Soliciting Feeback, re: Alienware Sales on NBR

Hi, guys and gals.

So, we started an Alienware sales assistance thread, and in it at one point I explained this was a pilot program that we will look to learn from and hopefully expand to other regions outside the US and Canada.

In the spirit of learning, we would like to have a conference call with anyone willing to join. On the call, we'd like to learn how we're doing on forum sales, what we can do better, and/or anything we have not yet thought of that would add value to our presence here. The Dell/Alienware folks on the call will be from the sales organization, so the topics will naturally be those appropriate to those teams. Tech support and customer care would be a different topic for another day.

I have run a couple of these calls with our lead laptop graphics engineer, Louis, in the past, and the response was positive. We also were able to learn a lot about you, our customers. It was a 2 way street, and the customers on the call learned a thing or two about us- at least the engineering and design architecture side of us.

Anyone wishing to join the call, please say so in the comments. I will reach out via PM and set you up with the dial in details. Please try to avoid PM'ing me for the details. I cannot get to all my PM's, so I'll have to manage as best I can by pushing the details out this way. We are tentatively targeting late next week or early the following week. I'll shore up the details and update the OP as we move along.

Thanks!

 

This is awesome. When a company communicates with its customers it makes a world of difference.

So many people buy something and that is the end of the contact or the relationship, but when you invest a bigger sum into a premium item, knowing the company not only stands behind it, but is open to communicate it makes the investment feel worthwhile.

Thank you for your presence on these boards.

 

thanks bill, would absolutely appreciate the opportunity to join in on the call so long as the schedule permits!~

 

Looking forward to talking to you guys

 

That's great, conference calls is a good way of sharing ideas and getting feedback. I'd be interested.

 

count me in once again..

 

Thank you, guys! Count me in.

 

thanks Bill. If i can id love the opportunity to join. I did not get a chance to join the last few calls and would love to if my schedule allows me to join. Thanks again Bill.

 

I'd also like the opportunity to be a part of a conference call.

 

Count me in too....even if it's just from a listening perspective, I'd be interested to hear about how things have gone with the US sales thread.

@Bill - I take it discussion of setting up this kind of thread outside the US & Canada is still under review and as such, won't be on the table for discussion on this particular call, right? - obviously I can't comment or provide feedback about the US/Canana thread so my "two pennies" may well be irrelevant at this point in time.....

 

Thought about it and here are a few things I think would help AW sales.

- Selling SSDs/msatas from multiple companies in all AW machines. If this can't happen universally maybe it could be something unique to NBR orders from the sales assistance thread.

- Know what brand RAM we're buying as well as being able to configure our machines with different brands RAM, but in the past you've already explained why this wouldn't work (at least for the RAM situation). Again, If this can't happen universally maybe it could be something unique to NBR orders from the sales assistance thread.

- Pricing on RAM and SSDs also need to be tweaked.
It saves you $100 to buy and install the $300 Samsung 830 SSD yourself that Dell charges $400 for. Same situation in the RAM boat, charged $75 to upgrade from 6gb to 8gb of RAM when you can buy 8gb of high performance RAM you see in sigs around here is just about $70-$80.

I don't think Dell pays what consumers do since they order thousands of the thing at a time and they should use this to their advantage to make their products slightly more affordable versus the competition. In the current situation the general consensus is don't even bother building your laptop these components but upgrade aftermarket because of the high markups. I guess the only way you can even approach this is to look at sales data and see how many people order their computers with these components stock versus those who do not and make your decision based on that.

Basically, I don't ever want to order an AW and have to open up my computer the exact moment I get it to swap out parts. All of the above is towards that goal and I'm sure many others feel that they should be able to unleash the beast without poking under the hood.

P.S. - Would also be nice if the 750gb seagate momentus xt popped up in the configurator for the M17x

 

I would like to join if my schedule allows as well.
This is a great idea, and I'm very interested.

 

You! You owe us an NDA visit to the lab, sir. I'm waiting...

EMEA sales is completely on topic. One of the reasons for the call is for you and the UK crew to weigh in about it.

To all,
Keep posting your willingness to join, and I will send out a mass PM next week with my conference bridge dial in details to everyone who's stated they want to join. I'll update the OP with time and date next week as well.

 

Great stuff Bill - deffo count me in, look forward to talking with you guys!

 

I would love to participate. I am traveling on business, so timing will determine my ability to attend. I will make every effort to attend.

 

Id love to join. My schedule will dictate if I can or not but would love to.

 

Update:

We have settled on our agenda and Dell attendee list for the call. In attendance will be approximately a dozen Dell employees ranging from senior sales leadership to senior sales managers on down to some of the front line reps who are engaging with customers here on NBR. Our loose agenda includes topics relevant to sales participation on the forums and some general sales matters. If you want to continue to post the questions you anticipate asking here on the thread, that would be great. It gives us a bit of a running start.

The time and date are set for Tuesday, June 26, 11 AM - 12 PM, CST US. I will PM everyone who has posted a desire to attend with subject line "Dell Sales Conference Call" and my email address in the message. Just email me a message with the same subject line, and I'll forward the Outlook calendar invite with the dial in details to everyone wishing to attend.

Edit:
I will send out the PM's Thursday afternoon. That will give me all day Friday and Monday to get the invites out.

 

Thought about it some more and have some additional stuff to say.

OP of the sales assistance thread needs to be slightly tweaked again to reflect that Rev is no longer out on vacation.

I would consider changing the quote request system in a few ways. The most important thing I believe needs to be done by far is to take quotes via email as it worked previously, so people that stumble across the forum thread don’t have to wander around and post 5 things before they can contact Rachid or Rev speeding up the process. I would also (if whatever data you’ve collected warrants it) consider adding in a third rep that works on days Rachid/Rev are off so they don’t come back to a massively stuffed inbox of quote requests. This would probably only work if there was an email system set up that all of the reps working in sales assistance could access. Again referencing the old thread we should include a time of day to contact those planning to order machines.

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Feel like I'm talking to myself here. Where's the insight from the rest of you, the coordination, effort in compiling an agenda to give Dell beforehand? I see lots of kudos to Dell but no one actually offering what Dell-Bill is asking for, feedback.

 

Done and hear here! Speak up, peoples.

 

Yes, that's right. Ill try to make it out there at the end of the next month or the end of august.

 

are you trying to acquire power users' feedback on how to improve the laptop offerings via future model cycles or just wanting our opinions on alienware's current forum and price models?

if the former (and specifically speaking for the m18x since i owned one since last summer) i can definately offer suggestions on what alterations and enhancements to the chasis and software that would dramatically boost customer perception and, of course, sales.

i always hated sitting in the round table while the boss enforces a simplified "shoot for the moon" approach without providing or asking for exact technical specifications on how to get there. in the end the team doesn't even enter the shuttle because one was never built, lol.

 

If topics were covered in past just disregard. Okay I would like to see in the sales side of things availabiluty of such aftermarket add-ons but in a official Dell/Alienware supported sense of the word. Such as a somewhat official ODD hd drive bay that's easy drop in upgrade and a official external ODD case kit available especially through this line of support you are trying to add to the forum. Additional knowledge and availability of old gen upgrades such as XM heatsink in Ivy Bridge M18xR2 is a drop in capable upgrade for Sandy Bridge M18xR1. As the later is one example of an upgrade already available for purchase... I just wish to see more like that at a larger scale covering as many ranges of models and revisions back that could benefit.

Availability of group discounts would be nice and also availability of perhaps the more you purchase/upgrade maybe a slight bulk order discount... nothing big like some suggested but 5-10% off seems fair depending on how much one actually ended up purchasing.

More incentive to buy full warranty coverage and warranty extensions.

I'd like to see more spread of the availability of direct assistance in the forum. Also I would like to see once things settle atleast some way of gateway of support for the large community out there that happens to not be an NBR member like a outreach email system. You have @Dellcares but it's not the same exactly as what you are setting up here. So the chance for a way to contact your team for persons who do not or will not in the future be a member of this forum IE your assistance should hopefully not be limited in the future to absolutley only NBR members. But it is still important that as much as possible is set up here to lay the ground work and give a test run of such a program as mentioned.

I would like to personally help set up a gateway as mentioned at a forum I am moderator at... Tech Inferno. There are members who get support help from each other and would benefit from a real official support greatly. In this particular request I do not want to detract from the initiative set up, but rather extend the great help and support you guys are already trying to create. Please admins take notice I am not advertising the forum just want to persue the quest for knowledge and further more support. I apologize if this is not allowed on NBR, if so PM me and I'll edit my post for you without hesitation.

Thank you Dell Bill for everything. I had put good thought into my suggestions and hope the push towards open discussion of such topics is accepted and what you were looking for above.


Thank you.

Regards,
Marc W
ResidualVoltage
MW86

 

Good ol Dell's really hitting on NBR...and hard.
I also noticed NBR links are now provided by Dell support staff in their emails.
Good job.

I will not be able to join the call but I hope this topic comes up: APAC countries and M18x!
We're a step behind having choices limited to the 14, 15 and 17.

 

I've been looking over this thread the last couple of days and I had a few thoughts.

Oh and count me in for the conference call. I'm definitely interested and should be available.

I'd like to see more marketing materials from you guys here on the boards, assuming that's alright with the admin (and I'd assume it would be). As a really new customer to AW, I found it hard (not impossible, but harder than I'd like) to find recent, updated pictures and video of the laptops I was interested in before purchasing. This isn't just on NBR, mind you, but across the web. I'm the type that likes to over-indulge myself on Youtube videos and oogle over pictures of whatever I'm about to buy. It helps reinforce my decision to make a purchase.

I saw alienwareservices on YT added a few videos yesterday of M17x and M18x teardowns, which was great. But wouldn't it be cool to see some phone snapshots of NBR AW/Dell reps on the job or with their favorite hardware? Or maybe sometime down the line AW could give the OK on videos of the computers being built during the manufacturing process.

Who redesigns the models from revision to revision? I have no idea, but I'd like to.

Make yourselves more personable. At the beginning of the sales redux thread, Bill, you introduced Rachid and Rev to us. In the process you also gave us a lot of info on Rev, like the fact that he's a musician. Automatically that struck a chord with me since I'm a musician as well. Nothing against Rachid, who I've read has been awesome to people who've gotten in touch with him, but I definitely was more interested in and comfortable with contacting Rev once I learned that about him (and after he came back from E3).

So in that spirit, how about a thread for AW reps (who want to) to share the stuff that they're into. Maybe what got you into working with or for AW/Dell and why you stick with them. Maybe let us know what machines you guys "Game Victorious" with, and what games impress you the most on AW tech.

Just some thoughts at 3 in the morning. Looking forward to the conference call.

 

There will be predominantly sales folks on the call, but some of the marketing and product planning guys might lurk. So they'll hear and take note of any product suggestions.

All that is great feedback. This call will mostly be about sales support, but Mark, who's running the tech support program here for AW tech support, and I have been kicking around the idea of a similar call for tech support.
On the broader coverage from Dell reps piece- careful what you ask for is what I'll say at this point. Often with an increase in quantity comes a decrease in quality. I prefer we take a staggered, staged approach to flipping phone reps into social media reps. The training for social media at Dell is very intense, and I have yet to be convinced you can scale that into the thousands of head in a short time.
Love Tech Inferno, and I wish I had more time to get out there, but since my team doesn't support Alienware marketing, just jumping in here on NBR is about as far as I can convince my manager to let me stretch beyond XPS, Inspiron and Vostro. I'll hit up Jesse and Chris and ask them to spend some time out on TI, though.

I've got a lot going today, and I'd love to get into this a bit more. I'll have to shelve it until the call. But this might help. It just launched today, so there's not any content yet, but Mark will get some up in short order.
I will field the design question, though. We have an industrial design group headed up by Ed Boyd. We invested heavily in ID a couple of years ago, and bringing in Ed to head up the group was a major win for us. You can Google around about Ed and find out more about Dell ID. Sorry for the brevity, but I have to run.

PM's requesting email addresses going out now. I'll send out calendar invites with the dial in information Monday.

 

During the call, is anybody going to talk Europe? There is a wave of US support in here, but Europe is still left behind. Today I sent a PM out an EU quote to Rachid. I hope he will be able to assist me.

 

We're definitely going to talk EU on this call. Please join and add to the EU customer voice.

All PM's have been sent. I'll send more to anyone joining the thread after this point that wants one.

 

I may be interested in joining, I think after my new and hopefully final system ( #7) for a while that I will content. I am still in the process of ordering right now.

I have played the laptop game with Dell for years now.

I remember the pre-merger Alienware Tech Support on here. Oh my how things have changed.

 

I sent out all the invites. Only like a half dozen or so? I just PM'd you for your email address, The_Moo. See you on the call tomorrow.

 

Was a bad week for me

 

@Bill,

Thanks for the dial-in information. I am hoping to be in a position to participate but I may not be able to....just wanted to give you a "heads up" and apologise in advance if I unable to attend. Hopefully, I will be able to catch some (if not all) of the call but wanted you to know in advance. Have also mailed you incase you didnt see this.

Regards
Steve.

 

Well, that was pretty cool. Thanks for all the great input. Tim, Rev, Rachid, Ken and the rest of the gang are compiling notes.

 

Thanks to all who joined the call and also to those who submitted feedback through PM's. This was a great learning experience for us and we appreciate your being a part of it.

Rev.

 

Thanks go out to you guys also for actually caring enough to host this kind of interaction in the first place - it certainly makes me feel more valued as a customer and only strengthens my faith in Dell/AW. Well done!

 

glad to have had the chance (thanks 'debby'!~ ) to join in, much appreciated 'close encounter' everyone!~

 

Yeah, there was just a few of us customer wise, yet it all went just fine. I am looking forward to seeing reps talking Europe full time in here. Dear Dell people, don't forget what steviejones133 mentioned: we Europeans appreciate discounts too, especially if we are recurring customers!

My 'rep power' is just 1, but I just repped my fellow callers. \o/

 

I second that! - the business IS out there for Dell when it comes to Europe and the UK - I was trying to get across the fact that I am referring quite alot of business from NBR to Dell via the thread in my signature....goes to show that if people are hitting me up to help them save some cash on an Alienware, there is a market for it.

I don't know about exact figures but I imagine that from my thread, Dell has had maybe around $100,000+usd from sales leads generated by it.

 

Plus, as I'd say this, what's really important for Dell is to work on 'customer appreciation' talking hotline sales. Recurring customers have every right to expect some 'frequent flier' treatment, especially as we European pay more since prices here are way higher.

As I said, I am about to make my 3rd laptop purchase within 12 months and I have no 'my rep' to whom I could talk about my case. Fortunately, Rachid is helping me through PMs so I hope this will evolve in a way which I will be satisfied with.

 

Was busy being stuck with needles, what was discussed on the call?

 

I was interested but it conflicted with my work schedule. Glad to here things went well and I am curious as well as to what all was discussed.

 

Good news,now we have a point of contact for Germany and Austria. I forwarded your request to them, please excpect a call tomorrow.
let us know how it goes and please feel free to reach out to me if you need anything.

Rachid

 

Rachid - whats the score for the UK? - I'm beginning to lose hope here....especially when UK prices are extremely out of line with the US.

Classic example as now the 680m's are available for the 18x, it seems we are yet again being stung heavily if we want sli. The cost jumps from £430 to £1020 simply by adding a second gpu.

If you look on the US website, the cost of going from single 680m to sli is $550 to $1100. Exactly double. Not in the UK though and I think its daylight robbery to charge this additional amount which is equivalent to £160 and the only difference is a sli ribbon.

End of the day, going from the cost of one gpu to two should NOT be so drastically different. If it were exactly double in the UK, it would be £860 for sli 680m's but its not. Its over a thousand pounds. That difference has nothing to do with the hardware beacuase if £430 gets you one 680m and a heatsink, £860 should get us x2 680m's and x2 heatsinks (same as the US) - the only thing missing is the sli ribbon and I very much doubt that it costs £160, which is what we in the UK are being asked to pay over and above for going sli.

Fed up with crap pricing here....Dell need to pull their fingers out.

EDIT: I should say that the price of ONE 680m in the UK is fairly reasonable at £430, which is the equivalent of around $670usd - I know we have additional charges in the UK which bumps the price up and we will never get the same pricing as the US because of our government....but c'mon.....the SLI price is ridiculous when compared to the cost of going SLI in the States.

 

Roger that. Thanks!

 

Almost there, give me another 24 Hours and I'll get back to you with some good news .
In the meantime, please send me a PM with your customer number, phone or email.

Thanks
Rachid.

 

i am glad the feedback was appreciated. I regretfully was not able to attend the call but look forward to any others that may be arranged in the future I just was unable to make it due to work. Thank you Bill. I appreciate everything you have just mentioned and it would be great to have you guys, if time ever permits you guys to stop in at Tech Inferno. your are exactly right Bill. I was a manager once and I know a good trained employee is a commodity that can't be squandered or spread to thin. With time and careful steps I am sure you guys at Alienware will extend your wings. Thank you for all your hard work. You guys all have done a great job and we notice. Chris and Jesse are great people. Chris is very good on the tech support side of things. Thanks guys for being there. Looking forward to seeing you guys here and perhaps one day also at Tech Inferno

 

RV, I have been checking out Tech Inferno already. If my memory serves me, you are a moderator on there? If so, shoot me a PM. I would like to chat about that.

 

Let me say this in the open: Rachid did an outstading job helping me with my new order. He was polite and swift in his help and showed a lot of patience (since, let's face it, I tend to be a difficult customer). Thanks for that!

This pretty much becomes another example of this project of reaching out to the customers where they hang out can be successful.

 

Just wanna add my feedback from my own recent experience with getting a quote from the sales thread.

Obviously, I am in the UK and really appreciate everyone's help at Dell getting things set up so that we can also try and benefit from this thread. Hat's off to you guys!

Ok, Well I PM'd Rachid with my details and was subsequently contacted by a Dell sales guy Based out of India. Very nice guy, extremely professional and courteous. He was a pleasure to deal with. I had PM'd Rachid with a Dell shopping cart with my specification of choice - M18x R2 with a list price of around £4500.

Got a call within a few hours and went through the configuration with the guy and he indeed gave me a discounted price. That's great, however the initial discounted price was a bit on the "safe side" for my liking....nothing that couldnt be achieved with a bit of hunting for vouchers and a bit of patience. I thanked him for his quotation and because I always like to barter, especially when spending so much, I mentioned to him what I thought would be a fair price - going on discount levels that I have seen offered in the past.

Fair play to the guy, he went off and came back a few minutes later with finance approval to that level of discount. I wont say what it was, but let's just say it was alot more attractive than offer "number 1".....

Because I am not in the position right now to follow up the quote, I havent proceeded with it but it is certainly very good to know that this level of discount CAN be achieved by using this sales thread. I would certainly look into it again when I am in a position to change my system but I will also consult my own Dell rep before hand - only because he's helped me out on a good few occasions with some great deals.

My ONLY criticism of it would be the fact that I felt "haggling" was a bit of a neccessity. I do take on board that it's not like a "closing down sale" where things get "given" away (more is the pity ) but I think that one of the things mentioned on the conference call that WOULD be good to implement would be a set level of discount for NBR members.....either that or a Dell generated e-voucher for additional funds off a traditional quote, exclusively for NBR Members.

I don't know how feasible this would be as I know that different orders have different configurations and therefore will carry varying profit margins for Dell....just something I think would be of benefit because there are people out there that do not like to, or simply cant "haggle" with rep's to get themselves a better deal - this method would alleviate some of that "sales rep fear" if you like, but would also leave those who DO like to "haggle", the option to do so....

All in all, great work Dell. Keep it up!

 

I believe it is only fair to add that there is a tremendous difference of quality of customer service offered by Dell employees in here in this forum and what I got through the phone calls with local Dell call centre for Germany and Austria (and AFAIR for most of Europe; located apparently in Bratislava, Slovakia).

As far as Rachid provided me with high quality service as noted above (which was brilliant indeed), local Dell really didn't. After talking to two different reps I ended up closing my deal with their manager who turned out to be the first person with whom I could actually calmly talk at the same level.

The uncomfortable feeling that if only I ask for a discount (being a recurring customer who's buying 3rd AW laptop within 12 months), I begin being treated like an unwanted customer who's trying to be cheap was prevailing, specially when talking to the first person that contacted me. I got the whole "Oh I am making you a great favour already so stop asking for more, brat!" treatment and finally ended up making an official complaint to that rep's manager.

Apparently the (Slovak) reps I dealt with (AFAIR answering calls from most of Europe) take the word 'discount' for your inability to pay the full price (in other words you being too poor to afford AW - and you get 'appropriate' treatment for that) and not for a gesture of important customer appreciation a recurring customer understandably expects. They want to sell now and sell expensively. It's like nobody at local Dell cared about my future purchases, which was especially surprising as I already spent a lot.

This is exactly what we were talking about during the conference call, especially as I had this experience with people answering the phones at Alienware hotlines too often. They tend to be pushy and clearly unprepared for proper business trade conduct.

Stevie's simple 'haggling' doesn't really make it, I think. I'd rather say 'hardcore heavy haggle at the edge of blackmail' to actually get what should be given for granted by default to a recurring customer.

And what's important, all of this in the face of us, Europeans, paying from 30 to 50% more (in EUR or GBP, respectively) for what US customers pay in the States. This means we pay way more for worse treatment, meaning we get generally much worse deals.

 

I'm willing to provide any feedback you need on my experience here! It's because of my experience with the reps via NBR that I was easily able to make a decision (and eventual purchase) of my Alienware laptop. If it weren't for Rev and Adam, I don't know if I would have made this purchase. Working with Adam in particular was a pleasure and made for a wonderful experience.