As regular readers know, I’m a longtime fan of Dell’s high-end laptops. I bought 4 or five XPS 15 models and was quite satisfied, with all the bells and whistles. Part of this acquisition is the expectation of professional quality support. After the Hall of Mirrors of the past two weeks, I wish I hadn’t. If I had wanted to write a script for a sfinishing sit-com visitor service, I probably wouldn’t have lived up to reality. That’s how it was.
My Dell Precision 5540 (a high-end, high-cost cellular workstation) reported its misery one morning when it complained about the state of the battery, even though it was plugged into a Dell charger. It’s a bit scary, but disconnecting and reconnecting the charger didn’t help. None of the reboot features released through Dell were used after the computer died permanently. I suspected that with a fully charged battery, it could still work, but the battery is not removable, and this option would only help for a few hours, so I opened an incidence price ticket with Dell.
Purchasing a familiar Precision product comes with a 3-year on-site hardware warranty. In this case, my warranty is valid until July. Awesome. I opened an incident fee ticket on May 16th and filled in all the details. Fortunately, Dell didn’t try to bring me into the situation over and over again. They immediately reported the situation as a warranty repair. I guess one of the benefits of the Business Elegant service is that they expect you to have at least tried a few things before registering a price ticket.
The first sign of a challenge that Dell had cancelled my service order due to a challenge with its database. If only they made hardware and software!
So far so good. A large user named Royce took the price ticket and explained that he would order a new motherboard and the parts needed for its installation, while making plans for a repairman to come to our workplace to fix the laptop. I would have been perfectly satisfied to drive to a fixed center (I live in the middle of Silicon Valley, very close to several tech corporations and service points). But apparently, as part of how Dell outsources unisys (no, they never discussed who they outsource to, but when Unisys shows up on my caller ID. . . ) there’s none there. So they come to your workplace (well, in theory, they do, since I have no evidence of that so far).
Yes, I was on site with the computer installed on a workbench for the May 19 and 24 appointments (the first of several). For those of Peanuts, I started to feel like Charlie Brown wasn’t playing football.
Then the ticket of the price of the service seemed to get stuck. After noticing this, Royce was kind enough to start a new price ticket. According to Dell’s website, the error occurred through “knowledge migration. “Well, it made me feel so much better. I can only hope that my knowledge has migrated to a better and more responsive place.
I’m still not sure what to think of this one. The Dell Service Page demo has a temporary aspect, as occasions that are meant to be records are retroactively replaced.
However, my knowledge was relegated to another purgatory. But satisfied in her new home, my request for assistance enthusiastically resulted in scheduling a service call between 1 a. m. and noon on the 19th. Hotel, however, we did not open until dawn. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because no one showed up. It was the first of many half-lost mornings for me.
At this point, I started getting automatic robocalls explaining that due to gamma rays or high fuel costs or something, the service that intended to take position that day would be delayed. Honestly, I don’t perceive that. They have my email and they can write to me, and more or less they have no excuse to give the appointment in the first position, but they bother me with an automatic call. And of course, I have to answer, because possibly that is what the technician calls to verify an hour. I don’t think they have any idea how real consumers perceive that experience.
To be clear: I perceive that there is a shortage of technicians and components. This may just be an explanation for why such a long delivery time. This is no excuse for making promises over and over again without being able to keep them.
I have an inbox full of those promising messages confirming appointments that happened.
Many of you could be one of the ugly preambles that precede a call of service. It is ok. After reporting my situation through Royce, he phoned me with Unisys. Now, the skeptics among you might wonder about the fact that I won the appointment notification at 8:32 a. m. m. of May 25 (9 days after the initial ticket), asking me to verify that one hour between 8 a. m. and 12 p. m. on the 25th would be acceptable. I showed up in about 20 minutes. I had other plans for the morning, but I made the decision to stay in the office and make sure I could only oversee the repair.
This is one of the many confirmations I’ve earned for service appointments with technicians who never showed up and phone numbers who never responded.
Ok, I can hear you say now, “Asshole!” Yes, it was, no one showed up. When I called the phone number I had been given for the technician, it resulted in about 80 rings before I gave up. For those who still remember, the visions of Charlie Brown and football began to weigh. strongly.
Well, since no one showed up and the technician they assigned doesn’t exist or has so far never responded to their phone, I clicked on the “Reschedule your appointment” link. To my surprise, he showed up to let me reschedule the original date of May 19, which wasn’t even close to passing (based on robocalls who explained to me that they had made a terrible mistake and that, in fact, no one should fix a computer that day). To go further, this new calendar does not frame either.
After another climb, I was given an appointment for May 26, which I confirmed. That morning, a friendly-looking robot called me to remind me that I needed to be available from 1p. m. a 5 p. m. Well, I emptied my schedule. Then they called to say that at 2:00 p. m. at 17:30 was the update window. Finally, in the early afternoon, the team’s robot called that because of “resource issues,” Dell technicians wouldn’t be able to do this at all, and they (either the calling robots or Dell, I wasn’t sure) were sorry. I can almost hear the refrain of “fool!” in the background after converting my plans for some other day.
Then it rises on May 27. A new day. Another friendly robot calling and visitor service user promised me that I am very, very important. Super. Actually, I won an SMS around 8 a. m. asking to verify an appointment without date or time. I clicked on the link and only had features to reschedule on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Now, Monday was a holiday for a lot of people, but as a result, it wasn’t really a bad day for me to transparent my calendar. So I opted for that. There was a gloriously short window from 9 am to 6 pm, so I wouldn’t get very far. No, it didn’t take place either, and no, no one called.
At this point, I can no longer imagine knowing when Dell will repair my Precision laptop. After a barrage of calls on the 27th, to no avail, I imagine the resource would be the “Reschedule” option I have. he had selected for May 30. But when on the 28th, when I checked the prestige of the price ticket on Dell’s website, it turned out that they started again with a new service order number and a new “we will order the portions for you and hope to send them to a technician to arrange between midnight and noon on June 1. I can only believe that this is an imaginary game that Dell is playing with themselves so they can pretend they are responding to the price. tickets before their consumers throw their laptops onto their TVs. Intimidate them in the game of their aid measures. Presumably, it’s less expensive than offering quality help.
Perhaps the motherboard they ordered two weeks ago has accumulated too much dust or the previous generation has been retired?
I originally didn’t plan an article about this repair. I assumed, like any other small business owner, that I would simply report on the dead computer and drive it to have it repaired or repaired. But after more than two weeks of time–boring and boring races, it’s obviously a story. To begin with, I would like to know if my experience is unique. Feel free to share your feedback about Dell small businesses or other businesses. Also, the last bankruptcy wasn’t written, so stay tuned to know when and if my computer comes back to life.
Whether this is the case or not, I lost over two weeks of using my computer and was lied to about non-existent service appointments that charge me at least two days of “availability” when there were supposedly no plans for someone to show up. , and there is no plan for you to let me know. Clown Car is starting to look a bit unfair to clowns, as they at least know what they’re doing.
Fortunately, I have a Thinkpad Yoga that is pretty cool and can turn Remote Desktop into some great desktop machines for heavy lifting. But if I relied on my Precision for my daily activities, I would be in a deep abyss.
Unfortunately, this is only component 1 of the saga. After two weeks of Ted’s time and effort, the next phase will be on June 1 when (again) I asked to give up a morning wait for a Dell technician. It will be a small payment if they appear. Stay tuned.
Sadly, this challenge isn’t unique to Dell. Al getting in touch with some of my friends in the computer industry, they had a lot of horror stories about Dell, Lenovo, and Apple. HP appeared to emerge unscathed. I don’t know if it’s because they’re less popular or just better at visitor service, but I’m thinking of looking outside.
It would be tempting to conclude that the fashion economy simply does not allow for quality support. If this is true, then we deserve to write things down as disposable and leave it at that. But the fact is that corporations that care about their appointments with their clients can provide the right support. I can give many examples in clothing and electronics for customers, but my favorite example is LiquidWeb.
LiquidWeb is a wonderful example of what is imaginable in terms of visitor enjoyment and that it takes cash to pay for it. I housed a server there for a decade, offering a variety of services. I like having my own Linux server because I’m a geek, however, I like someone else running it because I’m a generally retired geek. LiquidWeb’s help is never more than a few minutes away, and they are all really good. excellent, and they can temporarily move to a point of time that is at the same point as technicians who maintain server farms for primary cloud providers.
The other aspect of the coin is that LiquidWeb’s servers are not cheap. But I am more than satisfied to pay. This is a wonderful demonstration of how a quality service can work. This brings me back to Dell. Honestly, I haven’t spent any more money on a premium service the next day, so I don’t expect that. thousands of dollars on a professional workstation that provides on-site warranty repair. However, Dell doesn’t seem to want to do much to deliver on its promise.
Original symbol via Oliver Gouldthorpe, Flickr
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