Dell Alienware UK Customer Service

I just ordered an Alienware 13 R3 from the UK outlet 3 weeks ago and have only for 4 days but it died during a BIOS update. Technical support (from Germany) kept me on the phone for over 2 hours but they were fantastic and helpful. After determining that the motherboard was toast, my call was handed over to "customer care". The Customer Careless officer has arranged to have it collected tomorrow (need to wait the entire day at home as they cannot give me any notice about time) and a refund will be arranged after it has been collected.

I asked for a replacement but they said they could not do that and I must place a new order. I asked if they could keep the money as credit in my account so I can use to purchase a new one rather that wait the 5 business days after they receive it) for the refund to come through or issue me some kind of voucher. They said neither was possible. I asked if they could reserve me one from the outlet. Again not possible. I asked if they could give me a discount off a new one but they only offered 10% which would be much dearer than my system.

Dell customer is often said to be excellent but I find that reputation questionable.

If anyone has any experience with Dell or Alienware, can you please suggest what might be possible please? After waiting 2 weeks for the laptop to arrive, and spending 3 days setting it up with custom partitioning, new Win10 Pro, MS Office Pro, MS Project Pro, Team Visual Studio Enterprise, Adobe CS, Archlinux, fresh SecureBoot keys, and spending an extra £300 on insurance, case, skin, screen protector etc I am not a happy bunny. The machine arrived with a rickety mouse button and screen brightness nowhere near the advertised 400nits but I overlooked these as I was overjoyed at getting the machine.

Does any have any tips on getting a replacement as finding one in the UK outlet with my spec (7700hq, 1060 OLED etc) or finding a voucher to get one somewhere near the price I paid? I would be most grateful.

 

There was one listed today with those specs. Still there.

Honestly, being the sad and brief owner of two AW coming from the outlet, i'm actually surprised they offered you 10% off for a system from the outlet. I only got offered 15% off but for a new system. Just got the credit for the 2nd one i sent back, also waiting for one that suits me to show up. Actually it's a rather sad listing on Dell UK outlet when you have a look at the one in the USA.

 

Sorry to hear you have been stung twice by Dell Alienware. There was one in the outlet with my minimum specs (at least 512 SSD and preferably 32GB ram) whilst I was speaking to Team Customer Careless but they said they could not reserve it for me. They do come up once in a blue moon but catching the rare ones with decent spec is a casino game. I am guessing the Americans don't have to deal with Indian call centres like we do.

It is heartbreaking to see the USA stores especially with the prices and discounts offered there. What is worse is total inflexibility of Dell. I asked if they could send me an image of the SSD which I had spend around 70 hours preparing and to which I had transferred data, to which the answer was no. Could I keep the SSD and pay full retail price for it? No. Could they transfer the image to another storage device at the factory if I paid in advance? No. The only way is to keep the scrap laptop, paying the full price! £1500 to save my work! I had already ordered a new Samsung SSD but it has not arrived in time for me to copy the original as they are collecting tomorrow.

I have considered buying a Thinkpad P51 instead but unfortunately the screen quality is questionable.

I think I will start a new business manufacturing high performance laptops as Dell has killed Alienware.

 

I think its the country you are in. I often read/hear people complaining about alienware. My guess is that the presence of alienware in the UK is non existent. It is the same here in the Philippines as we do not have a "true" alienware store/distributor and to get a laptop one must go to the grey/black market. Despite this, the warranty/support is present. This is because there are tons of call centers that use the brand dell and that means there are tons of dell/alienware engineers present in our country, Also parts are quickly dispatched so when you call to get something repaired a replacement part will be there in like 2-3 days and on the 4th or 5th day an engineer is dispatched to your area and repairs are quickly done.

I understand the frustration on your end tbh esp on setting up your system! File a complaint if possible! I experienced tons of repairs also like having my speakers busted,screen not properly attached and glue can be seen on the "alienware" name below the display and also I was not happy with ssd temps and they quickly sent me a new samsung 960evo ssd to make me happy! The toshiba brand nvme ssds are crap tbh. Everyone has had their share of bad experiences with dell/aw my friend! The only reason i am using an aw/dell laptop is bec of warranty. If support was so bad id gladly go with another brand like MSI.

 

UK service is inflexible, the US service is full of idiots who have no idea what the hell they are talking about just spouting random scripted lines. USA Dell customer service is irritating as hell. Because they will compromise usually, instead of credit/% off they usually do like a "free part upgrade", Like I would arrange for a MB swap. If possible, never ever EVER send your device back to them. You will end up waiting a minimum 3 weeks, average a month. So honestly in USA onsite ftw then watch the service guy like a hawk. However Dell in USA is usually compliant, they just take an ungodly amount of time. First time I bought a product with them, went through 2 mb swaps, had a dead ssd, but dell fixed the issue and upgraded my processor for free. (Note 1st mb swap I mailed in, waited about 4 and a half freaking weeks) And after that it worked perfectly. You must be patient, and they generally are iffy about crediting accounts and whatnot, however they usually are up for exchanges. Now I have an 17r4 (2nd machine I've owned from them, gave the old one to my brother and it still works great) and now I'm having screen issues, so in short dell has LOTS off issues. It requires patience, luck, and persistence.

 

To be honest, even though the order process is quite bad at dell. The company is wayyyy to big for specialized systems.

You cant expect them to work with your data, those machines are stored in a warehouse with non tech people working there. They need to ship that device to their technicians to transfer your data? that would be nuts for any company to do.

Your expectations are unrealistic.