As threatened, Dell has shut down their non-technical Customer Service Forums. The little locks on all the threads really punctuates the message, don’t you think?
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9 Replies to “Would The Last Customer Service Person Out Of Round Rock Please Turn Off The Lights?”
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Really Looking Forward to Seeing Dell Respond to this Snowball
All over the blogosphere, respected bloggers like Christopher Carfi (The Social Customer Manifesto) and Neville Hobson (NevOn) are commenting on or watching closely the responses and growing avalanche of commentary regarding Dell’s Customer service, sp…
Markets are conversations…
…except at Dell, who shut down the Customer Service boards on its Dell Community Forum. Apparently Dell feels that covering their ears and going “lalalalalalalala” will make all of their problems go away. Tip of the hat to Good Morning…
Dell Sucks: How to generate negative buzz
Dell seems hell-bent on destroying what used to be one of its claims to fame: quality post-sale customer service.
There’s been a recent explosion of Dell product and warranty complaints; a notable and absolutely hilarious example blogged here for …
I’ve been in Dell hell since January trying to resolve a invoice problem. The person I spoke to in India, said they would credit my account the full amount. Needless to say the next invoice reflected a partial credit. After numerous frustrating phone call I thought it was again resolved. Easter Sunday Dell financial calling me ALL DAY, no respect for our Holy holidays, then again on the 4th of July another barrage of harrasment calls. One of the guys said its only 25.00 why don’t you just pay it. I told him this was extortion and to please repeat it so that i could record it, he declined. I finally gave in to the gangster tactics and wrote the check. I am not a big company but i do have a large sphere of influence and I will prevent one and all from getting caught up in Dell Hell.
I ordered a Dell 420SC back on June 9, 2005 and at the time there was a promotion for a price of $249 which included 2 boards of 256MB memory for a total of 512MB of system memory. Well, when my 420SC arrived it only had 256MB in it. When I called to ask about it, a customer care rep put an order in for the missing memory. Two weeks went by and it never arrived. I called back and another rep put an order in. Another week passed and no memory. Finally after a third attempt I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. I was finally told (in a recording left in my voice mail) that I would “never get the memory, because Dell never has promotions for the 420SC…” and that I “would have to PROVE that there was a promo running on that given day and time when I bought my server…”
Unbelievable… this lady actually said these exact words… I, as a customer, would have to PROVE!! to Dell, the company that sold the product to me, that Dell actually had a promo going on the day I made my purchase. I have never heard of anything as ridiculous as that! This lady works at Dell and yet she cannot tell me whether they had a promotion going on that particular day (which was only a few weeks earlier)..
In the recording she said that I would have to research and hunt down copies of any online ads that showed exactly what the promo was and the ad would also have to reflect the day and time I made my purchase.
Well, that would be very difficult to do since the ads were on the DELL site!!!! Perhaps, I should have e-mailed the webpage admin at Dell for the backups of the HTML pages on June 9.
After finally speaking to her on the phone (which was almost CLOSE to IMPOSSIBLE – took like 10 attempts over 7 days) she told me that the reason she couldn’t tell if her own company had run a promo on that given day was b/c she didn’t work in the marketing dept and that only the marketing dept knows about past promos… She refused to transfer me to the marketing dept – said they were not connected via phone – hahahaha – whatever. She also said that she wasn’t allowed to give out the marketing dept’s phone number (didn’t she just say they were not connected via phone??)
So, I hung up and called my Dell rep (not related to this debacle – this Dell rep actually handles the business account with the company that I work for). This Dell rep actually just went ahead and put an order in for a free 256MB board of memory just to keep her customer happy. I’m lucky, b/c if I had not been a buyer for a large company that deals with Dell I would have never gotten my memory.
It’s pathetic that a company would actually ever tell a customer (whose order they screwed up) that the customer would have to PROVE that there was a promotion running at the time they made their purchase… Come on Dell, get real.
I ordered a Dell 420SC back on June 9, 2005 and at the time there was a promotion for a price of $249 which included 2 boards of 256MB memory for a total of 512MB of system memory. Well, when my 420SC arrived it only had 256MB in it. When I called to ask about it, a customer care rep put an order in for the missing memory. Two weeks went by and it never arrived. I called back and another rep put an order in. Another week passed and no memory. Finally after a third attempt I asked to be transferred to a supervisor. I was finally told (in a recording left in my voice mail) that I would “never get the memory, because Dell never has promotions for the 420SC…” and that I “would have to PROVE that there was a promo running on that given day and time when I bought my server…”
Unbelievable… this lady actually said these exact words… I, as a customer, would have to PROVE!! to Dell, the company that sold the product to me, that Dell actually had a promo going on the day I made my purchase. I have never heard of anything as ridiculous as that! This lady works at Dell and yet she cannot tell me whether they had a promotion going on that particular day (which was only a few weeks earlier)..
In the recording she said that I would have to research and hunt down copies of any online ads that showed exactly what the promo was and the ad would also have to reflect the day and time I made my purchase.
Well, that would be very difficult to do since the ads were on the DELL site!!!! Perhaps, I should have e-mailed the webpage admin at Dell for the backups of the HTML pages on June 9.
After finally speaking to her on the phone (which was almost CLOSE to IMPOSSIBLE – took like 10 attempts over 7 days) she told me that the reason she couldn’t tell if her own company had run a promo on that given day was b/c she didn’t work in the marketing dept and that only the marketing dept knows about past promos… She refused to transfer me to the marketing dept – said they were not connected via phone – hahahaha – whatever. She also said that she wasn’t allowed to give out the marketing dept’s phone number (didn’t she just say they were not connected via phone??)
So, I hung up and called my Dell rep (not related to this debacle – this Dell rep actually handles the business account with the company that I work for). This Dell rep actually just went ahead and put an order in for a free 256MB board of memory just to keep her customer happy. I’m lucky, b/c if I had not been a buyer for a large company that deals with Dell I would have never gotten my memory.
It’s pathetic that a company would actually ever tell a customer (whose order they screwed up) that the customer would have to PROVE that there was a promotion running at the time they made their purchase… Come on Dell, get real.
Dell and Dell Financial Services will NEVER get business from me again ! I was cursed out by a call center rep in India who also threatened to blow up my home…all because I was upset at a late fee and had the audacity to call and ask for it to be reduced or waived. “F%@ck You Sir” was the response I got (three times!) The next night, at 1142pm, a collector called and threatened me because I hung up on him a minute earlier. I had had enough…called 4 times and asked for a superviosr, all 4 times,hung up on ! I called the local police, they traced the # to Dell in India, said they had no jurisdiction there. There is NOBODY in America working for Dell anymore, therefore they will never get my business again. If I wanted to buy a PC from India I would have done that myself…Three cease and desist orders later, still getting 30-40 calls daily (well into the middle of the night) and the FDCPA dosen’t apply because they were in India ? Threats and rudeness are apparently how they do business now-after all, you get what you pay for- an employee making 80 cents an hour isnt worth squat ! Ill buy my next PC from an American in South Dakota (Gateway!!!).
Brad C, I work for Dell, perhaps you could email me your order number because your situation seems a little bit unbelievable. My main problem with your story is that you say the local police traced the number to Dell in India? Tell me, what number did you dial? A US number I should hope. What happens after that? The internal switches transfer your call. There is no way for the police to track where calls go past the initial reception number.
To be quite honest with you, despite the fact that I have on numerous occasions been told by Dell that my job would be offshored (and survived the ensuing scramble for higher level positions), your comment, in my opinion, smacks of racism, bitterness and a sad, sad desire to be noticed and sympathised with.
Dell has many thousands of employees located in the US and Canada, with all North American manufacturing and some support roles handled in the US. You bought your PC in the US from a US manufacturer. “If I wanted to buy a PC from India I would have done that myself” – what? Care to explain?
You represent a minority of Dell’s customer base – the bitter, the racist, the closed-minded and the downright sad. You’re more than welcome to take your business elsewhere. From my point of view, as a Dell technician, we really don’t appreciate customers like you.
All I know is my Dell e310 carries the nickname “Sparky.” A pci slot cover fell on the board while still carrying a charge (had been unplugged very recently)and 1″ sparks shot several ways. I thought I was screwed. Turned the machine on, wouldn’t boot past bios, corrupt CMOS. Thought I had ruined the board for sure. Reconfigured processor, ide devices, etc. Good as new. I am shocked a computer could survive such a jolt. No problems thus far, and I would buy another one. These things are priced as commodities. So, understanding that, expect every corner to be cut as much as possible. Expect minimal updates to software & drivers (potentiallly forget firmware updates altogether), as that’s the nature of the business. You want customer service? Get a custom built REAL PC bu a LOCAL INDEPENDENT RETAILER. It will cost you an arm and a leg, but it’s personal business, and they will address your concerns. Dell is the Walmart of the PC industry. Deal with it.