Dell's Customer Service & would you buy from them?

[Dell and Rodney]

After reading this forum about the usbehci.sys corrupted error message i took on the challenge to call Dell and tell them i would either like them to replace my CD with one the has SP2 or give me a resolution that i can slipstream my CD that i paid for thinking there are no problems.

I sent them 6 emails - there promise was to reply within 24 hours - guess what i never got a reply. I went to the US website who had a 6 hour response. I received a reply which was my same mail i sent them. 1 week later i still have not received a reply.

I finally decided to call these idiots and straight away they tell me - this can not be done. I asked "why not" they tell me as long as i can install my operating system then there is no problem. The options given were to either buy a CD AGAIN or just install over again which will take me 2 days as the CD i have is very old.

I explained and said that if i knew you had given me a CD that would not slipstream and was made clear about this i could have left buying from Dell and buy from someone/ place who are more reliable - they went on and on about the same options they gave me as if they are a tape recorder. I asked for a resoltion or them to tell me what files i should modify and how to resolve this - no, they wouldnt tell me either.

Myself personally am not going to buy anything from Dell, it will be from IBM or i will build a machine myself. So just to know how many fans we have out there supporting Dell,

A - Is Dells's customer service crap?

B - Would you buy from Dell knowing this has happened?

[dcrowder32]

I am a big Dell fan. Have 2 at home and have used dozens professionally. Very few problems, solid systems. Only called support a couple times, and issue was resolved satisfactorily. Have a few friends who would agree.

[aresgodofwar]

A. yes dell's "customer service" is complete crap.

B. i will never again buy from dell.

i used to do Dell's tech support. that was back in 2001. it was pretty decent. now, the tech support is horrible. partially because they outsourced it to india. i mean, how many americans can understand an indian guy talking really fast and trying to tell them to hit f8 in time to get started in safe mode? i haven't nothing against the indians as a people, but they are inadvertantly taking american jobs.

anyways, DOWN WITH DELL!

[jpatto]

A - I have to say yes Dell's service is (hands down) majorly crap!!!!

B - I dont think so, I had the same issue with my XP CD.

My personal opinion is that i call Dell - Get passed to around 5 departments (no joke) before i even get to the right one - even when ive picked the correct option. There sales team are crap, tech support - never really called them but again i guess thats totally useless too.

I think Dell is going down............

[ifix]

I agree with dell and rodney,

my first computer was a dell, and their support was pretty good back then

(7yrs ago) .. i use to recommend dell to friends (notice the words use to).

Friends would tell me that they could not understand the people on the other end, so i became support for a couple dozen people. their quality is just not there any more. THEY ARE RIDING ON REPUTATION !! in my opinion.

to answer the questions

A:YES (and they get an attitude when you can't understand them)and yes i also agree with supporting my neighbor first. buy american,support an american by buying their products and services..

B:NO (over priced for what you get, the average buyer sees a p4 for 450 bucks WOW!! then they get it and say their p3 933mhz was faster) true experience...

[ChunkDog]

Well, here I go again with one of my opinions. Dell is f***ing crap. I work on more DELL's at my work than any other system, the second most system I work on is HP. They both suck a**. Build your own computer so then you know exactly what you are getting, and thats brand name. DELL buys what ever crap they can to put in their s*** systems. I've never had to call their tech support, wel, because I'm a tech, but like many have already said, and from what I have herd, their tech support sux.

Bottom Line is:

1. Dell sucks.

2. Build your own computer.

[TomcaT]

Build your own computer.

That is the answer.... DIY it.... far more satisfying plus if it does not work there is noone to blame except YOURSELF!!! hehe....

[manic]

I recently made a purchase from Dell. I had a problem so I called tech suport. I got India on the phone. The tech rep didn't understand me and I didn't understand him. I was p***ed. So I called Dell Customer Service. Did I get the US? No. I got Panama. Dell support has been outsourced to all other nations on the planet. Do I have a problem with this? Yes and no. The countries that the support is being outsourced to are paying extremely low wages and it by passes the unions. All in all companies that support outsourcing seem to support slave labor.

[demonx]

Depends on what you want, most people just see a cheap computer and hear the name "Dell" and that's all they know, like the other poster said they are riding on pure reputation.

There seems to be other system builders out there just as good if not better, but they are not as widely known as Dell and "Mom end user" is not going to do any research either.

Example

Dell

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1867.html

Monarch

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2079.html

Alienware

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1650.html

[rendrag]

I have to agree totally with the getting passed around to 5 departments because it happened to me, and I wasn't even calling as a customer. I do support for another company who sells to dell, and I was calling on behalf of one of my customers to find out if they had a certain product in stock that they could ship my customer. I never did actually find out because there was no one there who knew.

dell is riding on their reputation now, and it's gonna be really tough for any other builder to break that, no matter how bad their service was.

To be honest, I never owned a Dell because I knew too many people who did, and weren't happy when it broke

[Vel Straty]

I don't know about it in the US, but I did a part time job once back in 2002. And to answer your questions, for part in Japan,

A. Yes. But not just Dell. Many are just part-timers that doesn't know crap about computers.

B. I've never bought a system from any company, just built it by my own, but from hearing things from friends who bought it from Dell, IT can be used. However, there're few draw backs that one must consider. The system case is in some models are not made to fit correctly. -> Meaning, when my friend tried to insert a CD to the tray, he misplaced it slightly and the CD went into the case!I think on most systems, or cases, those types of things will never happen.

Anyways, build your own system from scratch. It won't give you any stupid softwares pre-installed f**king up windows and you'll know exactly what you're playing with.

Many OEMs comes with a recovery disk but, that can be easily made with the guide at MSFN. If you don't know much about computers or unattended installs, then it might be your chance to learn more about it B)

[Not A Puzzy]

i ****in hate registerin fo these websites buit as soon as i saw this poll i thought yes i have to register, you know why - cuz its the truth.

Dell are totally ****ed

i aint no racist but i dont mind jobs goin india however them guys have more of a job than us compalaing they doin slave work i agree but no service i aint no computer dude like you boys but i need service when i need it an i daint get it

so

dells customer service is a load of bolukz

**** would i - i aint neva buying from them daft mutha ****az as they stooopid for ****in me round

**** it man

im, out

maybe till next post unless the admin doesnt blok me off haha

[George27]

I bought a Dell Dimension 4100 in 2001 right before XP came out. Initially the support was real good but within a couple of months it went down the toilet. It was a crapshoot if you got someone that was knowledgeable. There might have been something wrong with the HD (failed one test with there diagnostics) so they sent me a new one. The monitor transformer started to smoke, so they sent me another. A week after the warranty expired the CD DVD combo drive failed, I was on my own with this one. When I bought the comp and they asked if I wanted the 4-year warranty, I should have asked; "do you have so little faith in your products that I would need one?" It seemed after a while that all Dell solutions were to reinstall the OS. The 4100s have a bug with XP and I believe so did some NEC machines in Japan. In the clean disk, the web client has 32kb that isn't deletable and keeps adding up geometrically. Dell had no solution as for a fix. It's just a matter of shutting off the service in service.msc. They didn't know that. Dell, never again. I think some off the advice on building your own pc in this thread is the way to go. I've never done it. Is a book like How to Build a PC for Dummies is this enough or are there better starter books?

[snekul]

We buy all Dell's where I work (University of 12,000 students). First thing most tech departments do when they arrive is a format and reinstall. Most have Volume Licenses with Microsoft, so even though the computers come with Windows, they don't legally need them. Dell realy negotiates prices low for the University. Only time we call tech support is if hardware is physically broken, but since we are a University, we get US people. But a bad keyboard took me a hour and 30 minutes before they'll admit the keyboard was bad. Saying "We have 200 of these computers and 10 exact models of this keyboard works on this computer but this one doesn't, and it also doesn't work on any of the computers" just isn't good enough, but eventually they do it. So yes tech support is crap, but if you can get the hardware for a good price, a Dell may be worth it. Overall, the hardware is usually fairly solid. Failed hard drives are the most common of the 1000+ Dell's we have in my departments, but the harddrive failure rate is not much worse then retail drives. Otherwise it is parts that are DOA.

Personally, I'd stick to home built.

[bart of borg]

I bought a Dell Inspiron 5150 last year....So far all is well physically....(fingers crossed). The very first thing I did when I got it out of the box was to format the drive and install my own software....never had any problems with it. The 10 or so CD's that came with it went into the garbage! Hehehehe