Dell Customer Service

[sundaymorningstaple]

A lot of people have dissed Dell's customer service here over the years and I've generally been the only proponent who had good things to say.

Well, I'll say them again. Tuesday evening (11th) I shut down my Inspiron 9300 around midnight as per normal. Wednesday, upon returning home from work ~8 pm I turned it on as per normal. (well not quite) Nothing happened. Zilch, Zip, Nada, nothing! No lights, bells, whistles, smoke - anything at all. Absolutely nothing. Like it died in it's sleep. Unplugged the AC pack to try on battery - nothing. Tried second AC pack - nothing. D'oh. Withdrawal on Wednesday night!

Packed it into my Dell backpack Thursday morning and took it to the office to see what was going to transpire when I made a call to Dell. Called my Customer Service Rep around 10 am. Told her briefly what was wrong (it don't start!) and asked her to have a tech rep call me. Actually, she went internally and then transferred me directly to a tech. After ascertaining that it wouldn't start, Indicated that it would probably entail a changing of the motherboard. Groan! Indicated that the Service Engineer would call me on Friday or Monday to schedule a time.

Yesterday morning (Friday, 10 am) the Engineer called me and indicated he would be at my home address between 7 & 9 pm yesterday evening! (same day!) He arrived last night a 8:15 and by 8:45 pm had changed the motherboard, ran all the tests and left me with a find working notebook. Very impressed.

Oh, the cost? Nothing. I did opt for the 3 years limited guarantee with 1st year everything no matter what covered (coffee in the notebook type of stuff). The Notebook just passed the 2 year mark in November.

Good service. Can't complain at all.

[Plavt]

Lucky 'little rat'. Took three days for a technician to turn up here. Actually things aren't as bad if you are able to physically contact Dell or a local dealer. The problems start when you call call-centres, not infrequently it is 'pot-luck' whether the technician you get is well experienced or not.

Dell's mistake was to move all their phone based tech support to India where many of the staff had not sufficient experience of speaking English and had difficulty in understanding hence they would impute things into something they understood and as a result answer a different question to the one asked. I gather the some companies which may or may not include Dell insisted the staff go by scripts and wouldn't let them deviate from that - fine until what you need is not in the script.

Personally I found Hewlett-Packard to be the worst although they have since moved their phone based technical support to South Africa and Dell has moved its laptop service back to Ireland both companies having been besieged with complaints.

A latest fad in the UK is companies advertise: 'UK based call centres.'

[sundaymorningstaple]

The secret I learned long ago with Dell. Never just buy online. Call and use a customer sales rep. Get to know them. Always use them when you buy a new machine (they get commissions-costs you nothing but you get lots of good will). They will also give you their code number and even if you do buy online, by entering their code they get credit for the sale. I always configure online and then save my configuration and email the shopping cart retrieval number to my customer service rep. If I want anything different then she will get it sorted. I bought another desktop about two weeks ago for my boss. He wanted a heavy-duty one for gaming for his son. Didn't want another monitor though. Can't do that online. Customer sales rep took care of it no problem. Anyway, when I have as problem, I call my sales rep and let her contact tech support (the sales rep will make sure things go right as their future sales depends on the service ultimately. Just have to learn how to make the system work for you.

[Plavt]

The secret I learned long ago with Dell. Never just buy online. Call and use a customer sales rep. Get to know them. Always use them when you buy a new machine

Not possible in the UK, in the first place Dell don't have showrooms and the sales reps keep changing. As for technical support, the telephone facility is the only option. Although you might have a business deal in which case facilities will be different to a home user.

[seasider]

I think the "Dell sucks" is a bit of an urban myth started on the OB by some disgruntled poster - oh no, hang on, it was that happy chappy owner, wasn't it? My husband does what sms suggests - he has a sales contact he uses.

Incidentally, my desktop is an HP and I recently had a problem with it. Husband took it to the HP service centre, brought it back, they'd fixed one problem and caused another. He then found out they do housecalls - they did this so that they could test the machine in situ. From this he learned that their callout fee, including the service, is quite a bit cheaper than a service plus 2 taxi fares, not to mention less hassle.

Worth checking out in similar situations.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Not possible in the UK, in the first place Dell don't have showrooms and the sales reps keep changing. As for technical support, the telephone facility is the only option. Although you might have a business deal in which case facilities will be different to a home user.

Until recently (2 years ago) Dell did not a showroom here either. They still don't really. They have a kiosk in Suntec city where you can order "online" from and that's about it. If you go to the website you will find a local contact number or look them up in the phone directory. They will normally have a commercial sales office number. Use it. They will connect you to a personal sales rep unless they decide to take care of it themselves. It's not a real problem. Singapore does not have a manufacturing plant here either. Dell's are made in Penang in Malaysia. As far as sales reps changing, I'm on my third one now and have been with her for a couple of years now. She has taken over from the first two and has taken over their contact/customer lists as well. This is normal.

In the UK start here: General Sales Enquiries 0870 907 3354 (9am - 5:30pm Monday - Friday)

Once you place an order through that person, make sure you get their name and a follow-up email from him/her. That email will also give you more contact numbers and you should also get their switchboard extension number (in Singapore it's a 4 digit number followed by the # sign). Bob's your uncle!

[Plavt]

Sms,
Once again you fail to understand how things operate in the Uk, those numbers you quote I am well aware of. The sales rep is in a different department to the technical support and any enquiry regarding such issues will be referred to the telephone technical support which will be wherever Dell cares to put it. As I said the reps keep changing and when you dial those numbers you are more often than not routed to India often making the issue more complicated than it need be. However, I no longer buy Dell equipment.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Our sales reps are in different departments as well. This is the same with Dell's SOP around the world. However, inter-company connectivity is usually handled with more urgency than external calls. But, no problems, I know you no longer use Dell, but for other's who are, this is a way that works in the US, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and who knows were else. Strange that the UK doesn't follow the Corporate SOP like the rest of the world?

Course, for purposes of this Singapore Based Forum, all that really matters is how it works here, right!

[Plavt]

Our sales reps are in different departments as well. This is the same with Dell's SOP around the world. However, inter-company connectivity is usually handled with more urgency than external calls. But, no problems, I know you no longer use Dell, but for other's who are, this is a way that works in the US, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and who knows were else. Strange that the UK doesn't follow the Corporate SOP like the rest of the world?

You haven't said but it seems you are speaking from a business perspective in which case you will get far better treatment (like most other computer corps), while I have been speaking from that of a home user. Maybe this is the reason we are at cross purposes here.

Course, for purposes of this Singapore Based Forum, all that really matters is how it works here, right!

You may be more accurate than you realize, in some survey conducted one year Hewlett Packard was seen as the best employer pushing Singapore Airlines into second place. In addition with Singapore being as business orientated as it is a company has rather more noticeable competition as you and anybody else living there knows.

[sundaymorningstaple]

You may be more accurate than you realize, in some survey conducted one year Hewlett Packard was seen as the best employer pushing Singapore Airlines into second place. In addition with Singapore being as business orientated as it is a company has rather more noticeable competition as you and anybody else living there knows.

The only reason HP won that year as that's the year flexi-work was put into practice in Singapore (still about the only one that works properly as well).

My Customer sales rep was a result of a personal purchase. It was this reason that I eventually used dell for my last two employers. In my case it was personal that led to business but as I worked for small SME's of less than 50 PC's It was alway handled by the same people. Larger organizations use a different group altogether.

[ben02]

A lot of people have dissed Dell's customer service here over the years and I've generally been the only proponent who had good things to say.

Well, I'll say them again. Tuesday evening (11th) I shut down my Inspiron 9300 around midnight as per normal. Wednesday, upon returning home from work ~8 pm I turned it on as per normal. (well not quite) Nothing happened. Zilch, Zip, Nada, nothing! No lights, bells, whistles, smoke - anything at all. Absolutely nothing. Like it died in it's sleep. Unplugged the AC pack to try on battery - nothing. Tried second AC pack - nothing. D'oh. Withdrawal on Wednesday night!

Packed it into my Dell backpack Thursday morning and took it to the office to see what was going to transpire when I made a call to Dell. Called my Customer Service Rep around 10 am. Told her briefly what was wrong (it don't start!) and asked her to have a tech rep call me. Actually, she went internally and then transferred me directly to a tech. After ascertaining that it wouldn't start, Indicated that it would probably entail a changing of the motherboard. Groan! Indicated that the Service Engineer would call me on Friday or Monday to schedule a time.

Yesterday morning (Friday, 10 am) the Engineer called me and indicated he would be at my home address between 7 & 9 pm yesterday evening! (same day!) He arrived last night a 8:15 and by 8:45 pm had changed the motherboard, ran all the tests and left me with a find working notebook. Very impressed.

Oh, the cost? Nothing. I did opt for the 3 years limited guarantee with 1st year everything no matter what covered (coffee in the notebook type of stuff). The Notebook just passed the 2 year mark in November.

Good service. Can't complain at all.

Ya.. i second that .. well, for my case, no technician came to my hse before, but their CS is really fantastic, especially the techical support side.. i have called them on numerous occasions, and each time i called, its like i just felt like an VIP.. even though my queries were those relatively common ones, like bluetooth unable to work, how to reformat the PC and stuff.. they could easily shoo me off, but it never happened..

i must say im really impressed with their service.. (but so cant be said of their computers though)..

[footprintss]

i must comment tat their CS is really good~ so far so good..

[rihhana_taylor]

i must comment tat their CS is really good~ so far so good..

I agree with you. They are really excellent.

[seasider]

i must comment tat their CS is really good~ so far so good..

Yeah but you're an infamous spammer from an electronics retailer, so your opinion doesn't count.

[sundaymorningstaple]