Dell was for a suspected power supply issue (spontaneous reboots). The CS rep apparently misheard the service tag or service code and I got normal [lack of] support. I was told that they couldn’t troubleshoot the system until it had the standard Dell image on it; the only reason I was able to get off the phone was by agreeing to accept a Dell recovery CD!

        The following week, I called back. During the initial conversation, the CS rep asked me to verify the service tag. I was immediately routed to Gold Support. After listening to me describe the symptoms, they shipped a power supply within 15 minutes.

        (Aside: Over the next week, Dell dispatched a tech to replace almost every component inside and after it was all done, the PC was still spontaneously rebooting. Dell Gold had no qualms about shipping a replacement PC when the request was made.)

      • #2786322

        10 service calls in 10 weeks on brand new Dell 1525

        by bruce.casner ·

        In reply to Different Dell Support Experience

        My wife’s old Dell Inspiron 1100 died after 4 years of hard use. So we bought a new Dell Inspiron 1525. I would suggest that no one else repeat this experience. We have had 10 service calls in the first 10 weeks of ownership. Finally my wife got so mad that she spoke very sharply to the Dell CS rep and asked for a new one, as this is obviously a lemon. They refused, but did finally send out a service person. I should mention that we bought the 24/7 next day on site support package, thinking it would result in good support. No such luck, and I doubt I will ever buy another Dell.

        Our company is thinking of switching to Dell, and I have spent considerable time talking to the decision makers to ask them not to do this because of the awful support.

    • #2791676

      I’ve had better luck with Dell CS

      by tink! ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      All my experiences with Dell CS have been satisfactory.

      – We received 4 free printers with our order of new PCs. All had a 1 year warranty. Within less than a year they started jamming around the fuser unit one by one. I just called up Dell and they’d have me send in the faulty one and sent us a replacement. It was all very quick and painless. Did it 3 times. [b] Note: [/b]I don’t think the problem was necessarily bad design on Dell’s part, I do a very specialized printing and alot of it. I think I just wore the poor things down. I have since switched to another printer for that and only use the Dell for normal documents. It – meaning the final original one – has now lasted for over 2 years. 🙂 )

      – One of the bosses’ wife had a Dell laptop that was still under warranty. The monitor was acting up and in attempting to fix it, I discovered the Inspiron laptop thought it was a Latitude. (LOL. Identity crisis.) Called up Dell and they sent a tech in the next day. He fixed the monitor and replaced the motherboard all that day.

      We never purchased any extra service plan. The above was done simply under the given warranties.

    • #2791634

      That’s life

      by oz_media ·

      In reply to Dealing with Customer Dis-service

      I’ve seen it from many angles, including teh service providers side and there’s always something that is out of teh reps hands and they are expected to ‘cover’ for it and terminate the call however thay can.

      I am not condonig it, but this IS business and it has become worse as dollars take over for any geniune concern about happy customers.

      I had a similar issue with IBM, they sent me a enw HD for a notebook (they would have come and installed it but it would have been two days later and I wanted the HD right away). They rushed one to me the same day, I installed it and sent the old one back, in the box provided with the prepaid UPS postage.

      A few months later they called looking for it. I had moved and no longer had the shippin ginfo handy, but as they had shipped it to me, they had a copy of it anyway. I explaine dit was already sent back, the rep apologised for the mistake and hung up.

      About two months later I got another call asking, “did you manage to find the HD yet?”
      I explained it had been shipped back already, the rep asked when, I told hiom several months ago. He again apologized for the call, explained that it wa sprobably a reciving issue and said he’d wipe the account clean so I didn’t get called on it again. I never did.

      After unpackign more boxes and finally getting settled in my new place, I ran across the old HD boxed and ready for delivery but I had somehow missed actually shipping it back. ooops, my bad.

      After some thought, I dcided IBM had been good to me so I phoned, explained the problem and said I would sent it straight back, with my most humble apologies, of course.

      But they said it had been written off, these things happen and not to worry about it. “Is there anythign else I can do for you today Mr.xxxxxxxxx? No? Thank you for calling IBM.”

      I have often raved about what great service they provide (when dealing with business class hardware). It is times like that that I am proven correct for my wierd ways. Then again, you always get what you pay for.

      Dell= low end, no standardization, poor customer service, lower price. Is it worth it? Not in my experience.

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