Dell-support follow-up survey
Posted by Tom Moertel Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:41:00 GMT
Recently I wrote about a bad support experience I had with Dell. Today in my inbox was an invitation to participate in a survey about my experience.
I accepted.
My survey responses, which were completely honest, were not glowing. Although Dell ultimately resolved my problem (the cabling shipment arrived the following day), the hoops I was forced to jump through were unacceptable. Dell’s support seemed fundamentally broken, and I had to fight to make it work.
When asked what Dell would need to do before I would feel comfortable recommending them to others, I wrote:
I would need confidence that Dell makes it easy for clued-in technical customers to speak with clued-in support personnel. As things stand, clued-in customers waste too much time on the phone with ineffective support personnel. In my case, I was handed off numerous times and ended up speaking with seven support persons, and only the final person had the knowledge and empowerment to make the situation right for this customer.
I also gave them a link to my article about the experience. It will be interesting to see if anybody reads it.
In any case, I am glad I received the survey invitation. At least it shows that Dell is trying to improve. Further, the survey asked the right questions: I was able to adequately express my dissatisfaction and point out where I thought their process had broken down.
I do hope somebody at Dell figures it out because support is the company’s Achilles heel. HP, in my experience, smokes Dell in this regard.
Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, on the very same day, a “customer advocate” with Dell’s headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, sent me an email offering help and asking for feedback. Owing to a mix-up, I did not receive his email until he re-sent it on 11 July, but I have since responded with a detailed summary of my experience.
Things are getting interesting.
Update 2006-07-21: It seems the Dell customer advocate was serious about fixing problems. He reviewed my case and was able to identify a user-interface problem with Dell’s web site that probably led to a good part of my difficulties. The problem is that a non-support phone number is offered in a portion of the support section of Dell’s web site. Customers, like me, who call the phone number are connected to people trained to handle pre-invoice issues, not support. Oops. As of this writing, the UI problem still exists, but I trust that it will be solved soon.
readers
This is very timely. I saw the CEO of Dell recently on Wall Street Journal Report, with Maria Bartiromo, where he indicated that the support problems at Dell where much better. If this is the case how bad had they gotten?
The Dell customer satisfaction survey. When we get a call we must log it into the database known as Dellserv. If we capture an email address, randomly a customer survey may be sent but not by the technician taking the call. The surveys are big in Dell and known as the VOC (voice of the customer). Every technician who receives a survey back keeps it in there personal record and it reflects on the technician’s ability and performance and effects team performance related pay. Now it is good and bad. The good is that if you are looking for internal promotion and you have loads of good VOC’s (Surveys) you get noticed. The bad is that it stops a lot of technicians taking ownership of other peoples cases because they don’t want to risk getting a bad voc in there record. I have in past answered a call about a general query and that person received a survey directed at the call I had concerning his query. However the customer marked my survey on the experience he had by the previous technician and hey I got hit in the ass with the VOC survey. Now the logs show it is not my fault but the survey stays on my record and can’t be removed even although the manager says it was not my fault. Now if you ever call up Dell and find you get passed from technician to technician then you know why. So if you log a call about a Dell product having a fault and you get your case reference number and you have to call back most technicians wont take ownership of your situation because they don’t want a bad VOC from a case that they never initially dealt with, most cases they will bend over backwards to get you a transfer to the original techie who took your first call. Ever wondered how Dell technicians are ever so nice on the phone. Would you like a large portion of fries delivered during the engineer call out. Make sure you ask the technician for his email address and ensure he takes ownership and either calls you back if required or emails you as it is your right if you have business support (business support guide).
Dell Employee, thanks for the inside perspective and the hints for better Dell support.
Sounds like Dell management has instituted a process that gives support personnel a strong incentive not to accept ownership of customer problems, especially the tricky problems that are the most deserving of good support. The irony is, of course, that the policy was probably put in place to improve support.
Does anyone have the email address of dell support? It is impossible to find it if you wnat to send an inquiry Sam
I recntly and still have a problems with my B130 Laptop, It would not recognize the CD/DVR and I was told to upgrade the burner, which I did. After it was installed and it still did not recognize the CD. After talking and working with 5 Technitions in the Philipeans it still doesnt work. My lap top is almopst worthless in its present condition. Each of the technitions used a diffrent method to solve the problem and none did. Being 80 years old and not really smart on computors I became really frustated.To say the least I am not a happy camper with dell support service,
for the cd/dvr try backing up the registry and deleting the upper and lower filters for the device. you can google cd/dvd upper and lower filters to get specifics on how to do so.
Being a 77 year old grandma and not computer literate, I purchased the extended on-site warranty. Well that has turned out to be a big mistake. In December, 2006, my computer died. After working with a technician on the phone for an hour, the techy decided she couldn’t help me and said she was referring me to someone else who would call me back. The call back did not happen (I have found call backs very seldom happen), so I called again. This call lasted four hours. It entailed going through what I had gone through on the previous phone call. This was followed by getting on the floor (not easy at my age) and taking the cover off the computer. Then the fun started. Taking wires out and putting them back and starting and restarting and of course uninstalling the operating system. But….to no avail. By now it was decided I needed a technician onsite. Turns out my c drive needed to be replaced as well as the power unit and possibly the motherboard. Now comes an interesting episode. The onsite technician said he would order what I needed and left. In a matter of 15 minutes I received a phone call asking to talk to the onsite technician. I informed the caller that the technician had already left. The caller asked me to turn on my computer. On my way to turn on the computer I passed by the window in the front of my house and noticed the onsite technician was in his car in front of my house. I informed the caller that he was there and the caller said don’t bother him, I just want you to turn on your computer. I turned it on and informed the caller there was nothing showing on the screen. He thanked me and hung up. I went outside and advised the technician about the call I had just received and he said he was calling someone else since the caller I had just talked to refused to send the parts needed to repair my computer. The technician said he was trying someone else to get the parts I needed. He was successful in getting the parts needed, the parts were installed and my computer was in action again. I agree I should try to assist the technician on the phone, but I believe the time I spent (four hours)in diagnosing my computer problem was a waste of time and believe the extended warranty is not worth it.
I have had several different answers to this. I have an XPS 1710 & an inspiron 1150. The power cords are interchangable (output side)can I use the XPS cord to power both computers so I don’t have to carry any more weight as I use both at the same time one powered & one on battery. Your tec support has given me two answers. Pls let me know if the 130 watt can be used on both. Regards, Bryan Herschell 928-204-2194