I'm finished with Dell.

After ordering a system I got for a great price, I wanted to change my order but I had some questions that I needed answers to about the Tv Tuner on the Dell 1420. Little did I know Dell was too incompetent to answer them and that it would take 30 minutes each time I called to even speak to a rep.

1st attempt: talked to dell sales agent, told me tv tuner was internal, I said good, that's what I wanted.
2nd attempt: talked to tech rep to confirm it was internal, tech rep said it was internal and I had nothing to worry about.
3rd attempt: talked to customer service rep, customer service rep assured me the tv tuner was internal and I had nothing to worry about.

After changing my dell 1420 order to include the Tv Tuner bundle, I was told that because of my order change my order would be delayed by 2 weeks. I reluctantly agreed.

BUT then, I talked to a dell customer chat rep as well as asked around on the forums and everyone said that it was external via USB. Everyone said it makes no sense that it's internal becuase there's no room.

So, not only did they make me buy windows vista premium, but they made me buy a tv tuner that was not what I wanted and they increased my ship date by two weeks.

I don't know how a company cannot educate it's sales force, tells me a lot about the company and about what they represent. This was to be the first dell I bought but I refuse to buy from a company that is not educated.

therefore, I cancelled my Dell 1420 order and am going with the Asus V2S. Yeah, it is 400 more expensive but Dell has left such a bad impression that I don't care. Maybe in 10 years dell will clean up its act, only time will tell.

Oh yeah. By the way, Dell never once offered to rectify my situation by giving me my previous ship date. In fact, they wanted to change my order AGAIN so that my ship date was later in the future, even later than my Tv tuner ship date.

My warning, think twice before you buy something cheap. If you do, there's usually a reason.

 

Dell's support is terrible now. I remember 5 years ago I always got a CSR who spoke fluent english when I called Dell.

 

Well, to be honest, CSR's can only know so much, a piece of paper(or a site page) that they refer to if there are any questions. A sale is a sale, commission is what they are after.

 

I understand what you guys are saying. Knowledgeable English speaking support is mighty expensive though. We complain about the cost of these machines as is, imagine the cost if all Dell support representatives were training properly and spoke English as their primary language. It's a catch 22, we want what we want, but do not want to pay for it, or at least what it would cost.

Is the XPS support that far superior?

 

I know a number of people who have had this problem, The sales reps will flat out lie to make another buck for themselves which is not what customer service is about, its disgusting that companies are outsourcing their service to people who have no understanding what it means.

My mum had a CitiBank Gold card, She got a call from the philipines offering her a Free upgrade to Platinum which she said no to several times, after offering her alot of free stuff she agreed on the basis it wouldnt change her CC number which he said 100% it would not. as soon as she said yes he changed it and then said "Alright you have 15 days to notify all your direct debit companies that youve changed your credit card number" She was very pissed, to make matters worse she asked what her new number was and he said he couldnt tell her, she would have to wait until the card came in the mail and it was activated, this would take about 2-3 weeks. We had to put all the bills on my CC so that we didnt get charged late fees because of idiots like him.

 

No further comment. Everything has been said.

 

Don't bother asking them technical stuff, cos they aint even trusted with a START button - no joke, you can't even remote into their machines and do anything 'cos they have kiddie access, they have a on-site tech team todo everything for them, lol.

 

"Good" phone sales and support staff based in the US is $15+ per hour now and closer to $20/hour in some metro areas. That is just the employees wage. The total cost for the employer is typlically double that. Unfortunately getting technology deals at rock bottom prices means they have to cut cost and doing it on phone calls is an easy place to do it.

Just remember that anytime you click "Submit Order" on that new PC config that just saved you $300 over another company.

 

In order to run aftersales support in the UK, they would have todo this through contracters, you could guess that DELL would need to pay each contractor 18-22k a year. Thats alot of money, if you x that by your customer base needs.

 

I agree that its important to configure your system the way you want the first time. Going though the modify department can delay your order. However, I think that the overseas support has been very nice and professional. I also think that many of the overseas support do a pretty good job with English. I have used other companies that use overseas reps and they are much worse then Dell support. Its seems that the reps in India and other countries give me the impression that their job is on the line if they don't make me happy. I sense they are highly motivated to make the call successful. I have only had to release one call so far with Dell because of poor dialec. I felt sorry for that guy since he was horrified that I did not understand him. He sounded like he would lose his job if I released the call. Unfortunately, I had no choice in that case.

The only unprofessional behaviour I have encountered at dell was with US based sales. These are the ones to watch out for. They will lie and make things up for a sale. My original order was with a agent and was not good. When I cancelled later and reordered with a coupon I chose to do so online just to avoid that pleasure of talking to US based sales. On the other hand, I have no problem with talking with overseas reps.

 

My problem was not with overseas support. In fact, when I went to chat online with a Dell rep late at night about my Tv Tuner issue I got an overseas person and THEY are the one that answered my question truthfully. My problem was with local tech support that doesn't know anything about computers.

All in all yeah I guess I missed out on saving $400 However:
-I get better support
-I get a lightscribe drive
-I get double the video card memory
-I get turbo memory
-I get HDMI out
-I get a better looking system (in my opinion)
-I get a system that weighs .5 lbs less
-I get a rotating webcam that is so much beter for recording lectures
-I get a better built system, a system that makes a lot of it's own components
-I get a standard 2-3 year warranty, with dell you have to pay for that.
-ETC

These are all things OVER AND ABOVE what I was gonna get with the Inspiron 1420.

So my point, all in all, irrespective of the hassling i got from the Dell rep, I personally am getting a better deal with the new asus v2s. Dell's tech suppot was the last nail in the coffin though.

 

i believe its a matter of luck. i am from india and i definitely know the problems that you as customer and they as sales rep face. yes, they are really motivated to make a sale and make the customer happy, but at times they overdo it in their enthusiasm and create a horrible impression on the customer. in my case , my sales rep was not only supportive and helpful but also knowledgeable. she spoke such fluent english, not even a native english speaking customer could have emulated her.

 

Well, I hope you enjoy your Asus. One thing that I did read is that the Asus is probably not as "built" as you may think. I read one review where they still use a hard plastic case that does have some flex to it. I can say my 1420 runs pretty cool. The new Inspirons do weigh a little more but they also use magneisium alloy case. They seem to be very sturdy and I see no flex in the lid/display... no ripples etc.. Not sure how much heat plays into your buying a notebook. But the fact that the new Inspirons seem to be running cooler then the other manufacturers was a huge plus in my book. Heat is something that can give you failures in the future.. in GPU's etc.. Cooler running means higher reliability in my book.

 

The Asus cases vary depending on the model. The V2s he is buying has magnesium alloy, carbon fiber, and plastic in the case. I think the new Dells have a magnesium alloy frame... which I think is different from the case.

 

Asus is the only company I have ever encountered to spell "Athlon" wrong in a BIOS screen. Nothing spells good quality control like getting the CPU name wrong on the boot screen

I still use Asus hardware without hesitation in desktop PC builds, though I will say I no longer place them on a plateau above other companies (for many reasons, not just poor spelling)

 

Its the same exact card, not double the video card memory. 383 MB is including the virtual memory your system taps totally, meaning its only 128 dedicated.

 

Thanks for that clarification. However its built, its seems strong and runs cool which is a high selling point for me. No flex in display as well.. which is also big selling point. Now at some point I may wish it had HDMI. Does the Asus offer higher res screens? I am happy I got the 1440 X 900 res. My HI Def videos look really sharp on this display.

 

The V2 has 8600GS.

The price point is quite large in some people's eyes, so comparing may not really be fair.

 

You should have asked about the tuner here before you ordered it, the sales people in general know much less about the products they sell than the forum members as a collective, and thats not really a slight against Dells people, its just the way it is, they dont seek out computer enthusiasts , they get whoever they can to fill the job as cheaply as possible, and Dell is far from the only place that does this.

 

I had a similar experience.

I initially ordered a 1520 with the Dell 1390 802.11g card. I wanted to change my order to the Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N card and I got transferred 3 times, each time having to wait 15-20 minutes.

The final rep who I talked to couldn't find the part number for the Intel Next-Gen card even though it is right there on the web site when you customize your order. I even walked him through the website where the card appeared as an option and he still couldn't find it.

Finally he offered to transfer me to yet another rep, or to cancel my order. After being on the phone for over 1 hour for such a simple change I cancelled my order. I figured it would be faster for me to cancel that order and go configure a new system.

Now I plan to place a new order but I'm not going to buy the 3-year support contract (I had it in my first order). if this is the level of support I get when I'm trying to give them extra money to buy a more expensive wireless card I can imagine how horrible it will be when I'm calling to get a defective part replaced.

Dell has great prices and good systems, but their support infrastructure seems to be overwhelmed and undertrained.

As long as you know exactly what you want you can get a decent system at a good price. Just don't expect too much help or hand holding when you need support. For instance, I would never recommend this brand to my mom.

 

I thought I was through with Dell several years ago when they sent me 4 faulty products in a row, but the price point brought me back. After this fiasco with DHL, I won't ever come back to Dell or any other company that insists on DHL.

 

Isn't it always the case though.

Torn between low price vs. &$#ity customer service.

 

Good luck else where. Don't let the door hit you from behind. If you didn't do your own research before you bought then it is your fault. Dell csr's and tech support don't know jack and will tell you whatever to earn your business. I am glad you cancelled so my other orders will come to me faster now.

 

Dell generally doesnt ship systems via DHL, all mine have been UPS, they use DHL for software and accessories, and will use something else if you insist upon it, dont ask them to use a different carrier, TELL them(politely of course) and they should comply.