By B.L. Ochman The brouhaha over Dell’s terrible customer service is playing out not just in the blogosphere, but also on Wall Street, where Dell stock has plunged. The Wall Street Journal reports:
“Dell Inc. [the world’s largest computer maker] said it expects revenue and earnings in the second quarter to come in lower than forecast, amid aggressive pricing in a slowing computer market. Shares of Dell tumbled more than 10% to five-year lows.
The Round Rock, Texas, company, which issued a similar warning for the first quarter, has struggled lately to generate growth in its U.S. business amid increased competition from the likes of Hewlett-Packard Co. and Asian PC makers. Dell recently has also suffered from customer-service complaints.“
This is a sad story because Dell began as an upstart American company with Michael Dell as its recognizeable and outspoken leader. He hasn’t said a word on the company’s new Dell one2one blog. He wasn’t quoted in the Journal article. He’s not on the cover of Forbes or Fortune defending his company and he’s not talking about Dell’s new thrust to be the best at customer service.
Where are you Michael Dell!? Your company is sick and you’re the guy who can restore confidence in it. Not a marketing guy, not a PR person, not any spokesman … you. No platitudes. No philosophy. No corporate speak. You! What the hell are you waiting for?
When Dell’s problem resolution specialist called me, as he’s called many other bloggers, he asked me what it would take to make me buy another Dell. He offered to cut me a check for the $40 piece of software a non-English-speaking person forced me to re-purchase instead of sending someone to fix my defective CDR drive.
That’s the shame of it. It’s not about the $40 Dell made me waste a year and a half ago. It’s about being treated badly, not having your expensive “gold” service contract honored without an argument. It’s about listening.
The majority of complaints aren’t about Dell’s products. They are about its service. Dell makes machines. Machines have moving parts. Parts break. If Dell fixes them as promised, life goes on. But that has not been the case.
Tens of thousands of customers can’t all have a vendetta against Dell. The truth is, tens of thousands of customers have received abysmal customer service from Dell and now we’ve bought other company’s computers.
Even so, the problem is fixable. Put your money where your mouth is NOW, skip the philosophy because nobody wants to hear it. All we want to know is when you’re going to provide the better service you are promising.
I told Mr Fixit (who’s since disappeared, by the way) that the way to start was to get my comments published on the Dell blog. So now they’re there. A post referred to me. My response was quickly posted. That’s satisfying.
Yet it made me feel sorry for Dell because they just haven’t understood the revolution that’s gone on around them. Customers are in charge now. We’re gnarly, and snarky, and we’ll take our business to your competitor if you don’t listen to us. We have lots of options.
That message needs to sink in at Dell. Or otherwise, clearly, it’s going to be curtains for what once was a really amazing company. This is for all the marbles.
Clearly, Dell knows they have to improve their service or die. The decision to start the Dell one2one blog last week was fueled by the company’s need to communicate that it’s listening. The one2one blog, despite its blatant faults, is a start.
Dell told the Journal:
“Dell continues to make significant investments in customer service and support capabilities. The company is seeing positive results and will continue to invest to drive a superior customer experience.” Dell also said it has made significant investments in its products and expects to deliver a greatly expanded product line in the second half of the year.
But that’s all just talk. Stop talking. Start doing.
Dell hasn’t bee a good company to work with since 1999 when their customer service went down the drain at hyper speed.
The dilemna with Dell is that in order to give cheap good quality machines, they must cut back on something. Since they want relative quality computers at a low price, customer service is the first thing to go. What do you think will happen when they refocus on their customer service? Prices will go up again. Don’t believe me? Look at Dell’s latest announcement about cutting down on rebates and focusing on higher end market even after it bought Alienware.
It’s a trade off if you wish. You either pay more and buy an IBM knowing their tech support won’t let you down or you take your chances hoping you’ll never have problems with your machine and pay little for it.
When I was consulting in the IT industry, the choice was clear for my clients. Get a Dell and if all goes well, you save but if things go wrong, you will pay for my service. And believe they paid. Those who bought IBM extremely rarely had problems and they were solved quickly. I made a lot of money on Dell Hell. However Dell was very good when you bought 50 machines or more. It then considered you a big client and would help you.
Finally I switched to Mac ;)
In the 2005 publication of the Forbes 400, Dell was listed as the 4th richest man in the United States and the 18th richest in the world with net assets of around US$18 billion. Dell resides in Austin, Texas with his wife, Susan, and their four children. Dell reportedly owns the 15th largest home in the world, worth an estimated US$18.7 million.
Michael Dell:
I hope you read this! Being a first-hand victim of Dell’s systemic incompetency, nightmarish customer service, sales reps, that will lie just sell, conflicting, misinformation, I can attest that I will never purchase another Dell product, nor will any of my friends and family.
Dell, in my opinion, has crossed the line of customer trust too many times.I could go on for hours and then some explaining the multitude of frustrating customer service calls where I have been on the phone literally for 8-10 hours at a stretch with poorly trained technicians, ones that I can hardly understand because their English and accents are so poor they actually get angry with me because I cannot understand a word they say and I have to ask them to repeat it several times as I discern their comments a word at a time.
How many of you other Dell customera have listened to the endless flow of apologies and empathetic rhetoric that numbs the mind as no progress is ever made towards resolving the issue at hand. They are more interested in following information protocols for security. That’s about all they can do right.
As sorry as they say they are, they are never ready to really do anything to prove it. Yes, I am very angry with Mr. Dell, who appears to be hiding under a rock somewhere while his giant company slowly descends into a failing company with a reputation for…., well, you know.
I would like to know to whom I can go to present the numerous complaints I have for the losses of my time, sotware they sold me that is incompatible with m y computer, having a computer that only works 50%. Lord knows, I have been passed off from one technician to the next, with each one knowing nothing more or even less than the next. The endless repeating and re-explaining my situation over and over again. Sometimes I want to just scream, and I have.
Getting conveniently disconnected, empty call-back promises, being put on hold for ever, giving my express service code but it never gets written down, home telephone number in case we get disconnected info. Don’t these technicians ever write anything down? I have more case numbers than a phone book. It’s ridiculous.
I have seen other large corporations take the same road to internal collapse and eventual liquidation as they begin to crumble under their own weight of incompetency, mismanagement and no center of control.
The Dell Corporation has lied to me and the general puplic, they have sold me products that do not work, even sent me empty packages.
I am done doing business with the Dell Corporation and I hop-e that anybody from Virginia that reads this will contact me to discuss a class action lawsuit against Dell.
I was a preferred customer until I made my first purchase. Afterwards, they defaulted back to the high interest rate and cheated me out of the advertised grace period they had promised. They enticed me to open a Dell Preferred account and then charged me the higher interest rate…..
Micjhael Dell could care less about the consumer or making things right. He let’s his company tread on people like they are trash. They lie to the public, run false advertising, carefully planned bait and switch schemes and basically run over the general public because as with other large companies, there is no face to put on the Dell Corporation.
The face of this company is in hiding under a rock somewhere counting his money and laughing at us. He’s made his pot of gold and now wants to run away from the responsibility that goes with a truly successful business.
Mr. Dell, YOU SUCK and so does your company.
Mr. Dell, you would do better to stay hid under that rock you hide under but I can assure you that you will never see another penny of my money nor that of my family and friends. The consensus is growing minute by minute. Dell Sucks! Don’t buy a Dell unless you want to punish yourself.
I’m not sure if you can help me. But I’ve been a victim of Dells shady practices. Instead of sending me my Wii Remote they sent me an invoice in a package that clearly had no room for a box in the first place. I’ve called customer service and all I get is the run around from their agents in India. No one is willing to listen to me at all. I’ve sent them messages filled out forms online and spoken to 7 different people now. I’m not sure what else I can do at this point accept maybe dispute the charge but I’m guessing since I used my Dell acct they will also give me the run around and pretend they don’t understand me. Just curious when you said they also sent you empty packages what did you do to resolve the matter. Or did you just have to take the loss and never do business with them again?
i made Dell refund my money. look up Dell in the search on the blog. i published the names and numbers of the people with whom i spoke and emailed.
The majority of complaints aren’t about Dell’s products. They are about its service. Dell makes machines. Machines have moving parts. Parts break. If Dell fixes them as promised, life goes on. But that has not been the case.
Tens of thousands of customers can’t all have a vendetta against Dell. The truth is, tens of thousands of customers have received abysmal customer service from Dell and now we’ve bought other company’s computers.