My Dell CS Hell

Hey all, I just need to rant about my experience dealing with Dell and get it all off my chest.

I'm in the UK, and I need a laptop for uni, so I decided to order a Vostro 1500 a week ago after doing LOTS of research about the best laptop/prices available. The vostro was the best deal for the price I was getting it for and for the specs that I wanted.

So I called up a rep named Sonia, told her my requirements and she gave me a quote for £650 for the laptop I wanted. All cushtie at that point, gave her credit details and was all booked with a deliv date for 29th August.

The next day, I went online and had a look at Dell offers, and the EXACT same laptop was coming up to £575 (A good $150 cheaper). Needless to say I phoned Dell up to either A) Get that much money credited back or B) Cancel and re-order. Looks like it was option B. After spending 3 hours going around and around on the phone (including being sent to an automated order tracking system what part of cancel do they not understand) I finally managed to cancel my order

Coming to earlier today, I phoned up the same rep today regarding re-ordering the same laptop and she says to me that according to her 'software' she can't reorder the same laptop for me and that I should order online (Which means that I wont be able to get Vista Home Premium, which I really want). After phoning another rep, I was given a price of £564 for my lappy with a free remote. Happy days I thought! ...Apparently not! I was told that the rep would send me an e-mail with my order quote and phone me back. Haven't heard a peep from him since.

What really sucks is that for the price, there is no other laptop out there with the same value for money. But I really really really cannot handle being jerked around more by these reps.

*phew* that felt good!

Does anybody have any advice for me? Or simply want to share their horrible CS experiences.

 

well, call em, cancel all orders, and do it online

 

See the thread 'Vostro Europe'.

I would personally order online and stick with Vista Business. It isn't much different to Home Premium and saves talking to the bloody dell reps I find I get redirected here there everywhere, listen to music for 10 mins then get some clueless person who gives me wrong info.

 

Although I would have in the past have said order online to avoid the annoying CRs, my experiance of ordering my Dell Laptop (last Tuesday, 31st July) has made me think using the phone is the only way to go...since then I have had no order conformation of my laptop and on contacting them I got a reply asking me for my Order conformation/reference number, which was what I was trying to get out of them in the first place. Since then despite my reply and attempting to contact them again, I have received no word for them..I would phone them but if the numbers premium rate, I'm not wasing money on correcting someone's error

 

lol at dells crappy CS. i have to get mine replaced

 

But if you had written down/printed the order reference as it advises you would have it You can track your order number using the reference and your email address.

I find that dell phones up soon after you order to confirm some things, then processes the order. Obviously it can depend on what payment method you chose, but normally takes around 2 hours to process.

 

Hmm I might have done something wrong then, I simply typed the 3 random characters from my VISA security code and got a summary page which I could print and I did. However there was no order reference or anything on it just my details, what and when I ordered. It appears I may have missed something and as a result it didn't order? However this said having confirmed my credit card details and security number it should have processed or at least on contacting them they should have said no order with a matching e-mail address was made..ahh well I guess i'll wait a little longer...

Thanks for that info

 

That summary page is not the last page, you need to go one page further to actually complete the order. The reference number is in the format GB0000-0000-00000 and you should get an email directly afterwards with this reference.

I don't think you did actually order.

edit: I have ordered 3 times from dell, but I could be wrong. Check your printout and it might shed some light on it.

 

I don't think ordering online would be a viable option for me. If I do, I'll probably have to phone up and talk to these idiots even more than I would if I booked over the phone.

First of all, I wouldn't be happy settling for Vista Business instead of Home Premium (which all reps have said they would upgrade for free) just because I'm given some crap over 'software' not allowing them to book my order.
Secondly, the rep I spoke to said that they would include a travel remote and OS cds (the latter being important to me because I'm considering installing XP and then Vista later when the kinks are ironed out). These options just aren't available online and if I wanted to get them resolved I'd have to call up after I've placed/received my order and go through further hell.

Sorry if I sound so pedantic about these issues but it's really bugging me. I want a Dell system so bad, I just don't care for wading through any more of this crap anymore.

 

What many people do is place the order online as close as possible to the needed specifications, get the confirmation via email, and then call CS to add or make changes as soon as you have the order number. I've ordered through Dell business in the US and had no problems doing it.

 

Thanks for that suggestion . I'm going to try to order over the phone one more time tomorrow and if that fails I'll do what you did.

 

A quick update to my situation. Called sales again for my last effort to order over the phone and got a rep called Suman who had no qualms about me ordering over the phone
Although he didn't give me as good a deal as the rep who never called back, at least I got it ordered!

Bring on the 29th! Cannot wait!