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May 03, 2004 -- Dell customer service suffering

You’ve probably heard of the company, Dell, which then college student Michael Dell started in his dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin years ago. He dropped out of school to continue building the company, and it’s now one of the most efficient computer manufacturers in the world. Because of its huge success, however, Dell has gotten a reputation for having lacking customer services. People are calling Dell over and over again, and they’re beating their heads against the wall. Complaints against Dell to the Better Business Bureau have tripled in the past year. And customers have even taken complaints to the state’s attorney general’s office. The company is outsourcing most of its customer service work, so the people answering questions have no connection to the company and don’t care. This company has done a fantastic job providing a great product to the public for a relatively low cost. But when the chips are down, Dell isn’t coming through. To it’s credit, Dell acknowledges the problem, and the company is working to correct the problem. They have started a new program called “Voice of the Customer,” which has several goals. They include, being courteous to customers, fixing problems faster, making it easier to talk to a human and making sure items are shipped on time. We’ll see if it happens.



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What others are saying

  • New Dell Computer Tech Support (lack of)
    I've had my desktop for 4 weeks and have been on the phone with 15 reps and over 12 hours. No resolution team, no support team, and NO empathy for the customer. They jerked me around on my printer past the 21 day return period only to replace my printer with a "refurbished" model. Added software that totally destroyed other features (ie speakers). Hung up on me several times. I've worked for a Fortune 10 company and ran many call centers - never letting the company push me to India - I could go on forever. DON'T BUY A DELL...
  • Dell Should be Ashamed!
    Here is the list of emails I have found on the internet so far. Please do NOT forget to add your contact information to your complaint. I also strongly suggest using BBB. Their current "grade" at BBB is a C+.

    Michael@dell.com
    michael_dell@dell.com
    ronald_garriques@dell.com
    lawrence_tu@dell.com
    andrew_esparza@dell.com
    paul_bell@dell.com
    stephen_felice@dell.com
    david_marmonti@dell.com
    brad_anderson@dell.com
    jeffrey_clarke@dell.com
    alex_gruzen@dell.com
    joan_hooper@dell.com
    william_gray@dell.com
    Brooke_Adams@Dell.com
    stephen_linder@dell.com
    Swastik_Ghosh@Dell.com
    Dawna_Richmond@Dell.com
    Richard_Bernier@Dell.com
    Us_dfs_customer_experience@dell.com
    geoffrey_knox@dell.com
    andrew_ramer@dell.com
    michael_george@dell.com
    Brian_r_davis@dell.com
    duane_pond@dell.com
    Tracey_selberg@dell.com
    jennifer_harrell@dell.com
    david_slaughter@dell.com
    kelly_rogers@dell.com
    Tammy_Luong@dell.com
    Brian_r_davis@dell.com
    au_tech_support@dell.com
    Greg_wills@dell.com
    kelly_boatright@dell.com
    david_frink@dell.com
    jess_blackburn@dell.com
    robert_williams@dell.com
    shep_dunlap@dell.com
    lionel_menchaca@dell.com
    stephen_linder@dell.com
    David_frink@dell.com
    robert_williams@dell.com
    Jess_blackburn@dell.com
    Susan_Sheskey@Dell.com
    jeff_riojas@dell.com
    leonardo_g_llagas@dell.com
    Burke_Banda@dell.com
    Kamran_Malek@dell.com
    william_j_martin@dell.com
    dnsadmin@adell.com
    Andre_Fuqua@Dell.com
    James_Howicz@Dell.com
    Stacey_Ebert@Dell.com
    jennifer_cole@dell.com
    Jonna_Watson@dell.com
  • BAD BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE
    Dell Tech support diagnosed my computer and deemed I needed a new Hard Drive. I ordered a new hard drive and it arrived in a timely manner. Unfortunately it had the incorrect interconnect (IDE vs SATA) Dell informed me that I would need to place an order and charge my account a second time for the correct hard drive as well as make arrangements to return the incorrect drive. I reluctantly agreed to purchase another Hard Drive and wait an additional 5-6 days for the correct Hard Drive to arrive.
    Well it arrived today and low and behold it’s a Lap Top Drive? Again I contacted Dell and escalated to Jennifer (ID 106239)in Customer Care. She ended up hanging up on me. The people in Customer Care are not helpful at all and not worth the effort to talk to. They basically are there to say “We are sorry for the inconvenience” and not much more. I sort of feel sorry for them. They would not discuss a change order without charging my card a third time. Negotiating was futile. I assume they do this on purpose to show that they are moving orders. I had them issue an RMA for the second incorrect Hard Drive and called it a learning lesson with Dell. I have been a loyal Dell Customer but not no more. Disappointing from a company I trusted
  • Dell Stinks!!
    You are speaking to customer service reps who can't hardly speak English and who really don't care about your problem!!!
  • dell
    i too have had a multitude of problems with dell. if i were to take each one individually it would simply be an annoyance. but adding them all up causes absolute frustration and a conclusion that i'll never buy another dell and i will strongly suggest to anyone i can to do the same
  • BROUGHT DELL LAPTOP/WON ONE TOO
    THEY NEVER SEND THE ONE I WON AND THE ONE BOUGHT, THEY DIDN'T GIVE THE THUMB ID'ER. SENT TO WRONG ADDRESS. HUNG UP ON ME, SPYWARE ENDED TOO SOON. IT WAS SUPPOSE TO BE AS LONG AS MY OLD ONE. NOW I NEED AN APPLICATION TO FILE THE COMPLIANT AND I CAN'T FIND IT ON HOWARD CLARK'S SITE. BEFORE DEADLINE! I NEED THE COMPUTER I WON AND THE COMPUTER I ORDERED.
  • Dell Tech Service
    I also bought the best plan Dell had. My hardware warranty is up in December. I've been on the phone with them so many times I've lost track. They refused to help me. They ran their scans on it. It never ever showed when they did it that the hard drive had errors on it. I will never ever buy another Dell. And Tell my friends not to as well
  • Dell Tech Service
    I bought the best plan Dell had , they refused to do anything for me and they hung up on me. I will never buy any dell product and I will tell everybody not to buy Dell
  • No warranty
    I lease a computer from Dell with option to buy for $1 upon completion of payment. A few months after buying , my finger inadvertently broke the monitor while I was plugging it. I contacted Dell but they refused to fix it for free. Finally I had to buy another screen from them and paid someone else to do it costing me nearly $500.00. Am I eleigible to receive money from the settlement?
  • New Laptop
    Used the computer for 3 power ups and on the fourth had a black screen, sent to the dell depot for repairs and then they stated water on computer untrue in my regards. It took 4 months to settle the repair with 26 hours on the phone to talk to the Philippines, India and etc. I never spoke to anyone in the USA and they lost my computer and they thought I would forget about it. I involved legal assistance to take care of the matter and now I have my computer back since August.
  • Dell Complaints
    I,too, have experienced every complaint known to Dell. I even wrote to their Customer Care to tell them I would be calling my local station. No response. I feel you would be the better way. I hop the State of Arizona would join against them (one could only hope.) However I would LOVE to file a complaint. Do you have a form?
    by Corinne 1/27/09
  • New computer and printer
    $1000.00 for a PC and a printer. PC freezes up constantly. Printer worked for the first month and hasn't printed a thing since. Dell washed their hands of it after 30 days. Waste of several hours on the phone trying to get help. Never again ! Waste of money...
  • dell
    i bought a DEll 8 years ago and I still owe three times what it originally cost because of late and over-the-limit fees.
  • Ordered abrand new cumputer and i still cant get on-line
    dell says its comcast falt and comcast says its dells falt. What do i do?????
  • Dell
    The last time I called dell customer service the recording said for a fee I could talk to an american.
  • This one's classic
    I had a printing problem with my Dell printer (I know, sucker!) But it was almost free. Any way I have an XPS with 3 threes of phone tech service (suckers!) so I called Dell on the special XPS line and gave my express service code (yeah right!). Three times I called the number I was given to call, punched the buttons to get to Printer issues, and was told that XPS doesn't service printer tech, so they transferred my to printer tech support. Each time I talked the the tech associate in the Philippines, they couldn't get past the script to try and sell me color ink cartridges before helping with my issue, each time I hung up in defeat. After haranguing for a supervisor at XPS, by requesting the "Customer Call" they warm transferred my to printer tech. This was about an hour after my first call, and was talking to at least my 6th person. Then and only then did this tech guys say, "oh, your tech support warranty expires in April" you will have to go to dell.com or pay for help. Since I had already wasted an hour and a half to get to this point, and this was the first call 9on a printer matter in the year I'd had the printer (I do not print that much, it was almost free, remember :) I said no way, I then tried for another 2 hours to see if there was anyone at Dell interested in providing a sucker (er) customer with service. Sad to say this veteran of customer "no service" calls, went down in flames, no luck.

    Lessons? One, do not ever by a Dell printer; do not even take one from free it's a racket to get you sucked into Dell ink cartridge hell. Two, test every possible job you might want to do on your product before the warranty ends with Dell, because unlike most Companies I've called, there is no "Extra hops you can jump to get to anyone at Dell that has the interest and authority to go outside "policy." Three, Dell has a great way to avoid real customer service. The have a firewall between "Customer Service and Tech Support. No one in Customer Care has the authority to tell Tech support to care for a customer.
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