Dell's less than stellar customer service

Dell Refurb service disappoints, cant rectify the situation in a timely manner, then new sales cant do much better.

Long Story but I think that it exemplifies the sorry state of affairs that differentiates dell from the premium competition. I see it that a company in the direct to consumer business either offers 1: a great customer experience, 2: a challenged customer experience that is rectified because the company cares, or 3: a customer experience that repeatedly proves that there is no founding or driving principal that the customer is important. I you were wowed by a type 3 company then it was the exception or luck.

In my experience Apple excels at delivering 1, and if necessary 2 and Dell excels at 3 and maybe 2.



Case in point, I am replacing an Apple Macbook Pro (Intel duo variety) that is long in the tooth, don't need a tiny machine, prefer a dual hard drive and integral number pad machine. I develop photobooth software and preferred to get a touch screen too for development purposes. THe Dell XPS 17 fit the bill perfectly. Much cheaper that the equivalent Apple product, and I was pretty excited.

I was poking around the dell site, wandered through the outlet section and say exactly what I wanted. By Exactly I mean the way I would spec it new. I ordered the machine, and it was here (PA) in 2 days. WOW dell truly performed… Exceeded my expectations.

The machine was unpacked and it was PERFECT. While listed as a return, it hadn't seen a human touch as fas as I could tell. Kudos to Dell… Truly a (1) experience as above.

But… There had to be a but… The touch screen was not working. Drivers didn't load etc… Apparently what was listed and "built" as a touch screen wasn infect a 1080 non touch screen. I called dell, and they had someone here The Next Day. Impressed that they were truly performing to address the problem, it looks like they would rise to the occasion and perform (2) grade service.

The Tech Arrived and installed the part (new screen and digitizer) and found that bezel and back cant fit the now thicker screen sandwich. Starting to slip from (2) grade service but I imagine this isn't a typical field swap, so a tech comes in the next monday and replaces the back and bezel. But since this is a story of woe, then you know that dell is slipping from (2) through (3) grade service.

The now swapped parts present 2 issues. A the screen is stuck with a press indicated in the middle of the screen, and B the monitor wont close. Not sure if it was put together wrong, but you cant close the screen all the way, leaves about a 1" gap from closing…

Dell now took a working but wrong specced machine, made it a correctly specced machine but useless machine and the tech was at wits end. The tech looked into the machine history and learned that the original return was that the touch screen didn't work… Ouch…

The tech asked if I just wanted to get it replaced as he was at the end of his knowledge limits. He said 3-4 days… Sure, this isn't getting any better so why not. A Dell rep would be in touch the next day with the replacement details.

You of course know that no one called right?

I called 2 days later to follow up and was told that Dell would takenot 3-4 but 14-20 working days to replace the pc. I inquired if the rep on the phone though that was fair, I would be without a working pc for more that the first MONTH of ownership. Nothing that they could do but return it and give me my money back and have me order a new one… They have NO mechanism inside Dell to help a customer that they failed for the last week to deliver a working as ordered pc.

Ok thats what Ill do, Ill order a new one...

And thats what I did, specced exactly the same machine, and after coupons was pretty damn close in cost to the same as the refurbed one, so not to shabby, new equals refurb price after coupons so...

I realized that after I purchased the machine I missed the backlit keyboard option, it was in a different tab and I missed it as I mistakenly thought that backlit was standard. and I did want backlit so I called them up and talked to a rep in the last few minutes of their day, explained the situation, and they couldn't do anything so late in the day but call back first thing in the morning and we can take care of it then.

I called back within the first 10 minutes of the day and was told that the machine was in production, it was too late to do anything, and that I should have called last night… Production was so good that they started the build overnight and they were shipping real soon, They suggested that I either cancel again, refuse delivery or just order the part and swap it myself…

I chose the parts order and swap. But since this is a death spiral you know that the part wasn't in stock.

So a week after the machine that was so close to shipping is still "In Production" and the part I ordered on bay made it across the country to wait till dell gets off their to get the XPS 17 built…


I still await the machine, and have been completely underwhelmed so far after buying one of their premium machines but not actually using one that is.…


A non touch screen apple would be $800 more but I bet a hello lot less of a hassle.

TL;DR Dell is a commodity computer company, and as such will treat orders, service needs, and customer follow up with a commodity level of service. XPS or Alienware are tradedress , nothing premium about them from a service perspective.


Follow up, Just got a call from someone at dell tonight following up on my request to change the part FROM LAST WEEK. He stated that its too close to shipping to change. I informed him that that was the story a week ago, and that either tonights call or last weeks call is based on a lie or last weeks call was a pure laziness issue...