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I Hate Dell

I had my Dell laptop start being a bit finicky. Believed it was the motherboard. Called it in, they asked a few generic troubleshooting questions (i.e. had I done X and Y and I said "yes"). <24 hours later someone was at my place, replacing the motherboard. Computer has worked perfect since.
 
rhouck said:
I had my Dell laptop start being a bit finicky. Believed it was the motherboard. Called it in, they asked a few generic troubleshooting questions (i.e. had I done X and Y and I said "yes"). <24 hours later someone was at my place, replacing the motherboard. Computer has worked perfect since.
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Be very glad that you got a decent phone tech and a good repair tech. Both are harder to come by than you would think... especially the phone techs.
 
Whenever I had a problem with Dell computer or accessories, I would have to spend at least 2-3 hours jumping through hoops just to get service...Never more Dell.
 
Azhar said:
It's easier to service 10 people than 10,000 people. Any questions?
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And remember that out of those 10 users 5 of them are Apple apologists who would blame any fualt on the user rather than Mighty Apple

You should always take surveys from Mac users with a grain of salt. Their passion for their beloved company would somehow "influence" their judgement
 
Gott said:
I've only used Dell support on their business level and they've been pretty good.
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Same here, but i also haven't had to RMA anything, only times i have contacted them was when they said an order would take a month, and the next day i got a tracking number and it was on it's way, OH, 4 years ago we had a DVD drive go bad on a 7 month old dell we ordered via Dell US, we are in costa rica, the next day they had someone from dell CR at our door to replace the drive.
 
WAKASHIZuMa said:
And remember that out of those 10 users 5 of them are Apple apologists who would blame any fualt on the user rather than Mighty Apple

You should always take surveys from Mac users with a grain of salt. Their passion for their beloved company would somehow "influence" their judgement
Click to expand...

Personally I think Apple is going about things the wrong way. They need to stop attacking Microsoft and making Microsoft their main competition. After all, Windows work on Apple computers. Why chase away potential Apple sales to people who wants Windows on it?

Apple needs to rethink their marketing. Consider this: Apple has what? 8% of the market share? Put it in perspective. Let's say Dell has 25%, HP has 25%, Acer has 25%, and Apple has 25%. If Apple use Microsoft as their competition, they will have 25% of the market share, while PC has 75%. Change their strategy and attack the OEM market instead. Pitch their product against Dell. Show that they can also run Windows. Show that they have IPC screens. Show that their Mighty Mouse is awesome. Show that Dell doesn't have any of those. Reduce Dell's market penetration, and the margin will spread out to other OEMs, Apple's will increase.

Apple needs to leave Microsoft alone. Microsoft's a giant that simply can't be touched because of their global and business penetration and tight partnership with just about every developers for every category of software. Instead, embrace Microsoft and attack other OEM manufacturers.

If anything else, this would kick Dell into gear and make them improve their products and services.
 
Azhar said:
Personally I think Apple is going about things the wrong way. They need to stop attacking Microsoft and making Microsoft their main competition. After all, Windows work on Apple computers. Why chase away potential Apple sales to people who wants Windows on it?

Apple needs to rethink their marketing. Consider this: Apple has what? 8% of the market share? Put it in perspective. Let's say Dell has 25%, HP has 25%, Acer has 25%, and Apple has 25%. If Apple use Microsoft as their competition, they will have 25% of the market share, while PC has 75%. Change their strategy and attack the OEM market instead. Pitch their product against Dell. Show that they can also run Windows. Show that they have IPC screens. Show that their Mighty Mouse is awesome. Show that Dell doesn't have any of those. Reduce Dell's market penetration, and the margin will spread out to other OEMs, Apple's will increase.

Apple needs to leave Microsoft alone. Microsoft's a giant that simply can't be touched because of their global and business penetration and tight partnership with just about every developers for every category of software. Instead, embrace Microsoft and attack other OEM manufacturers.

If anything else, this would kick Dell into gear and make them improve their products and services.
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Apple had a good run with the whole Vista fiasco. Obviously Vista is not the ultimate failure that it is portrayed; it is in fact a very good OS but the whole drivers issue at launch and few performancee bugs didn't help either. While Microsoft managed to lose very little marketshare because of Vista and they still made good profit, they have been damaged badly by Vista in public's eye

Their ads however are getting really repetitive and obnoxious. They were funny when they started but now when Windows 7 is out and getting rave reviews, I agree with you regarding changing their strategy

The whole Apple cult is always about the competition with Microsoft. It is true that Apple and Microsoft have very different strategy and their target markets are different, but the old Apple vs. Microsoft will always exist especially now that Apple is in a great financial shape. They had to tone down the rhetoric when they started rebuilding the business but the whole "Microsoft is evil" idea never went away
 
From my friends and family that have bought Dell products, most of them come crying to me to come fix their "crappy Dell" after warranty. It's good business as I have made alot of connections and gotten favors from doing so. I don't really hate Dell in that aspect. All we know if the corporate IT world is IBM and HP. Anything else isn't worthy enough to be used in the corporate environment.
 
spinelli said:
Dell's tech support is hit or miss but that is not exactly a shock and is not isolated to Dell. I worked for Dell tech support out of Tampa for awhile, we were not Dell employees however we worked for a company called Stream. Up until they landed the Dell contract the building was solely devoted to AoL "support". I only mention that because we inherited many managers from the AoL side and unfortunately also got stuck with their mindset later on.

These people were more often then not, about a tech savvy as wet toast and if something was not able to be uninstalled/reinstalled...they were out of their depth by an order of magnitude. Trying to explain to people like that why you need to set up a customer callback, or send a part when the software does not tell you to, or send a tech out as opposed to having the elderly/tech illiterate/just plain dumb customer finger fuck the guts of his rig is like trying to explain astrophysics to a toddler with ADD. Our queue opened shortly before the release of Vista...but here is where it gets fun.

Up until the queue opened, there were Dell badged employees everywhere, our trainers were Dell badged, we had Dell badged people to go to for issues/questions/support...pretty much anything. They kept on assuring us that call time was irrelevant and servicing the customer was priority one. For some time this was indeed true and it was actually a pleasure to work there. Nobody would jump on your ass if you spent a bunch of time with somebody to fix up their issue and if you had a ball breaker of a call, nobody would bother you if you just needed to walk away from the headset for a minute or two. Helping the customer was our priority, maintaining our sanity while doing so was supported. That environment did not last.

Once the Dell trainers were gone and sightings of any badged employees reached the same likelihood as seeing Yeti strolling through the parking lot while wearing a "WWJD" T-shirt, things became very different. All of a sudden you were tied to your headset like it were a barbed wire leash and of course 'handle time' creeped in as a key metric and quality soon suffered. I still was not clear on if it was a metric Dell measured us by but it sure mattered when it came time for shift bids/raises. Personally, I think it was just Stream trying to force as many calls down our throats as they could to maximize profit. The customer always gets fucked when that happens....see India.

The folks who do repairs on portables are also not Dell employees, nor are the techs that come out to your home/business. Quality there varies so much its not even funny. If I had a dollar for every customer I had to speak with who sent in a portable, only to not see it for a month or more then get it back with the same or another issue I could have doubled my hourly wage.(slight exaggeration).

The biggest issue with Dell's support and many other companies support is outsourcing. It does not matter if the outsourcing is done in India or right here in the States. Quality always suffers when the people doing the work have no stake in or loyalty to the company they support but are instead held accountable by a third party who often is less interested in doing things right as they are about doing things just well enough to maintain a contract. Or worse....to juice one for all its worth and hope its just too much hassle for the primary company to start fresh elsewhere.
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Lol. You just described my experience perfectly. Etelecare (or Etelehell as I call them) was the same.
 
I would hope apple would have %100 rate, since they handle the OS, hardware and everything! and not like you can change much.
 
im a little late chiming in here, but i once had a brand new dell laptop. it lasted 4 months and you know what the bastards told me? it only came with a 3 month warranty!! WTF is up with 3 months of coverage? the shit cost me like 700 overall because it was financed, and i had to pay it off long after the machine died. i am and forever shall be against dell. i dont care what they sell!
 
Sad thing is... guess WHO the indians call for THEIR tech support... you got it, me. 'Ugh' (at least for the company I work for)
 
Smiththers2 said:
im a little late chiming in here, but i once had a brand new dell laptop. it lasted 4 months and you know what the bastards told me? it only came with a 3 month warranty!! WTF is up with 3 months of coverage? the shit cost me like 700 overall because it was financed, and i had to pay it off long after the machine died. i am and forever shall be against dell. i dont care what they sell!
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No offense, but why would you not check the warranty of a laptop before purchasing it? Especially knowing the failure rates of AC adapters and hard disks that are prone to affect laptops. :confused:
 
MrGuvernment said:
I would hope apple would have %100 rate, since they handle the OS, hardware and everything! and not like you can change much.
Click to expand...

because no company has 100percent success rate with tech support or much of anything else for that matter. there is always a few people who will take advantage of the situation and you just cannot make them happy.
 
My experience with Dell was fine...bought a video card...went smoothly...the end.
My mother buys a lot of electronics for the hospital she works at through Dell, and has had a number of problems with them.
 
noobtech said:
Remember when a lot of us bought those 20" monitors a few years back that was a super good deal, only to find out they had bad firmwares and the colors didn't blend like the vga outs? The DVI was crappy! I'm sure if I searched the forums, i'll find the link... Needless to say, I didn't bother calling dell even though they knew it was a problem. I ended up selling them for what I paid for them. The guy didn't care cause he used VGA anyways. LoL
Click to expand...

There was an ongoing thread at the Dell support forums about this. I didn't even have to call in, I just sent the Dell moderator a PM with my order number and serial number and a week later had a brand new monitor with updated firmware on it. It sounds like everyone who was in that thread got their monitor replaced.
 
I ordered an 8800GT from Dell back when they were in short supply and Dell had a good price. It was listed as shipping in 1-2 weeks, but every time the ship date came Dell would delay the order. After 2 months, they still hadn't shipped it and then they unilaterally cancelled my order without my consent.

I also bought a Dell laptop for law school 3 years ago. I treat my computers well but the quality is just so shitty. About a month after getting it, the monitor spontaneously died and they replaced the whole system, which took a month. A year later, the battery would only hold a 20 minute charge on the lowest settings. At the 1.5 year mark, horizontal lines began appearing on the screen. Now I have about 20 different lines of dead pixels and two keys have fallen off the keyboard.
 
I had already posted earlier in the thread how it was taking forever for dell to replace my laptop. I finally got my new (refurbished) computer from them and found out they upgraded the cpu/ram/hdd and gave me a 9 cell battery for this model instead of the 4 cell that comes with it by default. They sent me an inspiron 1545 instead of my 1405 I used to have. I'm actually happy with dell for the time being now ;)

Not really in the spirit of the thread but thought I should share my happy experience since I was willing to complain before.
 
Jared701 said:
I had already posted earlier in the thread how it was taking forever for dell to replace my laptop. I finally got my new (refurbished) computer from them and found out they upgraded the cpu/ram/hdd and gave me a 9 cell battery for this model instead of the 4 cell that comes with it by default. They sent me an inspiron 1545 instead of my 1405 I used to have. I'm actually happy with dell for the time being now ;)

Not really in the spirit of the thread but thought I should share my happy experience since I was willing to complain before.
Click to expand...

huh, now I'm wondering if Dell's reading this thread right now.
 
Azhar said:
huh, now I'm wondering if Dell's reading this thread right now.
Click to expand...

LOL, I'm definately not from dell. When I start worrying that they are delaying until my warranty runs out, which is soon, then send me a POS that will break in a week I start to get a little worried that I'll have to buy a brand new computer. It did take them a month to get me a working computer which is horrible but I'm happy with the upgrades compared to my old unit.
 
Use the online chat for warranty support. it takes 3 minutes to figure out if the guy will bne helpful or not. if he is, youll be done in 10 minutes. if not, close the session and join a new one until you find one worth a damn. its easier to understand their typing than their talking, and they have canned responses to make it fast.

ive never had any problems with RMA support for work and ive RMAed probably 50 items in the last year.
 
DogChainX said:
Called up Dell regarding one of their keyboards that had a short in the cable. What did they suggest I do? Get a USB extension cable, or move the computer closer to the keyboard. :rolleyes:
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Absolutely the funniest thing I have heard yet today. :D I really did lol.
 
You are comparing Apple's to Oranges, no pun intended. Apple is by design a "high end" product.

Would you compare Mercedes' customer service to VW's, or to Lexus's? You have to pick the right market. Apple controls 91% of the laptop high end. That's a helluva lot more than 10 customers.

But I will concede attacking Dell and HP and playing up the Windows boot angle might be a better approach.

Then again, you can't argue with Apple's recession-proof numbers.

Azhar said:
Personally I think Apple is going about things the wrong way. They need to stop attacking Microsoft and making Microsoft their main competition. After all, Windows work on Apple computers. Why chase away potential Apple sales to people who wants Windows on it?

Apple needs to rethink their marketing. Consider this: Apple has what? 8% of the market share? Put it in perspective. Let's say Dell has 25%, HP has 25%, Acer has 25%, and Apple has 25%. If Apple use Microsoft as their competition, they will have 25% of the market share, while PC has 75%. Change their strategy and attack the OEM market instead. Pitch their product against Dell. Show that they can also run Windows. Show that they have IPC screens. Show that their Mighty Mouse is awesome. Show that Dell doesn't have any of those. Reduce Dell's market penetration, and the margin will spread out to other OEMs, Apple's will increase.

Apple needs to leave Microsoft alone. Microsoft's a giant that simply can't be touched because of their global and business penetration and tight partnership with just about every developers for every category of software. Instead, embrace Microsoft and attack other OEM manufacturers.

If anything else, this would kick Dell into gear and make them improve their products and services.
Click to expand...
 
You reap what you sow :)

Dell over the years looking to cut costs , when you buy from them you support their business model. This used to be okay for Dell and their support was so so . But it didn't get any better over the years.

All of "these" companies outsource their tech support to India. Buying from these companies will endorse them to keep these tactics alive.

Sadly until everyone is smart enough not to deal with Dell this thread can be kept alive with these kind of horror stories :) .
 
After reading some of these stories it's funny that people spend so much time hating on those who purchase systems from AVA, puget, etc.

30 minute calls x 5, 10, or even 15/20?! - time is money at some point, right?
 
Have an xps2 laptop that has gone thru 4 lcd's and 5 power bricks during its extended warranty. Only problem now is now is lest than a month out of warranty the lcd starts failing again (vertical lines) and dell wont do shit.
 
Kyle_Bennet,
Concerning the monitor. I can try to transfer the ownership to you. Send to my email (christopher_mixon@dell.com) the following -
Name:
Email Address:
Shipping address:
Phone number:
Monitor 20 digit PPID number found on the back on a label or on the slider card on the left rear:
Operating system:
Video card:
Video card ports tested:
Reason:
 
I wonder if he was lurking or someone Pm'd him lol.... next time I need to call a computer product csr I'm going to direct them here with a threat of 6 pages of trash talk lol.
 
uclajd said:
You are comparing Apple's to Oranges, no pun intended. Apple is by design a "high end" product.

Would you compare Mercedes' customer service to VW's, or to Lexus's? You have to pick the right market. Apple controls 91% of the laptop high end. That's a helluva lot more than 10 customers.

But I will concede attacking Dell and HP and playing up the Windows boot angle might be a better approach.

Then again, you can't argue with Apple's recession-proof numbers.
Click to expand...

High price doesn't mean it's high end... I've seen a lot of really crappy mac laptops. Definately not what I consider high end. Macbook air for like $2500 with terrible specs? No thanks... I know it catches some people with the "It's so thin!" thinking but doesn't mean anything.
 
Jared701 said:
High price doesn't mean it's high end... I've seen a lot of really crappy mac laptops. Definately not what I consider high end. Macbook air for like $2500 with terrible specs? No thanks... I know it catches some people with the "It's so thin!" thinking but doesn't mean anything.
Click to expand...

MBAs start at $1500 and have higher specs than more expensive Dell, Lenovo, and Sony notebooks in the same size/weight class. What's your point?

And yeah, why the heck was this thread bumped?
 
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