Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Dept. of Off Topic - Customer Service

I was wandering around the internets and came across this tale of woe, "Dell Hell, 5,500 Hysterical Words Worth". It is a blog post at Consumer Underground.


Be prepared to laugh and cry as well as shake your head. You'll need about 15 minutes to make your way through it. In the end, he returned it and bought a Mac.

When I bought the Dell I am using now I was told I couldn't buy it with my Dell account because the computer was part of their small business group of computers. Apparently a regular "Joe" can't buy this computer or at least not with the regular "Joe" personal account. I needed a business account with Dell to purchase it. I ended up paying for it via other means because I needed it and couldn't get a Mac in time. That's another customer service tale so even Apple aren't immune.

I just couldn't believe that after selecting everything and ready to press GO, sorry you can't use your Dell account to purchase this Dell computer. I even sent a email to Mr. Dell which generated a series of emails and phone calls. All ending with...sorry we can't sell you a business computer if you want to pay with your personal account. Nutty...I thought they like to sell computers? Well they got the sale anyway and 30 days later offered the same computer with more capacity for RAM. Bought mine with 8gb and now you can get it with 16gb...possibly more now.

I must say even with my last experience with Dell that it hasn't been as bad as Dell Hell. I've probably been party to the purchase of around 50 Dell pc's over the last 8 years and all prior interaction with them was very positive.

We recently had some difficulty with our bank and ATM fraud. Pretty scary to see a large chunk of your account get removed via an ATM that is 60 miles from you and you've never used. At least the bank resolved that part of it. Getting new cards and shutting down the olds ones was a nightmare. We talked to a half dozen people and everyone had a conflicting story. We thought we were talking to "Shirley" from the TV commercial.

Here's to good customer service, if you can get it!!

No comments: