Tuesday, August 28, 2007

This post is a reply to Neal from Dell Inc.


This post is a reply to Neal from Dell, Inc. I first posted it as a follow-up comment to his comment to an earlier Post ( you can click here to read that Post ) and then thought it deserved it's own Post on my Blog so here it is. If you want to follow the whole story just click on "Dell" in the Labels section under this post.

Replying to Neal from Dell Corp, First of all thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my Blog post. I'll start with what you said last. I don't know your e-mail address or phone number so there is no way for me to contact you. If you want to give me that info you can by signing my guestbook privately ( so everyone doesn't call and e-mail you ). I have looked the the entire picture and I just got off the phone with my son and he told me that one of his room-mates just bought a Toshiba Laptop and had it within TWO days of placing the order. That's what I call service. By the way he configured it himself.

I have been dealing with Dell for years and have personally been involved in helping people order well over 50 Dell computers and all of them, with the exception of one was over $1000.00 . Until "recently" I never had a "major problem" with your company. The sales person that my son talked to was in Malaysia and didn't even know what the U.S. Navy was. I find that to be incredible in itself. I will tell you that I wouldn't mind paying a little more for a computer that has all North American sales and tech support. I hate calling India and having the support person telling me their name is Tom. That is laughable. I could relate a few other horror stories about Dell that have happened recently but I won't ..."Yet". I think the problem is that Dell is trying to compete with Wal-Mart and such places. Too bad... I don't buy my computers from Wal-Mart for a reason, but you are taking that away.

My son John said today that when he orders a computer he "HAS" to have it fast! If there is a long delay he might not even be at the same address. Remember he is in the United States Navy. He will be going on a Ship soon and I don't think you will deliver to the middle of the ocean. Will you? I look forward to your response.

Again, I am typing this Blog post on a Dell computer and I love it. Hope the company can get itself back up to par, I would love my next computer to be a Dell also.

P.S. It's nice to know that Dell cares enough to read my Blog. I am getting allot of hits on my Blog from an internal Dell website
http://fusion.us.dell.com/Fusion/Core/update.aspx?id=7478160

1 comment:

DellTech said...

John:

Sorry about the contact info. I thought it would come through when I posted since I was signed into my Blogger account but I guess it doesn't work that way. I just emailed it to you.

We often sell personal systems to military personal, including to those on ships, but via APO/FPO. We can clearly get the product to the harbor as quickly as we could any other US address but in the case of the 1330 right now, not that quickly. A coworker who was in the Navy for several years just explained how that mail system works and that it can take six eight weeks for packages to reach their recipients. The 1330 is an awesome laptop that many can wait for but it looks like this stage if he’s deployed, between the delays on our end and with Military Post, he would be waiting quite a while.

As for the current lead times, they are unusually long right now and we’re doing everything possible to get systems out. Up until recently, we’ve always built them to order so a week or so was never unusual but this is one of the rare cases where we’re taking significantly longer with some models. If you absolutely must have a laptop within 24-48 hours then, unfortunately, a local shop is really the only sure bet. As of this moment, we’re only selling one portable that I know of; the Inspiron 1501, at US brick and mortar stores.

Some of the laptop manufacturing in done in Malaysia but I’m not aware of any tech support operations for US customers there. The only Asian country with a US tech support call center is The Philippines and there’s a big base there so it seems really odd that someone there would not know about the US Navy. As far as I know, most computer manufacturers use offshore call centers for support and many offer different levels of support, some of which include US-based tech support agents. As far as the names go, that’s just for simplicity. I’ve come across techs here in the US that give out a nickname because their real one is complex and it isn’t worth having to explain it 25-30 times a day. I don’t think it’s their intention to deceive people or hide their ethnicity; it’s just to save time.

I’ll wait to hear from you via email with the specifics and if you have any other questions feel free to email them or post.