Survey: Dell customer satisfaction unsatisfactory

[JohnnyCNote]

PC maker Dell continued to have difficulty meeting all of its business customers' expectations for service during the first quarter, according to a survey.

[Poppa_Meth]

service has been fine for me, not that I've had to call that often. Only once in the past year for a bad DVD-ROM in my new PC, but it was taken care of quickly.

[Faustus]

Thats because most people only speak to software support, which is in India, the company I work for does/did (we are losing the contract soonish) the hardware support, I've heard tons of nightmare stories about the stuff transfered to them and the number of times they have been punted around by the tech support over seas. We are talking 5+ hours on the phone with some of them.

So yeah it sucks hard.

[PAB]

I bought a dell in march. Thought i was getting a DVD burner-my fault.
So i called them i had to talk to 4 people before i could get them to
understand that i wanted to trade the DVD player in for a burner. Took
my credit card for the difference in price,was told i would get a credit for
the other unit i sent back. That took about 7 call and about 4 hours on
the phone.

[lordsmurf]

I bought a dell in march. Thought i was getting a DVD burner-my fault.
So i called them i had to talk to 4 people before i could get them to
understand that i wanted to trade the DVD player in for a burner. Took
my credit card for the difference in price,was told i would get a credit for
the other unit i sent back. That took about 7 call and about 4 hours on
the phone.

You could have driven to Round Rock in that amount of time, just dealt with it at corporate HQ.

[tekkieman]

Dell support leaves much to be desired since it outsourced support overseas. Dell's own support board bears the proof. Rumor had it that they were considering bringing business support back to the U.S. due to the large number of accounts they were losing because of it. Personal users would still be SOL.

On the other hand, I bought 5 of their machines last year for family members (ok, and one for myself ). They have all work flawlessly! No, they cannot be upgraded much, but the prices were incredible, and the machines all do what they are supposed to. Did I say the prices were incredible? Didn't pay more than $450 for any one complete system. The lowest was $375 for a full system! If nothing else, they do make good machines (for what they are)

So if you want a machine that you don't need to mess with, and want it cheap, and don't need support, Dell is ok.

Sorry for the long response -- Yes, Dell support sucks!

[gitreel]

I would rather build my own. That way you can upgrade to your hearts content. My first computer I built, I did it for $350.

It is well known that dell uses cheap parts. At school, about ten of our systems had to have replacement processor fans and power supplies.

[tommyoz]

I don't know much about home user support but for business support they do take care of things. I work for a school district and have never had any problem with them. I tell them what I know, they confirm it and they send the new part. New part received in 1 day.

However, I would never personaly buy a computer from anyone. I have always built my own.

[FulciLives]

A friend of mine who isn't very experienced with computers had some problems with his DELL computer recently and dealing with DELL tech support was a total nightmare.

I even tried to help him but I too found it a nightmare. The manual that came with the computer was crap ... the proceedure for a full re-install was crap (recently did it on a friend's SONY VAIO and it was a piece of cake ... I also have a SONY VAIO and have done that ... again piece of cake).

Dealing with tech support was crap. Very long wait times ... hardly knew what they were doing ... hard to get a simple answer (i.e., do I do this first that that or the other way around) etc.

At one point my friend questioned talking to non-native-speaking tech people. He was told that if he paid $150 he would get a "extra super" tech support option and only speak to people in the USA. He did that and STILL got people overseas.

Did I mention the insane wait times? Also as others have said you get transfered around and around and it never seems as though you get straight from one person to the next as you should but instead end up in some VOID comming back to a general tech help area instead of the more specific area you should have been transfered too!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[ViRaL1]

I can say from past experience (been a year or two) that DELL support for medium and large businesses was very helpful and knowledgeable. Home user support on the other hand has recently left a lot to be desired. Outsourcing has turned out to be a bad idea from a customer service standpoint, and not just for DELL. SBC is also a major offender. Talking with support people and having to take turns repeating things because neither one of you can understand the other is the biggest hassle. That and listening to idiots reading from a script when it's obvious there's something else wrong. How many times do I have to clear my Internet Explorer cache before you figure out that it won't bump a 1.5Mb connection up to 5Mb. On the other hand, 1 call to a stateside tech and their escalation got my upgrade working in minutes. It turned out to be something not completed on their end, imagine that. DELL has seen better days, but I believe that several businesses are losing sight of 'you get what you pay for,' believing that several low-pay replacements can do the same jobs just as well as trained / certified / experienced workers. I guess they'll have to take their lumps before they realize the value of GOOD customer service, not just LOTS of customer service.

[Capmaster]

A couple of years ago I ordered a new Dell laptop for my wife. It was a 1 GHz P3 with a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive.

It arrived minus the CD drive. I called and they said they knew about it and were sending the drive out separately. To make a long story short, they kept saying "it's on its way" for 3 weeks. In the meantime the laptop was useless. Ever try using a new machine without a CD to load SW?

Eventually they admitted that they never shipped the drive and they had no idea when the factory would receive it. I asked why they lied, and why they didn't just level with us and say it'd be 3 weeks, or 4 weeks, or whatever. They kept us waiting for the part every day for almost a month before they admitted they had no idea when it would arrive.

They offered me a new digital camera if I'd wait a little longer ("little?" ). A cheapo HP point-and-shoot. I said, no thanks, I just want to send the laptop back to them, get a refund, and buy one from a firm that can deliver the entire machine at once. I also told them they would of course pay for the return shipping ....that I insisted They did.

We went to Best Buy bought an HP Pavilion N5490 for her (and saved $300 for the same equivalent machine) and she loves it. We'll never buy another Dell product.

[RottenFoxBreath]

my parents bought a DELL desktop last year,and it turned out to be one of the biggest nightmares they have had.
DVD-ROM was faulty,network card was faulty,the geforce graphics card they requested turned out to be an oboard affair,1ram slot-after asking if it was upgradeable in the future,and the flat screen monitor was all "milky"-the only way i could describe the screen.
**the person on the phone eventually told them that a keyboard is classed as an upgrade.
tech support for faulty equipment was hopeless-the people on the other side were totally non-understandable,almost bordering on bad comedy indian accents.
the hardware support was even worse,they had to send the pc back,at there own expense,it disappeared for about 2 1/2 months,and when they got it back,it wasnt theirs,it had someone elses details and software on it.
eventually,they sent it back,got in touch with the credit card company,who refunded all the costs in full,and that was that.
now they have a home built pc,with quality parts,no problems with it so far,almost a year down the line,and are happy with it.
just recently,DELL uk,or europe for that matter,were on BBC tv programme,"watchdog" as hundreds of people had complained about there sub-standard parts and service.
i honestly can see them going the same way,as tiny,and time.
hopefully they will do

[indolikaa]

Dell's small business support blows dog balls.

[gitreel]

Dell's small business support blows dog balls.

[TBoneit]

Sometimes we have to deal with "Dell" here at work......

Nobody wants to call and deal with the bad phone connections, disconnects, accent, they cannot understand and/or we cannot understand them, and the general incompetence of "Dell" support.

Unfortunately we have to deal with them getting parts for repair on customers machines since the newer one especially seem very proprietary.

You can't really change to a non dell MB unless you rewire all t he connectors, they have a small footprint that uses a weird size power supply etc.

Usual call takes 2-3 hours just to order the part we want, then it may be bad or wrong.

Last Power supply they shipped wrong style, then after another 2-3 hours we got credit and re-ordered. In the meantime the township fire dept. Was without their fire inspections computer. And we wanted new, they shipped refurb.

Last motherboard turned out to be refurb and have bad USB ports. and on and on.

If a Dell needs repair parts then it waits til we are not busy due to the phone call length.

Dell = Bah Humbug!

Cheap when they work, Decent S/w bundle but....

Cheers

[JohnnyCNote]

It's too bad to see what was once a great company go down the tubes like this....

[g_wiz]

In your honest opinions which consumer electronic company has the best and which company has the worst customer support services.

[TBoneit]

Well I'm sort of Biased....

However in terms of ease and speed for hard disks...
Samsung Very easy, very fast, standard less than a week from shipping to them until return.

Western Digital Easy, slower standard warranty process.

Maxtor, Worst, Seagate no real experiences.

For whole computers:

Build your own using quality (Not cheapo) parts.
Asus MBs, Western Digital, ATI Video, Creative sound (or much of the newer built in isn't bad) Good Luck with Lite-On Opticals. (still using a Sony DRU-500a myself from november 2002, and a lite-on 16x reader.
Quality memory brand not that PNY you see everywhere (They seem to buy whoever is cheapest. (Running Kingston myself.) I Prefer Intel processors myself as they seem to run cooler, I don't overclock and use retail boxed processors for Intel or AMD, Never a heat problem with retail boxes. I run my personal computer overnight encoding multiple files with Asus, Intel, Kingston Westerm Digital drives and never a blip or crash doing so.

IMHO you get what you pay for. I can not tell how many bad parts I've diagnosed for customers that were bought from Internet vendors or Computer shows. Buy from the local guy that will warrantee and diagnose problems. Buy from one vendor, might cost a little more but in case of problems you don't get the finger pointing where each one says it isn't my parts it's the other guys parts.

One notable one that comes to mind is the guy who bought Win98 from a show, looked real, darn shame the disk was blank!

Cheers

[Calico]

I bought my second Dell in Jan of '03 and I am on it right now.

My first Dell was such a nice machine that I went ahead and ordered another one from them.

Everything was great until last summer when my harddrive crashed during a video render. I called tech support and my nightmare began.

I was transfered over seas where the tech support guy was one of the biggest a-holes I have ever had to talk to.

He could not understand that I actually knew something about computers and I had already trouble shooted my IDE cable and whatnot. Whenever he wanted me to try something I would say I had already done that. After a few mins he blows up at me on the phone yelling at me because I was being difficult. I have a short temper, so I lost it and for 5 mins we have a screaming match on the phone. He finally hangs up on me and I call back and get ahold of another tech guy.

They finally decide that my harddrive is indeed blown (funny how the drive making a loud click noise was not enough to tell them that and they ignored me everytime I told them about it).

They decide to send me a replacement drive. The NEXT morning, my new drive shows up (I live in Austin, so that might have something to do with the quick turnaround on the drive). I was about to forgive Dell for their mistakes, then I notice that the drive is stamped REFURBISHED. F-ing special.

And surprise surprise. The new drive also did not work. So I spend another 3 hours on the phone with Tech just setting up a new drive to be delivered. I finally gave up and just told them to send a tech guy out to fix it because I was going to Hawaii in 2 days for 2 weeks and I did not want to deal with it anymore.

When I got back from Hawaii, the drive was in and my computer was finally fixed. My apartment roommate said he told the tech guy to just come into the apartment if no one answered the door when the tech guy called setting up a time to come by. My roommate said he came home to find the tech guy spread out on our couch watching TV and enjoying a beer of mine when he got back from Best Buy. Unreal.

Since then I have loved my computer but I am not sure if I will ever buy another one from Dell unless they make alot of changes.

I also have a job interview with Dell in Round Rock next week. Although I don't think I will work there even if they want me. A buddy of mine worked customer service there and he worked 6 days a week, 7 am to 10pm.

[BobV]

I advised my son to get a dell when he asked and I'd do it again provided the end user was not going to open the case often. Out of the box they are good but just don't start trying to change the OS or hardhare.

[stiltman]

Funny, I just got out of a meeting with our Dell rep.
They have been very good to us (me).

Matter of fact I just got a free laptop (for a year but the last one they never asked for me to return it )

[elkfir]

I'm still using my 4 year old Dell (866MHz PIII). I swapped out the video card, all of the optical drives (it came with CD-RW and a real crappy DVD-ROM), added memory, hard drives...etc. and it's been working fine. When I did have to call support, I was clearly talking to someone in India. They were helpful, but I ended up figuring it out for myself.

I probably won't be getting another Dell though. I don't have room for another desktop, and I really like Toshiba laptops.

[Marvingj]

Dell use to be Number #1 in Customer Service, What happen to there committment. Oh Yea, I forgot just like all Companies its about the money!

[DVD_Ripper]

On the phone software / hware troubleshooting = excellent.
I returned a P3 Inspiron Laptop and it was lost for two weeks = weak

I'm down on mailorder and rebates these days

[Poppa_Meth]

so what's the best prefab system you can buy now, company wise? Are the VAIOs any good? I'd prefer to build my own system but I've got all sorts of people that like to depend on me to set up new out of the box systems for them to order. I use to go with DELL all the time but that seems to be a bad option now and I'd hate to recommend them to anyone. It's hard to tell who to go with for a decent prefab system anymore.

[FulciLives]

As far as a pre-built system I am rather partial to the SONY VAIO models just make sure you get one that comes with a real video card. I notice some models come with an ATI card and some use a built-in INTEL chipset video card.

Obviously you want one that uses an ATI card instead of the built-in INTEL chipset video "card".

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[stiltman]

so what's the best prefab system you can buy now, company wise? Are the VAIOs any good? I'd prefer to build my own system but I've got all sorts of people that like to depend on me to set up new out of the box systems for them to order. I use to go with DELL all the time but that seems to be a bad option now and I'd hate to recommend them to anyone. It's hard to tell who to go with for a decent prefab system anymore.

I still recommend Dell. Actually, I recommend to everyone to get a refurb system. May not be able to modify them with add-ons from the factory, but they are a shit load cheaper with all the warrenties. In most cases they are just canceled pre-order systems and have never even made it to a customers house/business. Time/money/warrenty you can't beat these

[rkr1958]

As far as a pre-built system I am rather partial to the SONY VAIO models just make sure you get one that comes with a real video card. I notice some models come with an ATI card and some use a built-in INTEL chipset video card.

Obviously you want one that uses an ATI card instead of the built-in INTEL chipset video "card".

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Also, maybe not a big deal to most but to me it is ... make sure you have enough open PCI slots if you're planning upgrades like a TV tuner card or and PCI IDE controller card. I've noticed that a lot of the Off-The-Shelf computers come with 3 PCI slots and usually one or two of those are taken.

[gcutler]

Dell use to be Number #1 in Customer Service, What happen to there committment. Oh Yea, I forgot just like all Companies its about the money!

In a way it's our own fault, by many buying the cheapest units available we have caused the companies to lower their margins and thus reduce income and thus need to outsource. It is a Catch-22



By the way, OOOOPS, Accidentally clicked on "Report This Post", Sorry.... I need new glasses

[Captain315]

Personally, I won't buy another Dell product. This one I'm on is my 6th and last computer from them. I'm not that learned when it comes to building one myself but I really believe that's the way I will go in the future. Dell tech support has gotten so bad that I don't even call them anymore. That and the fact that the parts they use are nearly "junk", has caused them to lose me as a customer. Like someone said in an earlier post.... Dell is going down the crapper and I hate to see that happen. Why couldn't they learn from the mistakes of Gateway? It's all their own doing and they have no one else to blame.