Warning: Alienware US Support is not Alienware Europe support

Hey.

just wanting to warn folks that the tech support described on these forums is usually the US tech support. It seems that Dell Europe has a lot less ca[abilites than the US counterpart.

As an example:

I Had to jump through hoops and have 4 talks with tech support supervisors to resolve my throttling issue (nvdia 260m). The only solution is a full refund (after a lot of talking) and n other option besides staying with the 269m is possible. It was impossible for them to switch to an ATI card for me, or offer me a replacement machine, which seems to be the case for US customers.

Just a warning for poeple who consider buying alienware in Europe.

 

Personally I think a full refund is the better option. You get to purchase a new system of your choosing and reconfigure it how you like. It may be difficult to arrive at that point but it's still a nice option they offered you. I have seen complaints that European support falls short compared to the US, hopefully Dell does something about it.

 

And even further below that is Dell Australia support.

We dont even have a regional support call center. We have regional sales centers with english as first or second language people who are quite understandable and help you make the sale (abour 30% of the time I get an english native speaker in sales, the rest of the time its an immigrant who has come to australia and has a fairly decent grasp of english).

The tech support is india or somesuch all the way. They work off their sheet, and wont work with you to solve problems.
They do their best to avoid trying to think about your issue, and do their utmost to prevent you from speaking to someone who actually does tech support.

And refunds? hah!

Australia has a long way to go when it comes to after sales support and service.

Businesses just dont care, and the government bodies that are supposed to regulate them just cant be bothered - facebook is a much better use of their time.

-Ash

 

Im not really complaining about the full refund, but it was really hard to actually get it. At one time, I was told (even by the supervisor) that my system is in full working order and I have to call Software support to sort it out as its a software issue (and software support is not free).

They seemed to be also in no position to offer any kind of upgrades or replacement for different sorts of hardware.

The problem is that reading the forums, you get a different impression of Dell customer support than it really is for Europe. I just wanted to make sure people, who do enough research will know that the support to expect from Europe is different than the one from the US

 

True enough, maybe some of the Dell reps on these forums could answer why there is a disparity in service between the US and other territories.

 

Probably because it seems like the US reps are actually US based. While for everywhere else we end up talking to some outsourced guy in india. I'm not saying they aren't helpful and competent and everything, because they are ok, but I get the impression they are told very specifically what they can and cannot do and that is the end of it. They are probably a lot further removed from Dell/Alienware, so the rep can't just go to his manager and get permission for something because that guy is still miles further removed than a US manager and thus cannot authorize anything non-standard.

The american guys probably are actually techs also, vs people employed just to be call centre employees with a list of boxes to check. And generally it's easier to understand and empathise with someone who is a native speaker of your language + has similar socialisation and all that so there is more room to get a personal connection and get something which isn't technically standard service.

I'm really not a fan of the foreign call centre at all. I don't really care if the people they employ are Indian or French, it still isn't the same as talking to someone who lives in the UK, though by the same token it is far more important to talk to someone who is more than just a call centre box checker because talking to an English guy who can't do anything for me is only a tiny fraction better than talking to an Indian who can't do anything for me and I'd certainly rather talk to an Indian who can help than an English guy who can't do jack for me.

Bottom line though nothing will probably change. Outsourcing your call centres is a quick way for these companies to save a load of cash and it's been my overriding experience that almost all American companies I've interacted with don't give a damn for their European customers in any case.

 

We do not have US tech support, not unless you buy the absolute top of the line warranty option with the system. Whenever I call in for support, I'm routed to Panama. Their techs speak pretty good English and are good about expediting parts to you but they are generally as useless as the Indians if not worse in diagnosing the actual problem. In fact, I've found Indian customer service easier to deal with because I can usually push them into letting me speak to their supervisor and getting what I want.

 

I really do not care about the accent these guys have as long as you can actually communicate quite well. Most of the techs I have spoken too seem to be nice and actually trying to help (e.g. kept going to their supervisor, etc...). The problem is simply that they are not allowed to do anything but replace a broken part for exactly the same model. There is nothing more they are allowed to do and there is no one in the whole call centre who can bend the rules. At the very last resort, they can give you a full refund.

So in the Europe case you will never get free upgrades or anything in the likes. It's a shame that we have to pay more, but in fact receive less. I consider a product to be the sum of the hardware + service. That is also part of the reason I would never buy clevo's even though they may have better hardware and a better price, but lack in service (e.g. I would never want to sent in my laptop for repairs and then wait 2-3 weeks for it to come back)

 

i think this thread is a perfect method of keeping expectations under control.(everyone outside the US)

i have never had any intentions of getting the same kind of tech support as the US, or even of ever using it. but after reading this, i have a much better understanding.
thanks


Understood!

 

^^ same experience
i don't care about the accent, but the lack of general communication and understanding makes me mad. at least work with me for crying out loud. i couldn't even get them to SELL me a 5850 over the phone because the product is no longer supported. this is with the Dell part numbers btw so they knew exactly which part i was talking about.

in the end i snapped and bought the clevo 5870. glad i didn't pay extra for warrenty which does not exist.

although when my 260m did burn out (fan fail during late night gaming) they did have a tech call me the next morning (and arrange a time that same day) swap out the ram, motherboard, graphics card and heatsinks without any fuss whatsoever... so it's not all bad! (this was prior to me installing the 920xm and 5870m... even prior to me opening the laptop).

As i said before, i don't mind the accents either as long as it doesn't interfere with communications so much. having someone on the otherside not know the difference between a desktop and laptop card while they're trying to give you tech advice is really really depressing.

 

Agree. Dell needs to make its sales and service globally consistent in addition to revising their warranty process to stop people abusing it with the expectation of receiving 'freebies' and upgrades all the time.

 

Oh, we have no qualms with people receiving freebies and upgrades. If a user experiences discomfort or time where they are unable to work due to a machine not working, the least dell can do is some kind of compensation that would only cost them (literally) a few dollars or cents.

Its the lack of good support that is the issue - though I must admit my current experience with my graphics cards seems to be going well - I only have to wait six days for my 'next day' service instead of the usual 14 in australia.

They are improving!

-Ash

 

Exactly, I never asked for an upgrade. I asked them to replace the 260m with a 5850 (which performance wise is an upgrade) but to them it could even be considered a downgrade (as the 5850 is actually cheaper than the 260m). This is being done in the US to fix the gpu throttling, so I dont see a reason why we in Europe have to be the suckers. I would expect Dell to have uniform service around the globe.

 

Yeah I don't really care if I'm talking to someone on that little known planetoid Cruithne, with an accent so random they could only be an alien. What I really care about is that they should actually be able to do something about my problem and be more than a call centre drone. I just feel that if I'm talking to someone British then I have more chance of convincing them to step outside of the runes/the call centre script, or possibly that they might actually be given the power to authorise such helpful stuff / be employed directly by dell and so have someone they can contact who can help at least. Most likely these call centre people all work for some parent company that's contracted by dell and given a script and that's that, so there's totally no chance.