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Dell Hell

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    #2
    old boy
    Registered Users Posts: 2,658 ✭✭✭old boy


    it keeps telling me that i am banned from the form, yet i never joined it


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    #3
    LolaDub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,181 ✭✭✭LolaDub


    Naughty boy! ;)

    Here is the main article;

    Computer on fire? Video card ruined? Don't let Dell's Indian CSRs tell you it's your fault. When escalating fails and all normal channels of recourse are exhausted, send an email to Dell's top executives. After the jump, 19 email addresses for Dell executives that you can use to launch the mighty and feared Executive Email Carpet Bomb. And here are the comments;

    • Bloberry at 07:15 PM on 11/11/07 Reply by Email
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      Timely post! I am dreading the fact that I have to call Dell tomorrow due to a problem with a laptop. I'll keep this handy.
    • SeraSera at 09:21 PM on 11/11/07 Reply by Email
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      Before things get to the e-mail bombing level, I've also found that Dell's phone support is infinitely more helpful than their chats. Chatting, I've had Dell reps be completely clueless about what systems to recommend, not understood "my computer is giving me a pop up that says 'replace battery," and insisted that keys falling off was my fault (and that I'd have to buy a new keyboard). Via the phone, I've had very helpful reps help me find drivers, ship new power cords, and arrange to replace my keyboard (because, strangely, Dell can't replace one key).
      But I have to call in about the covers of my USB drives falling off, so I'll be bookmarking this list for sure in case things go badly there...
    • Xerloq at 09:42 PM on 11/11/07 Reply by Email
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      All Dell addresses follow the same formula. I work closely with some of the enterprise Dell guys, and it's pretty well known that Michael Dell doesn't actually read the address listed for him, but the rest should be good though.
    • at 09:43 PM on 11/11/07 Reply by Email
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      Can you explain why writing an executive in charge of finance, HR, or procurement would help a consumer solve his/her Dell product issue? Carpet Bombs are great, but why email departments that clearly would have very little relevance to a customer issue?
    • Zipway at 09:45 PM on 11/11/07 Reply by Email
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      I say, emailing anyone is worth a try. I've had problems with a dell laptop for day 13, 2 years ago to today. I don't care who I bother as long as I finally receive a reply other than "Take the battery out" or, most commonly "I'm sorry, it is no longer under warranty..." and the fact that I'd called them 5 times while it was in warranty means nothing.
    • xtc46 at 09:53 PM on 11/11/07 Reply by Email
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      castlecraver: The idea behind it is that they are high up and by them passing it to somone it will probably get taken care of since it will look important coming from the head of any given department.
      the reality behind it is the person will look to see who received the email, and ignore it if it got to the right person in addition to being sent to them.
      Xerloq: I don't know any CEO of a major company who actually checks their public email address. most have staff members check it then forward to their internal address. people like bill gates changes his address frequently to prevent it from getting leaked.
    • BigNutty at 01:34 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      When I get the "runaround" from any company, I've found that a certified letter addressed to the legal department, explaining my problem including a threat to file a small claims case, works best.
    • employeeatdell at 03:36 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      Susan Sheskey got her incompetent ass fired / "resigned". she's not there any more.
    • Zipway at 06:07 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      FYI:
      judy_lewent@dell.com
      and:
      alan_g_lafley@dell.com
      Reply with mail delivery errors, so you may want to take them off your list.
      PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 501 #5.1.1 bad address
    • xl22k at 06:18 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      What I have to say about Dell from my experiences in the past: As a whole, the company's customer service policy is better than most in the industry. The problem is that the people they hire are, without a better term, idiots.
      When you have a problem with them, the Dell reps are all really nice (and I've even had them call back several times in the next weeks "just to check in" and make sure I was satisfied with my repairs) but to get real answers or a real solution ESCALATE. You don't need to go to the Executive level (In my case I just got the run-around to a couple different departments) but eventually you will get high enough to get someone who can give you answers.
    • 160989_32.jpg xl22k at 06:19 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      BigNutty:
      Just a tip for others, your LAST RESORT should be threatening legal action. Once you mention you may sue most reps won't talk to you and direct you to the legal department.
      ...and you thought you got the run around before dealing with them....
    • 23151_32.jpg savvy999 at 09:38 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      FWIW, as a former Dell employee, one of the first things you are going to get asked by anyone dealing with customers at Dell is what business segment you are coming from-- are you a hausfrau with a wonky mouse, or a superintendent of a school district, or are you the I/T VP at a Fortune 500 company with a problem with your order for several hundred servers?
      As you can imagine, from that point on, the difference in attention paid to you will vary wildly. Since working for them I have always had superb service from Dell, but only because I've dealt with them on the corporate level, and they have dedicated account execs to handle escalations, etc.
      I would expect that the home consumer isn't going to get very far by this Carpet Bomb strategy. You'll just get shuffled over to the CSR/TSR queue appropriate to your segment. That's the policy. Will some kind-hearted exec take exception to the policy? Who knows but I seriously doubt it.
    • 101080_32.jpg anatak at 10:07 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      Xerloq: I can say definitively that all Dell email addresses do not follow the same formula. New ones, maybe. It may be due to when the employee was hired and who was managing IT at the time. You may find success with the format of those listed, but it will not work for all.
    • 81143_32.jpg Saydur at 11:41 AM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      I've had nothing but great luck with Dell myself. Of course, spending over $2000 on a small business laptop probably leads to better tech support than trying to handle a luddite that can't figure out Vista on a bargain basement system their "computer whiz" 13 year old nephew ordered for them.
      Tech support is designed specifically for script-trained grunts to weed out the "It don't work!" crowd. You can follow the script for a few minutes and escalate, or you can spend enough to justify a higher tier tech from the start.
      Remember the print up there, this is a last resort. When all rational and reasonable attempts at fixing the problem have been exhausted, and you are being positively stonewalled on an issue that you are certain you can demonstrate is their responsibility to fix, that's when this comes into play. Any sooner than that, and you're only giving them reason to bunker up away from the public even further.
    • 14376_32.jpg ivealwaysgotmail10 at 03:57 PM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      Customer_advocate@dell.com
      I have used This email address to take care of issues that i had spoken to countless supervisors about, I would use this only if you have exhausted every other normal route of solving a problem.
      I have given this to Consumerist to add to the post.
    • 7917_32.jpg JohnP at Dell at 09:07 PM on 11/12/07 Reply by Email
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      I work at Dell and have to say that while we aren't infallable we are trying hard to quickly resolve any issues -- and also try to make it easy to contact the right people. Here's a good general link to get questions answered and problems fixed:
      [support.dell.com]
      And IVEALWAYSGOTMAIL above is giving good advice. I've seen how the people at customer_advocate@dell.com work with customers, and they are some of our best tech support and customer care troubleshooters.
    • 61016_32.jpg Zipway at 06:22 AM on 11/14/07 Reply by Email
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      Yep, I got a reply from customer advocate asking for my customer number and service tag even after I said my Dell was 2 years out of warranty.
    • 6471_32.jpg phate at 08:08 PM on 11/14/07 Reply by Email
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      Looks like I'm going to be taking lots more cases...
    Are you in dell hell too?


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    #4
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    Dell ordering is a nightmare they all seem to be after more commission even if that means greatly overcharging customers. Bought ?30 worth of memory off dell recently and had to post my order to dell as the sales staff wanted to charge me ?141 for the memory. Dublin staff were great i got delivery within 3 days of them getting my letter


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    #5
    Big_Mac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 991 ✭✭✭Big_Mac


    Oh please, such a load of crap. OK so you're laptop is a piece of crap, or the support you're getting is rubbish. do you really think the CEO or CFO gives a monkeys? Not to mention, do you think (s)he would have the foggiest notion of what to actually do? Methinks not.

    Its very very simple. Speak to the CSR's supervisor and go from there. Remember you're protected by consumer laws too. Being pretentious and full of 'I know it all' nonsense won't get you anywhere in my experience, and I work in a similar environment


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    #6
    Nody
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,316 CMod ✭✭✭✭Nody


    Big_Mac wrote: »
    Oh please, such a load of crap. OK so you're laptop is a piece of crap, or the support you're getting is rubbish. do you really think the CEO or CFO gives a monkeys? Not to mention, do you think (s)he would have the foggiest notion of what to actually do? Methinks not.
    Aah you'd be suprised. I was working with a major Telco in the UK with a European fibre network. Some how a small business customer (we only did business customers) with a 2MB DSL connection that had not worked properly for a month managed to call up the CEO. He then started to give out about the shoddy service since we kept sending it back to BT to fix it (leased line) and BT kept saying everything was a ok on their side. The CEO instead of fobbing him of listened to him and said he'd make sure it get sorted for him.

    The CEO called up our NMC team (the guys who're monitoring the whole European network and are CCIE certified) and simply said I want this problem fixed. The NMC team got one technican out with a 100k Cisco router to hook up to the connection along with a BT technican and ran the troubleshooting for BT pointing out exactly where the problem was in their network.

    In the end the support for the customer was extreme overkill but to say the customer was happy would be an understatement :p.


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    #7
    craichoe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,706 ✭✭✭craichoe


    The NMC team got one technican out with a 100k Cisco router to hook up to the connection along with a BT technican and ran the troubleshooting for BT pointing out exactly where the problem was in their network.

    100K my ass, more likely they connected a Cisco ASA near the point of termination and did a packet trace. Plugging a cisco router into a network doesn't magically make it a route in your network. Even then, if other customers weren't experiencing the problem then its a problem with termination point at the customers site i.e the copper from the exchange to where it pops out at the customer.

    Anyway, getting onto first line support is much faster to resolve an issue rather than mail bombing managers etc. 9 / 10 times people don't get anything with first line because their either a screamer or they have unrealistic expectations.

    Besides, you think BT are bad, KPN are bloody terrible.


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    #8
    LolaDub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,181 ✭✭✭LolaDub


    Big mac i also work in a similiar environment and i know talking to people further up gets results. Maybe not in every company but certainly in most. However i do agree with you that it should only be used as a last resort when you have exhausted all other channels through the company. If you haven't already gone through the correct channels ie consumer support, supervisors, escalations, unresolved issues, complaints etc then no director or ceo will care if you email them.


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    #9
    axer
    Registered Users Posts: 5,517 ✭✭✭axer


    I don't see what is wrong with dell. I still recommend them to people just to get them off my backs.

    One person's computer was lightening damaged. They had wanted me to sell them a computer first. If I had sold it to them that would have been the end of their computer but dell replaced the motherboard and modem at no cost (granted they were not told it was lightening damage but the engineer that came out knew - they are contracted engineers so they don't really care).

    Who else can the regular punter go to? Pc world? Curries? Is there anyone better?


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    #10
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    Nody wrote: »
    The CEO called up our NMC team (the guys who're monitoring the whole European network and are CCIE certified) and simply said I want this problem fixed. The NMC team got one technican out with a 100k Cisco router to hook up to the connection along with a BT technican and ran the troubleshooting for BT pointing out exactly where the problem was in their network..

    I doubt this, most likely a standard engineer along with a BT Openreach SFIO engineer visited the customers premises and did a standard job...while the ISP may treat this as "special" BT Openreach won't


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    #11
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,301 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    I loled at the comments. Dell doesn't replace one key, as in most case the key that is missing is missing. You send the key in with the motherboard, it gets put back on. You don't, and they'll put a new keyboard on. Why? Because from experience it's more than one key, and the little white clip is often not there: thus nothing to put the key onto.

    Heard about notebooks overheating, and dying... it's notebook. Not a laptop. A notebook gets hot, and thus should not be kept on your lap. It should be kept on a table, not be kept on a bed, with all it's air intake holes (that suck in air to keep it cool) are blocked by your duvee.

    Finally, I laugh at what people call consumer law, as the "I know everything" crowd usually doesn't know what they're saying is the "recommended things that you should give to customers" as opposed to "law" :D


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    #12
    LolaDub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,181 ✭✭✭LolaDub


    At the end of the day each customer probably has a different experience between what went wrong, the support they received, the law they know and how they dealt with it. My own experience (short version, long version is about a page) was everything broke on a 2-3 month xps 1330. The customer service was awful and after making several calls (one of which i got hung up on because the agent didn't want to speak to a woman) got nowhere, emailed complaints, got nowhere whether they were answered or not. Went to the national consumer agency to check what my rights were, dell then told me i didn't have any statutory rights and they were doing me a favour by replacing the motherboard (again). Made a formal complaint, used unresolved issues and consumer advocate, got absolutely nowhere. So another avenue like above is very welcome to me!

    From speaking to people around me it seems that people who are dell loyal seem to never have had an issue with their dells. It sounds to me like dell hell starts when you have to contact support


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    #13
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Dell have reasonable support and their Indian call centre is pretty OK now after a diabolic start . If you want hell try the 3 call centre in mumbai , thats cheap and very very nasty .


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    #14
    Big_Mac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 991 ✭✭✭Big_Mac


    LolaDub wrote: »
    Big mac i also work in a similiar environment and i know talking to people further up gets results. Maybe not in every company but certainly in most. However i do agree with you that it should only be used as a last resort when you have exhausted all other channels through the company. If you haven't already gone through the correct channels ie consumer support, supervisors, escalations, unresolved issues, complaints etc then no director or ceo will care if you email them.

    True, the further up you go the more chance of getting a result. However, the people who think they can complain direct to the CEO because they are a paying customer and deserve it, is just nonsense. They won't bat an eyelid. Every company has to have an ADR, (Alternative dispute resolution) scheme which they have to follow, similar to an escalation proceedure. Follow it, and if you have no luck that's why the ombudsman are there. Trust me, you will get much further if you do it calmly and clearly than being a pretentious git and demanding all sorts.
    Cabaal wrote: »
    I doubt this, most likely a standard engineer along with a BT Openreach SFIO engineer visited the customers premises and did a standard job...while the ISP may treat this as "special" BT Openreach won't

    I agree. Standard BTOR engineer will be sent out, regardless of ISP, even if its BT retail.


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