Yet another terrible Dell support experience

Wow, I had heard Dell support was bad, but I didn't know just how bad until I actually had to deal with them.

I placed an order for an I9300 over a week ago, called confirmed it, used a preferred account to get an additional discount etc... I received a confirmation email, and spent the next week checking the order status, which remained in pre-production the whole time. Then yesterday my order was just canceled. No word from Dell, no email, I found out by logging in to check the status. They of course were closed last night when I found out, so I had to wait until this morning to call.

I call this morning and talk to an Indian guy who is impossible to understand, and sounds like he's talking to me on a cell phone in a hole 5 miles in the earth. Like he's got one bar of reception on the phone. I can't hear him, I can't understand him even when I can hear him, and he's rude. He has no idea why the order was canceled. He says he'll resubmit it (which he doesn't do) and tells me to hold on while he does this. He never puts me on hold, I can hear him clicking away at something, and then eventually there are these loud sounds like he's slamming the phone on the table and then all of a sudden I was transferred with no warning or word as to why! Then I sat on hold for 15 mintues (on my cell phone) until I just hung up.

I called back again and tried a different extension and sat on hold for 10 minutes before just hanging up.

Then I tried the absolutely useless chat. The first woman said she'd try to find out why the order was canceled. She couldn't find a reason. She then gave me a link to another chat to try.

So I tried the next chat. The next lady said she'd find me an answer as to why it was canceled. She couldn't. She told me to call the Dell financial number, maybe they could help.

So I called and finally got a hold of an American who said he'd help me, no problem-o. He tries to help me. Can't. He's at least able to tell me that it was canceled because the system says I didn't confirm the order. Even though I was never contacted about a confirmation, and when I went to check the order status, it didn't say I needed confirmation to be done.

So he tries to replace the order, can't because the discounts have changed. So he then transfers me to have it submitted again. I sit on hold, on my cell for 20 minutes. Hang up.

I try chat again for help because I'm running out of minutes on my cell. The lady tells me to replace my order on dell.com...even though I've already explained that the promotions and accessories have changed since last week (I can no longer get a 5400 rpm 100gb HD). So now...here I sit 2 hours and 45 minutes later, waiting on chat for a manager to help me. My guess...he can't help me.

This is the most pathetic customer service and sales support I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. It is absolutely terrible. I just couldn't be more frustrated. I almost through my powerbook against the wall I'm so fed up. verheat:

 

Three hours and 45 minutes later...and still no resolution. They are now telling me that they can't give me the same deal, because that was a one day promotion. THEY screwed up, didn't tell me there was confirmation needed....and they want ME to pay more for a lesser computer now. I'm waiting for a call back from a sales guy now...but I have little faith he'll actually be able to help me. This is a really bad experience. I'm ready to order an HP.

 

Oh my, what terrible service indeed. Yup, Dell is acclaimed the WORST, most pathetic technical and sales service than any other company around. They try cutting corners on this part of their organization by outsourcing all of the telephone maintainence and sales abroad to India.

What most hope for is that they will recieve their machine in full working order and never have to deal with Dell customer service. < Best scenerio. I would just make sure your order is fully cancelled, and that you don't get charged a dime for any reason whatsoever and look elsewhere for a machine. Spend the extra dollars and have piece of mind and satisfaction.

 

Hooray, I'm glad I just bought a Dell. I guess they have to do something to produce units so cheaply.

 

Should have bought an AlienWare

 

7 hours 45 minutes later no help....been on phone ALL day

 

:| wow, that must be frustrating to the max.

 

You might get the same customer service with HP, And a ****ty computer.... They use the cheapest parts known to man.

 

LOL. Actually, the only Alienware I've encountered. (My Friend's) is a POS. Its keyboard doesn't work any more, the touchpad won't align (its output is rotated), and it overheats constantly.

There are good times for fast/gaming laptops. For me, I build my own desktop and ensure that I leave plenty of room/opportunities for expansion.

 

Finally, after over 8 hours on the phone I talked to someone who simply reinstated the order in five minutes. If Dell would get their collective head out of their collective rear they coule deal with all customers in five minutes, get rid of the Indian support line, and still save money in the process. I mean imagine, if they had just fixed the problem in five minutes, instead of wasting my entire day, and spending money on paying all the people who's time I took up today! 8 Hours of their time I used up. Amazing.

There are a few types of people at Dell, 1. Those in India, who can't help you, don't want to help you, and even if they wanted to help you could not, because they don't have the capability to help you so they just transfer you. 2. Those in America who would like to help you, can tell you what the problem is, but don't have access to the system to fix the problem, so they transfer you and 3. People who can fix the problem, but don't have access to find out what the problem is, so they transfer you. Then there's the rare #4. Who can help you, despite not being able to see the problem. #4. is clearly a rarity at Dell. Their system is so detached and separate that there's no wonder they can't help people.

One thing is for sure, that Indian support is completely and totally useless. All they ever do is transfer you. They couldn't tell what my problem was, how to fix it, and they couldn't even transfer me to anyone that could help. And wow, were they ever rude. Which is wierd, I have some Indian friends and they are very nice. They must just get beat up all day because they can't help, and people can't understand them.

 

i know how you feel even the "special" xps support sucks...aleinware verheat:

 

Ultimately, though, you'll have a great machine and got a good deal- so try to put all the aggravation behind you and enjoy your new laptop! Despite Dell's support maze, they still offer the best bang for the buck, the newest and the best technology, and you can get the help you need (if only we could get rid of the hold time and the worthless support people).

I, too, have suffered over the years with Dell hold and dealt with morons. but it is a tradeoff to getting great machines at lower cost and having 24 hour tech support. From their vantage point, although I am sure we are all calling with true support issues (whether customer service or tech problems) I am sure they get a lot of phone calls which they consider stupid- hey, it is not their fault if you mistook the cd tray for a coffee cup holder, is it ;-)? You can't blame them for farming out their support where they can get it for cheaper when a sizeable portion of their calls are stupid ones. If they had all American help, and paid all their employees well, we would be angry at their prices....

 

I hear you, ordering my dell on the phone was horrible. A 30 min process when done in person stretches out to be like 2 hrs. Stupid Hyderabad call center.. what's next? Inner Mongolia call centers?!

 

Yeah, but if they had all American help, were able to fix my problem in the five minutes it should have taken, they wouldn't need nearly as large a workforce. Imagine what it costs them to solve a minor problem in the eight hours of customer service time it took them to fix my problem. It should have taken them five minutes to fix my problem. And I'm not overblowing this. If this was my credit card company, they would have had me off the phone, the problem solved, with American support in under five minutes...and they would be saving a lot of money too.

That said, you are right, I will have a great computer at a great price. They probably lost half or all of their profit paying support people to fix my problems though. And if the computer has any issues, they will certainly begin losing money on my sale.

 

Trust me, I was not being dismissive- I too have been ready to tear my hair out either waiting or with incompetence. What I was saying is that, despite the aggravation, you will have a great machine at a good value and can generally always (although it may be with aggravation) get things resolved and Dell will ultimately satisfy their customers. I do agree with you about how much faster caring and competent people can resolve issues, but that seems to only be available in smaller companies, which translates into bigger bucks.

 

I, too, find Dell support these days truly abyssmal, misleading, and they were absolutely DECEPTIVE in their advertising when I bought my I9300 notebook earlier this year.

I contracted for 4 years of "technical support" when I bought my I9300 early in 2005. When I made my first "technical support" call this Fall I was informed that I had no "technical support" and that the "technical support" that I had contracted for was actually "hardware support" (which I did want) and that she would try to answer my question, anyway (what a nice American girl). I informed her about the Dell upgrades to my DVD burner that give me the message "no compatible DVD drive" (or something like that - discussed with no solution yet in this forum) and the blue screen of death I get sometimes when using DLA (I stopped using DLA, it ruined 1/3rd of my DVD/CDs and lost significant amounts of data). She was dumbfounded. I guess the people at the Helpdesk could walk you through setting up an email program but they are pretty useless otherwise. She told me both were "hardware" issues and, despite my insistence otherwise, she politely transferred me to a hardware support specialist who took 10 minutes to answer.

The hardware specialist was in India. She was rude. She often interrupted me. She informed me very emphatically since that I had already run all diagnostics which passed that there was nothing wrong with my "hardware" and that she could not help me and that I should realize that my problem was a "technical support" (software) issue and "would I mind" if she transferred me to the Helpdesk where I would have to PAY to get an answer to my issue.

I am back to the USA recently from 15 years living overseas and I can decipher the Indian accent. However, those people are now always extremely defensive and approach you in every case as if you are some sort of a child trying to get something for free out of them. On other year-old issues prior to upgrading my notebook from a older Inspiron, yes, I was abruptly transferred numerous times by them and, often, no one ever picked up the line. It is too bad, it seems the Indian support was working very well about 2 years ago. They were much more useful and polite then.

You used to be able to call a Dell technical support specialist and get answers to your questions. They WOULD troubleshoot problems, get back to you. This was a service provide for being a customer. Now they want you to pay for it. I'm not biting as my best guess is that the problems that I would report would be rather "advanced" and not get resolved. I've recently noticed that the problem with the DVD burner firmware upgrades is not fixed. Problems users are having are NOT GETTING RESOLVED as they should be.

Dell used deceptive tactics in advertising the system that I bought. They have absolutely NO RIGHT to redefine the term "technical assistance" to mean "hardware assistance" and their advertising for the "help desk" clearly identified that as a beginners tool. Dell has not heard the end of this from me.

My brother is asking me for assistance in picking out two notebooks for his daughters for Christmas each in their, or going into their, first year of college. I am NOT recommending Dells.

 

Gotta love that Thinkpad Support, all customer support calls are routed to good old Atlanta GA. I hope that doesn't change with Lenovo. I also have had very good support experience with Apple.
A friend of mine once waited for over 4 hours with Dell when his sons Inspiron 1100 had a problem, when he finally was connected to someone (yes in India) he was disconnected while explaining the problem.

 

all i gotta say....

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