The accent of the Indian techs is not the biggest problem, it is their refusal to open their ears and listen. I would like to go there with a baseball bat, not to
harm them, but to make the listen. When I wrote a letter of complaint to Dell I got back a canned reply about their great service.

Anyway, Dell has lost a family of customers as well as a small business customer, forever.

You have to add a heck of a lot more than that to make it to Apple’s level.

(Let me also say that with rare exception, 99.9% of support agents you speak to really want to fix your problems. Accents are a fact of life and they feel as disappointed as you that they couldn’t clearly communicate their instructions to customers. I have witnessed Indian-ethnicity support agents in our U.S. call centers cry because they were reamed by callers within seconds of answering the call before they could even finish their introduction. Be respectful and courteous and you will be treated the same. If you cannot understand the technician, you’re always free to request a call back from another person or say goodbye and try calling again; No reason to be disrespectful over something that person can’t change.)

It’s worth noting that until earlier this year, Dell was the only company in the industry to offer lifetime tech and software support. Think about that; Back in 2000 when I worked phone support, we took calls on systems built in ‘94 running Win3.x or even DOS, we helped grandmothers and aspiring PC techs rebuild and troubleshoot their systems and taught them where to find drivers and how to install them — All this years after their hardware warranties had expired. No other company, even Microsoft itself, does this for life (for free). In response to industry-wide cost-cutting, pressure from the Lenovo and HPaq’s of the world, Dell’s sought ways to stay on top. Enter OVERSEAS SUPPORT, LIMITED-TIME WARRANTIES and the $399 SYSTEM. These are the big 3 initiatives that kept Dell afloat for stockholders and have simultaneously caused the deterioration in support that blogs like this love to dissect.

$399 systems mean profits almost literally in the single-digit dollars range, but it gets millions of systems out the door. That 1 in 50 customer who needs support will get their answer, but now only for 90 days (standard default warranty) or 1-4 years, depending on which options the customer *CHOSE* when buying the system. You really do get what you pay for. You have to realize that paying $399 for a computer with a 90 day warranty is a great deal, but you’re taking a voluntary risk by foregoing bells and whistles, in this case an extended warranty and/or U.S. support from certified technicians (Gold Tech. Support). Expecting more is simply unreasonable. You don’t buy a 3.99 meal at McDonald’s and expect silverware, steak meals or a waiter to tend to your needs. However, you CAN opt to buy an extended warranty or simply one that specifically offers U.S.-based support. They’re highlighted and bolded in the online configurator as upsells, so no one can claim they didn’t know better support was available.

You have to envy Apple to an extent. They have saved customers from themselves by including high-dollar support into their profit margins whether customers want it or not. Dell could make Gold Technical Support the default option and automatically add $250 to every system. What would you have? Apple.

However, Dell realizes that tech-savvy customers don’t want to pay for tech support when they know they could build their own systems for $399. So Dell offers the same or (arguably) better quality system with minimal support and instantly wins that customer base. What you have in blogs like this is folks choosing standard (minimum-cost) support and expecting GOLD service. Dell simply starts at the bare minimum and leaves it to customers to choose for themselves. Blogs like this are only cursing them for giving customers options.

If choice scares you, get an Apple, or vote Republican. (kidding)

To all: This doesn’t come down to a Mac or PC thing either there are plenty of other PC manufacturers out there that may quite good PCs. Anything is better than Dell who is nothing more than the Walmart of computers.

Anyway the person in this country has been promising me since the 22nd that I would get my refund overnite and today is Dec 3 and no refund!! The monitor went back to them 10 over a week ago (and that took some doing!!! the indians never sent ups to pick it up!!) and ups found the other computer and returned it to Dell 5 days ago. Still no refund!! My only consolation is that on Dec. 22nd my bank card is going to credit me back inspite of Dell. Unfortunately my bank said they had to give them 30 days to credit me back after I put it in the dispute dept. Don’t wait to dispute the charge with your bank if you have charged one. Do it right away because it is a long wait to get any satisfaction. The new date for my refund to go thru is next monday but I am not holding my breath. I have heard this since Nov. 22nd. I will never do business again with Dell. In fact I bought a new HP the other day and it is wonderful.

Being heavily involved with tech support I will freely admit most user have no clue what they are doing, but we are not talking about users here. The real issue is Dell. Dell makes such shoddy computers that even a Banana Jr 2000 woudl be better. And just because you bandy about: “I’ve never had a problem with my Dell” doesn’t mean that plenty of other people don’t either”. We replace so many Dell HDs and motherboards its sad.

I mean get real selling a computer for $399, and people expect it to be quality? Get a grip people. My company buys somewhat better than that and they are still crap.

I will say one good thing about Dell, they send me allot of side work because people just give up trying to use their super awesome, great warranties.

“WHATEVER”
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Hey Simp’, you should have stopped at that, up there. It was just as inaffectual.

To the point then, DELL provides pricey unreliable [not fit for the purpose] components, ergo, there is a degree of Customer Support that will naturally be required for said sub-standard products, agreed? DELL knows it, why don’t you? Perhaps DELL’s intention all along was to pay lip service to its support of its customers on the back of inferior performing products. What say you?

Example; How many times would you say it is acceptable that the same problem gets dealt with in exactly the same way… the *wrong *way, mind, but the same way nonetheless.
* Denotes; ‘failed to be ’supported’ and did not lead to ‘Customer Satisfaction’’.

BTW who do like for laptops? I own an HP (17″). Support is OK.

Unfortunately, these risk assessments are geared more to revenue and not to customer experience. This being said corners are cut in the development process and potential issues are written off as an acceptable risks, thus creating a sub-par product. A Dell Product Group VP once said, “perception is more important than reality”.

Some people just get angry that tech support goes through their procedures step-by-step rather than listening to their complaints. Jeff is not a computer expert and should admit it. His expertise in other areas does not cross over.

I think they are just trying to water down the term luxury or high end computing… http://www.luxurypc.com/?p=30