Thursday, October 05, 2006
Knock, knock, Dell calling
My blog posts here and here attracted the attention of someone at Dell. Presumably someone whose job is to monitor Dell's image on the web. I can't say I'm entirely surprised. I knew they had started doing this months ago. I even knew that using the term "dell hell" might attract attention. But I am still mildly amused that my humble little blog warranted an email from them. Brad, a customer advocate at Dell, emailed me at the address provided at the left. He noticed that I had called in to Dell for support and wanted to make sure they handled my issue properly. That's very nice. I guess the simple answer is no, they did not handle the issue properly concerning my mother's "incident."

Mom will assume blame for one thing, she only ordered one year's support on her computer. She may have even run the idea by me and I might have said "you should be all right, Dell is a victim of their own success, their computers rarely break down." Ha! So she would be the one to get a lemon. Because her support had expired she was subject to a fee of $99 just to get them to talk to her about the problem. The $99 would cover as many contacts as it took to resolve the problem. I'm sure she was shocked and appalled to learn this, because you're not exactly warned of this up front.

So the first part of my reply to Dell:

Brad,

I appreciate your contacting me, though I doubt it will accomplish much. On my blog I spoke of two separate issues with customer service at Dell. Neither one was resolved by Dell.

My mom's issue with her faulty power source was handled by a third party computer technician. He fixed it for around $50.00. At the time I spoke with my mother she was having difficulty speaking through her tears; dramatic, but true. I was very upset. She spent $99.00 and over 90 minutes on the phone and gave up in frustration and called me. I'm very thankful that her computer was fixable. Once it was determined by Dell that the problem was the hardware, they immediately refunded $50 of the fee the collected for her "incident." Eventually she was refunded the entire amount. The problem for Dell is that she was put through a horrible phone experience, she had a computer with a faulty power source that malfunctioned after a year and half, and she doesn't trust your brand any longer. I don't know if she'll ever buy from you again.

I also addressed the work related issue I had with Dell, which I won't detail here because it contains too much information. Suffice it to say that after two hours and twelve people who didn't help me I was also leaking tears of frustration. To this day the problem hasn't been resolved and I'm forced to order by phone, when ordering on the computer would be so much easier for Dell and for me.

The final part of my reply to Brad:

Because of the nature of my work many people come to me for purchasing recommendations. I'm not saying I'll never order another Dell, but I don't speak highly of Dell any longer.

I will be updating my blog with the information concerning your contacting me, and you will also see an apology for calling you names. But when you make my mom cry, well, I was very angry.

So there you have it. Dell reached out, a gesture. Empty or not? Remains to be seen.

As for the apology...Dell, I am sorry I called your people names. Calling you asshats was not very nice, but I was blogging angry. As for phone drones, well, I like that one and I'll be keeping it. I thought I had made that one up, but Google informs me otherwise.
Written at 7:00 PM by Highlandgal.
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