# Dell Support Getting So Bad It's (Almost) Laughable



## jtatsud (Jan 13, 2004)

I run a computer/networking consulting firm for homes and small businesses. We used to recommend Dell products, but their support has gotten so bad it's laughable. As an example, here is an e-mail "conversation" that I had with their tech support:

***********************************************
***********************************************
INITIAL NOTE FROM ME TO DELL:

Problem Description:

Over the years, I have ordered several computers from Dell as well as
lots of other computer related equipment and supplies. However, I no
longer plan to make any future purchases from Dell, nor will I recommend
Dell to any of my customers or friends.

Since you switched much of your phone technical support to overseas
organizations, I have found your technical support to be extremely poor.
These folks can often not answer the simplest questions, problems get
forever routed to wrong departments after long hold times, and
conference calls are scheduled with your supervisors where the Dell
person never "shows up".

I now plan to give the majority of my business to CDW.

***********************************************

DELL'S INITIAL REPLY TO ME:

From: US_CAG_Customer_Care [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 4:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: #issuenotlisted-Repeat Issue (KMM5030368I21406L0KM)

Dear Mr. Tatsuda

Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care.

Please accept my apologies for the difficulties you encountered when
attempting to resolve your problem. I assure you that your situation is
not indicative of the quality service Dell is capable of providing. I
am truly sorry if we were not able to provide you with an experience,
which was completely satisfactory to you.

I request you to be more specific about the problem you are facing. Do
you have any technical problem or you want to return the item. Please
explain me. As in order to assist you better and resolve the issue
quickly I need to understand the problem completely , only than I would
be able to fix it.

I am sorry, but I am unable to locate your account with the information
that was provided. In order to better assist you I will need your
customer account or order/invoice number. If you do not have these
numbers, please provide the following information so I may access your
account:

1. Customer Number #
2. Order Number #
3. System Service Tag: It is a 5 or 7-digit alphanumeric code located
on the back, bottom or right side of the system unit on a bar-coded tag
(ex. ABC12 or A1B2C3D).
4. Full Name on account
5. Address listed on account
6. Phone Number on account

Once I am able to locate your account , I would be able to look into the
matter and assist you surely to fix the problem.

Once again, I Apologize for your trouble and I assure you, it is our
sincere wish that you must have a positive experience with our company.
It was a pleasure assisting a valued customer like you. We are committed
to ensuring you. Receive the highest quality support possible. We assure
you our best support all the time. We value you as a Dell customer and
your satisfaction is important to us.

If there is anything additional that you need, please feel free to visit
our online Customer Care Center at: http://www.DellCustomerCare.com.

Again, thank you for choosing Dell Online Customer Care.

Have a nice day.

Respectfully,

Ralph
REP ID 72636
Monday-Friday 12:30pm-9:00pm CST
Dell Customer Care

If responding to me, please use the REPLY function of your e-mail
program.
This will keep the same subject line of our e-mail.
Otherwise your message may be delayed or lost.

***********************************************

MY SECOND NOTE TO DELL:

I'm not sure how carefully you read my note below. As I stated previously,
this is NOT a one time complaint about Dell service. This is a complaint about Dell's 
continually worsening support for it's products. My company's focus is
on computers and computer networks for homes and small businesses, and 
we continually come into contact with Dell products. From our recent 
contacts with Dell technical support - and from our customer's comments - I
do NOT feel that Dell provides adequate customer support!

Here are couple of recent examples:

1) I had a customer that had purchased a new Dell Latitude 600 Notebook
with a Dell wireless adapter. We could not get the Dell system to connect to
any wireless network. After being passed around to several Dell technical
support folks, getting disconnected several times, spending over two hours
on the phone, and essentially not getting ANY type of reasonable help (every
Dell person I talked to needed to transfer me to another department) - 
I gave up. Of course, most of these conversations were with Dell support
persons from who knows what country! Turns out that there was a fix for
the Dell wireless adapter that needed to be installed. I got this information 
off of a Google search on the web.

2) Another customer had a Dell laptop with a fried system board. We found a
Dell article that stated that there had been a recall for this make/model of
Dell laptop, and that replacement system boards had been provided from Dell
for free. After many calls to Dell to discuss this issue, Dell refused to consider
replacing the system board even though the folks we spoke to could not find
any documentation that stated why my customer would not be eligible for 
this replacement. We scheduled two follow-on conference calls with Dell 
supervisors, but in both cases no one from Dell called us at the scheduled
time/date.

These are just a couple examples of the extremely poor support that we
have
been receiving from Dell.

James T. Tatsuda

*************************************************

AND HERE'S THE SECOND RESPONSE FROM DELL:

From: US_CAG_Customer_Care [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 3:00 PM
To: Tech-Know-Tats
Subject: RE: #issuenotlisted-Repeat Issue (KMM5149349I21406L0KM)

Dear Mr. Tatsuda

Thank you for contacting Dell Customer Care.

Please accept my apologies for the difficulties you encountered when 
attempting to resolve your problem. I assure you that your situation is
not indicative of the quality service Dell is capable of providing. I 
am truly sorry if we were not able to provide you with an experience,
which was completely satisfactory to you.

Dell strives to provide efficient, effective resolutions for our 
customers. I was concerned to read in your letter that some our 
representatives provided you with anything less than the most courteous 
and professional service. I truly believe that anything less is 
completely unacceptable. We take this information very seriously and 
will move to take immediate corrective action.

We value you as our customer, and your satisfaction is very important to
us.

From your email, I am able to feel as if you are facing some problem 
with the product or services from Dell. I apologize, but I am unable to 
provide the name, but it would be great if you could provide a brief 
description of the problem and I will be happy to assist you. Please
provide the following information so I may access your account:

1. Customer Number #
2. Order Number #
3. System Service Tag: It is a 5 or 7-digit alphanumeric code located
on the back, bottom or right side of the system unit on a bar-coded tag
(ex. ABC12 or A1B2C3D).
4. Full Name on account
5. Address listed on account
6. Phone Number on account

Please do get back to me if you have any further queries, and I would be
happy to assist you in resolving the issue.

In the future, for technical support assistance with your Dell, you can 
contact our Technical Support department directly at.
http://support.dell.com/EmailDell/EmailDell.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&validate=tr
ue

To speak to a Technical Support Representative over the phone, please 
contact 1-800-624-9896 ext. 66955.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact
Dell Customer Care at: www.dellcustomercare.com

Once again, I Apologize for your trouble and I assure you, it is our 
sincere wish that you must have a positive experience with our company. 
It was a pleasure assisting a valued customer like you. We are committed
to ensuring you. Receive the highest quality support possible. We assure
you our best support all the time. We value you as a Dell customer and
your satisfaction is important to us.

Have a nice day.

Respectfully,

Ralph
REP ID 72636
Monday-Friday 12:30pm-9:00pm CST
Dell Customer Care

If responding to me, please use the REPLY function of your e-mail
program.
This will keep the same subject line of our e-mail.
Otherwise your message may be delayed or lost.

**************************************************

MY THIRD AND FINAL NOTE TO DELL:

SO HERE IS ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH DELL SUPPORT!

YOU GUYS DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO READ THE E-MAILS. YOU JUST SEND AN
AUTOMATED CUT & PASTE REPLY TO COMPLAINTS!!

IT'S OBVIOUS TO ME THAT YOU HAVEN'T TAKEN THE TIME TO READ EITHER OF MY TWO PREVIOUS E-MAILS!!

James T. Tatsuda

***************************************************

DELL'S LATEST REPLY:

Sent To: [email protected]
Referring URL: 67.162.57.164
Date Submitted: 9/16/2004
Date Received(K): 9/16/04 02:52:40 PM
Dear Mr. Tatsuda,

Thank you for contacting us again.

Once again, I thank you for sharing your experience with us. Whether 
the feedback we receive is positive or negative, it remains a crucial 
tool for determining how we can best improve our products and services. 
I truly regret any inconvenience or frustration this matter may have 
caused. We value you as our customer and your satisfaction is very 
important to us. If you have any further questions or concerns, please 
do not hesitate to contact us.

Please provide me the service tag, Order Number # or Customer Number # 
so that I should be able to fix your problem.

I apologize for any inconvenience caused to you in dealings with Dell. 
Dell operates from various locations, which may be within the US or 
outside. We have a business model where we aim to achieve maximum cost 
efficiency. As a result some manufacturing or services may be outsourced
to other centers after stringent checks to confirmation of the Dell 
quality. It is this cost effectiveness that we are able to transfer to 
our customers in the form of competitive prices.

But please be assured that irrespective of the location of our 
representatives, we remain committed to your concerns and shall endeavor
to assist you in the best possible manner. If you elaborate on your 
issues in your return mail I assure you that they shall be addressed.

Once again, I apologize and truly regret any inconvenience or 
frustration this matter may have caused you. We value you as our 
customer and your satisfaction is very important to us.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please visit us at: 
www.DellCustomerCare.com

Thank you and have a great day.

Have a nice day.

Respectfully

Ralph
REP ID 72636
Monday-Friday 12:30pm-9:00pm CST
Dell Customer Care

If responding to me, please use the REPLY function of your e-mail 
program.
This will keep the same subject line of our e-mail.
Otherwise your message may be delayed or lost.


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

And this surprises you why? You think you would have noticed it was an automated reply after the second email you sent out. Get the incident number when talking to the first line techs...ALWAYS!! WHen they cannot help tell them you want to go to the second teir support and so on. I agree it is frustrating talking to the overseas help, I had a motherboard at a customers site that needed replacing and they would not listen until I went through their troubleshooting steps and they were like "the motherboard needs replacement" DUH!! The replacement however was taken care of the next day by a homespun tech and completed in a timely manner.

Another thing you will notice about DELL is that when you are ordering a system from them you are stateside with a slick all Engrish salesperson (don't want to lose a sale due to a language barrier), but once you need support it is over the pond to gawd knows where. 

I am all in all pleased with DELL in ther price and warranty and since I can TS my own systems I can deal with the lousy support.


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## TechGuy (Feb 12, 1999)

Did anyone else notice the typos in the copy-and-paste responses?

For example:


> I request you to be more specific about the problem you are facing. Do
> you have any technical problem or *(do)* you want to return the item. Please
> explain *(it to)* me. As in order to assist you better and resolve the issue
> quickly I need to understand the problem completely , only than *(then)* I would
> be able to fix it.


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## Big-K (Nov 22, 2003)

At least most other support systems(email) tell you that its automated. How caring of them. As most on this site have said time and time again, dell support sucks.


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## jillian2 (Sep 11, 2004)

I wholly agree with all the posts on Dell support. I have had a long standing problem that they have yet to fix. After contacting them by phone with no results to the problem , they call me back and leave a message asking me to let them know a day and time for them to call me and I call the number and give them that info. Then , they have sent me three emails asking for the same information which I have given them. They are impossible. 

Another thing I don't like about Dell is when you have to replace a part on your computer, the package says " these parts may be new or refurbished " You never know if you are getting new or refurbished parts. I will never recommend Dell to anyone and will not ppurchase another Dell. I told them so. I also gave them a bad rating on a survey they sent me. And yes, when you call to purchase , you get a very well spoken sales person who has No communications problems. The English is flawless.


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## Big-K (Nov 22, 2003)

I've noticed that those who are computer savvy usually hate the guts out of dell(usually), and those who dont know a damn thing about em usually(usually) think that dell is the best computer company around. Except the whole 'dude your gettin' a dell!' thing. Nobody liked that and we all know it.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I know a little about a puter. I hate HP more than Dell.


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Big-K said:


> I've noticed that those who are computer savvy usually hate the guts out of dell(usually), and those who dont know a damn thing about em usually(usually) think that dell is the best computer company around. Except the whole 'dude your gettin' a dell!' thing. Nobody liked that and we all know it.


OooooKkkkk!! And where did you come up with this brainstorm??


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## Big-K (Nov 22, 2003)

Observations. From what i've seen alot of the dell supporters know little about computers, alot of non-supporters do. I'll take out the majority part if it 'makes you happy'.


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## eoJeoJ (Dec 19, 2003)

Kinda reminds me of Sony support too ahahah


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## Rollin' Rog (Dec 9, 2000)

Had my first experience with Dell phone support today, and frankly couldn't ask for better.

Details in this link:

http://forums.techguy.org/t276853.html


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## lisaa7002 (Jul 14, 2003)

I had to reinstall windows & when I got things running I realized I didn't have any sound. The Dell lady that helped me with the reinstall told me I didn't need to unplug the speakers when I was doing the drivers (I asked) & the guy who tried (for over 45 minutes) to get my sound back told me I didn't need to unplug. I finally hung up with him after trying every possible solution with no results. I unplugged the speakers, reinstalled my drivers & had sound. Now if it seems obvious to someone with limited computer experience that unplugging your extra hardware during re installation would be necessary wouldn't paid employees know this. --- Or should I NOT have had to do it, but I have some freak computer problem that made it necessary? Early on I tried to hook up my tv to my pc to watch movies & it took 5 calls to 5 different people & 3 trips to radio shack to get it done. I think I'll get a job there, I have fixed more computers than they have...., but I guess I like America too much to move.


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## odie3rd (Sep 16, 2004)

ALL THEIR (DELL) tech support as well as telemarketing services is funelled to INDIA. If you watched 60 minutes about 1 month you would have seen what all the large corps are duing. Dell was among this group funnelling their tech support to INDIA. Its a disgrace as to whats going on in the support in the manuf Computer industry. Its forms like this one and others that we have tpo rely on to get all our tech advice from. Thank God for all of you out their for helping others in need of tech help. ODIE


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## cheese (Jun 22, 2003)

Big-K said:


> I've noticed that those who are computer savvy usually hate the guts out of dell(usually), and those who dont know a damn thing about em usually(usually) think that dell is the best computer company around. Except the whole 'dude your gettin' a dell!' thing. Nobody liked that and we all know it.


I agree.


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