What happened to AW Customer Service?

Honestly now, im finding dealing with Alienware on par with British Telecoms Customer Service.

I sent my laptop back for a number of reasons:

CPU over heating (1min to downclock ~ this has now been fixed aswell via a bios patch), cracked keys, screen and webcam issues, numerous case issues (some quite worrying) - literally put the build quality for this machine was TERRIBLE.

Its been in there possession for 3 weeks now and i feel i've been completely left out of the loop. They never informed they had even received my laptop. I've had no updates and when i've called them the CS has been terrible.

The first call i made was to a Support agent. After initally speaking with a great support technician (american i beleive) who after troubleshooting the various issues i had instructed me to send my laptop in i was expecting a similar level of expertise/customer support but my idealogical bubble was soon to be popped. The technician sounded utterly unhappy that i had even called and made that fact very obvious. When i asked about the progress of my incident i was told that he didnt have any information and couldnt help me, when i pressed the matter it just exacerbated the situation, the call ended with me feeling extremely unhappy and somewhat angry. I never received a "feedback" email much to my surprise.

Second call was to Customer Service, was informed they needed to contact the technicians via email for an update and i would receive an update from them in the next 24 hours, i got a reply of 'Currently in testing'.

Third call which i made today to Customer Service followed pretty much along the same vein, machine is still set to "Currently in testing" and he will try and get an update in the next 24 hours. When i asked what they were testing my machine for so long amount of time for i got a snappy response detailing that "support doesnt work at weekends so they normally fix the problems by 15 working days, you should get an update after 15 working days." WTF?!

I have this image in my head that my £2200 laptop is currently sitting in a warehouse gathering dust waiting for 'working day 14' when a technician quickly checks the machine for the problems ive stated then actually starts to deal with my problem.

Does AW outsource some of the calls to CS/Support to a third party? As it would seem the quality is very bi-polar, that being either great or down right terrible.

I sincerly hope this is an isolated incident, but with every call to AW the feeling of making a seriously bad choice going Alienware gets stronger and stronger.

Meh.

 

sorry to hear of your experience ayeizajedi, it does put you off doesnt it.
if you need to contact CS again ask to speak to Sean. he was the only cs agent i wanted to talk to in the end as all the others,like your experience just didnt seem bothered.
my turnaround took 8 days and that was for a new motherboard and new chassis. and then they sent it back with someone elses chassis.
if they are now saying 3 weeks then their must be something seriously wrong with it. keep pestering them or send a PM to Alienware.James or Alienware Armando. they will be able to look into what the delay is.
good luck

 

well AW does offer the Roswell division but its for the U.S. The Roswell Division is actually one of the best cs i ever talked to. The UK can call Roswell too but the difference from U.S is that you have to pay for your call.

 

Im wondering if thats who i was put through to initially as the level of CS and support i initially received was top class... it would just seem the rest since has been far from satisfactory.

 

well some cs reps are better than others. i think on your first call you got lucky and got a really good agent. i dont think uk customer service would put your call to a customer service station in the u.s though. the free way to talk to roswell is through email. if you do have any major problems you should really try roswell. they solved every problem i had so far. Also Alienware James and Alienware Armando on the forums are very helpful too. You can give them a pm if you have any problems.

 

ayeizajedi,

Feel free to PM me your account/order info and I can look into the delay.

Thank you,

James

 

I agree with you, Dell stole their customer service and replaced it with theirs. Now dell has good CS and alienware's sucks.

the sales people i found are actually more competent then the tech support.

 

Sorry but I think that's false. Even before Dell owned AW I had to jump through hoops to get anywhere with my M5550 and this was before Dell had control over them.

 

Well im not sure what happened here whether it be Dell or Alienware for that matter.

The experience ive had so far is quite reminiscent to what happened to an ex-company i used to work for, where our sales/1st line support were out-sourced. The staff they had (there was some good guys i must admit) just didnt cut the grade and communication channels between outsourced company and parent company just didnt seem inline, end result was lots of frustration to the customer and bad reputation.

Again not saying this is the case, just saying.

 

Unfortunately your concern about crappy customer service is all too common with Alienware. It's another reason why I will never buy from them again.

 

you made your point quite clearly on that. And my cousin bought from them before, they were fine.

 

i cant believe it, why have you been banned buzzin???

 

Because he was unhappy with the way Alienware treated him... And was trying to make a point. I guess the way he choose to make his point was not liked by some.
I will miss him...

 

awww, that sucks, he was over the edge a bit but still.... he agreed with me, so i liked him.

 

AHAHAHA!!! That was funny...
In any case, he was rightfully upset and mad at Alienware. No one can deny him that. I hope he ressurects again in the forum, in a more "quiet" and premeditated way!

 

that sucks. missing you already buzzin.

 

this going to turn into the buzzin memorial thread?

 

no. it shouldn't.

b2t: i've only had good experiences with AW CS. i called twice for stuff regarding my order, and both times, the person at the other end was helpful and compenent. luckily, i have yet to make contact with the tech support.

 

aww he got banned. I don't think he caused any trouble or at least from what I saw I didn't mind him here at all. There were way worse people here that have been banned (even I have gotten an infraction can you believe it? ).

Anyways... If you want good CS call up the roswell crew. I have to give it to them they are very knowledgeable and actually do a great job of resolving issues FAST.

 

you can only cry wolf so many times before someone get annoyed.
he made his disdain known about AW no less then probably 1000 times.
while i understand his grievence, and his right to feel as such, all he would do is post negatives. nothing ever constructive towards a topic after his issue.
sorry, but make your point, once, twice, maybe even three times, then drop it. i heard ya but do not need to continually hear you spew the same disdain on a continual basis.

as far as topic:
remember the employees are directed by others on how and what to say and even when to say it. maybe the techs do not know what is the issue and are still looking into it. similar to a car that you take into the garage. you take it in cause it is acting up. they look at it and find the issue, but then find an underlying one as well, that if they do not fix will continue to cause other issues.
now - i am not saying this is the case, just offering other viewpoints for one to consider.
and not saying you did, but i also find it funny how it all is one sided. that the caller (owner of the item) is never guilty of mistreating or insulting the people they talk to. many always leave out this side of it. what may not be an attack or insult to you, may be to another person. (again, not saying you did, but many times this happens and the person never admits they did anything wrong)

that being said, ANY CS from any company can be a PIA. some are better then others, but it also depends on your attitude and professionalism that you bring along with it. try to see all sides of an issue before you call, and put yourself in thier shoes. if you look at all possible angles before you do call then you put yourself in a place of better understanding.

 

RIP BUZZIN.

Another notebook forum bites the dust!

 

he got banned for trolling. i doubt he cant resurrect since they most likely blocked his ip. unless he wants to use a proxy to get on this forum now or cancel his internet service and go for another one i doubt he can resurrect .

 

I agree with all of you in a lot of thing here. I just think AW lost it with the CS in general. Basically they put two bad apples together to make one big bad apple (dell/Alienware CS). I had my frustrations with them. Getting my refund because they gave me bad service and didn't understand the simple repair I asked for.

 

Quick update. Got the laptop back, nothing had been done to fix the list of problems i had with it, infact the bios had been reset to pre-32.

I had to install latest bios myself (which took ages due to not being able to get the iso from american servers) and which seemed to fix the stuttering i was having. The problems i had with the laptop build/case/power supply where not looked/addressed when it was sent back to me.

All in all a complete waste of time sending my laptop to them in the first place.

 

ahh man,that sukz.
so are you thinking about a refund now. things will only get worse.
if you do then highlight here: " CLEVO LEXUS/M860TU "

 

Horrible to hear of your experiences there ayeizajedi.

Thankfully i've had very few issues with Alienware, just a broken dvd drive which they offered to replace after a few failed troubleshooting with a spaniard CS rep. And one instance with Kaspersky, trying to get a serial key for it since reformatting the comp. Both issues took a good few phone calls which isn't always nice but in the end it was sorted and both analysts were very patient and helpful.


Personally i work Customer Support for a completly different company on the phones and one thing that is very fustrating to ourselves and customers that call us is when an issue that cannot be solved over the phone needs to be esculated to tech support.
We get alot of calls back from people asking whats taking so long or what has been done so far and generally we cant give people an answer as its not our responsability anymore, its tech supports. Its up to them to contact the client, keep them informed and fix the issue. So i wouldn't be too hard on CSR's when they're working with very little information on such issues that have been esculated. Their job generally is basic troubleshooting over the phone and esculating issues up the ladder if they cant solve them.

But overall, we can go out of our way for you, beyond what we're supposed to, we can try to contact tech support or the rep that has taken your ticket directly and activly working on your machine when we're not supposed to but only if your very **** nice and patient! Because we dont have to!

Remember CSR's like me are under pressure to keep their stats good, which means try to keep calls short, make sure theres no calls in the queue waiting and if there is, make sure they're not there for long. So we do the basics for you and anything else we cant do we throw you up the ladder to wait. But if your **** nice we can go out of your way for you and try and get in touch with them directly instead of having you wait for them to contact you (when they probably have 10 other tickets to work on and your last in the list).


I know it can be very fustrating but you would be amazed what a friendly tone of voice and a little bit of patience can do for you.

Also when calling in try to just explain your issue briefly, try not to put in tons of detail along with the resolution of the problem. Even if you have a phd in computing, let us do out part and talk you through the next steps, the sooner you let us take control of the call the sooner your issue will be resolved! Theres nothing more counter-productive than a client who thinks he knows better. If you know better then you wouldn't have to call us!




Anyways completly different company i work for, i have no idea how alienware do their CS, probably all irrelevant. Just take the above as a bit of advice for any general CS helpdesk you may be calling in the future.

 

man i hope my laptop wont be away for that long it will mean i have to definately buy a new laptop before i return to work on the oil rigs.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

Komsomol, the issue i have isnt with the Customer Service Team, but the overall End to End Customer Service that i have experienced from AW.

The Customer Support Team themselves were fine, the Tech Agents with the exception of Gonzarlez didnt really have a clue, but the big issue i have now is that despite emailing a list of the issues numerous times those issues were not even looked at despite the laptop being there for over three working weeks, infact, the laptop came back in a worse state (see below) and i had to update the bios myself.

Note: The laptop was experiecing cpu downclocking (one of the issues), i had ran test as per forum thread, when i sent laptop to AW the desktop had 2 screen shots showing before and after (it took under 60 secs to underclock when underload), etc, it also had all the tools there to test it themselves. When the laptop was returned to me, the BIOS was set to factory default and the test had been completed on stealth mode to no adverse affects... Go figure.

Either way, im not happy with AW, i hope it was an isolated incident, i will be writing a letter of complaint (if that will do any good who knows). Im not wanting to come across as a rant/raver as that may indeed get you banned from this forum, ive stated my experiences and thats it really, sincerly hope you dont experience anything similar.

Laters all,