Dell Customer Support: A Love Story

Slacker

Slacker

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So today after a couple of TF2 rounds with my friend, I decide to log off, turn on some music, and do some homework. Right as I click iTunes, my computer freezes. I try a force restart, it doesn't boot. Long story short, I run diagnostics and discover that I have some error "042"

I call dell. To make a two-hour conversation short

-Thank you for calling Dell Technical Support this is blah blah blah how can I help you?

-Yeah my computer isn't booting up, I got a 042 error

-Oh, well that means your harddrive is shot. We'll have to send you a replacement

-Alright, sounds good.

-Actually sir, give me one second

-Aight




-Sir, I am happy to say I can actually as a one-time exception send a representative TO YOUR PLACE OF RESIDENCE and he will replace your harddrive with no charge

-really? cool, my address is-

-Hold on sir! May I recommend you sign up for an upgraded level of technical support? That way if this happens again, we can send out another representative for free.

-Uh, I think I'll take my chances

-This is a one-time only thing sir. Pay 120 for the upgrade and you will not have to pay for a representative again. One time offer.

-Um...no thanks

-Ok, one second sir


...

...

...

-Sir, I am very sorry to say that I read your information wrong, I cannot send a representative to your location. I am very sorry.

-Huh?

-Yes sir, I am so sorry. I can send you a box where you will ship us your laptop and we will repair it

-Uh...can I speak to a superviser?

-Sir, please-

-Nah, really, I'd like to talk to someone about this

-*Sigh* Ok.

*SHITTY WAITING LINE MUSIC*

-Sir, I am sorry but my manager is busy right now. I am so sorry, I read your information wrong

-I'll wait for the manager sir, can I plea-

*click*





TLDR: **** DELL
 
lol technical support. You could learn how to do it yourself in the time it takes for them to finish playing around on the phone.
 
Thats why you ask his or her name before starting the conversation and when she or he hangs up on you, yyou phone back, ask for the supervisor and insist the bastard gets fired.
 
He didn't read your information wrong, it was a sale opportunity. On the flow chart in front of him it says:

OFFER FREE REPAIR > HAPPY CUSTOMER > WHILE HAPPY SELL WARRANTY COVER > WILL BUY DUE TO HAPPY.

You rejected it, so he pulled the free repair because they are dell twats. That is a really shitty thing to do.

Also - you can buy a HDD for a laptop and replace it yourself in a laptop pretty easily. I bet if you youtube it, you'll find a video guide. Forget dell, be a man.
 
Luckily my Studio 15 has had no trouble, but yeah Dell customer support sucks hard. Like Glenndale said, do it yourself.
 
If you think it's worth your time, you should probably complain about this. You might be able to get some free stuff out of them.

Otherwise, Glenn is right - the HDD is probably the easiest bit of a laptop to replace. Can just pop it in and out.
 
I would complain cuz its a good opportunity 2 get the basterds.
 
At the time I was so sick of talking to them that I just figured to let it by, but I may contest it today.

I called them back and they're sending me a new HDD free within 1-2 days so it's not like they left me a totally ****ed computer
 
I'm assuming you've lost everything that was on the HDD? Did you have back-ups, cause if not that would really suck.
 
Sloth said:
I'm assuming you've lost everything that was on the HDD? Did you have back-ups, cause if not that would really suck.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did :\. I only had the thing for two months and it didn't give any sign it was dying. Oh well, yay for Steam!
 
Hmm, whenever I call Dell for our machines here at work, it works pretty smooth. "Hey, here's the issue." "OK, we're shipping you a new HDD." "THANKS!"

Maybe it's because we have a business license and they like us more?
 
Business licenses and their CS are usually worlds apart from the treatment you get on a standard home service, yeah. Business internet accounts, for example, have much stricter minimum response times for problems, etc...
 
Laivasse said:
Business internet accounts, for example, have much stricter minimum response times for problems, etc...
Click to expand...

Don't you mean maximum response times?

Perhaps you mean a stricter minimum speed at which they respond.
 
Yeah, I usually spend about 5 minutes max waiting for someone. Then I tell them what error code I got from diagnostics, and they said the replacement part will be here tomorrow.

I still get Indian people, at first. Then after I tell them my code, they give me to the American and gets the shipping info. :p
 
Makes sense enough. Business licenses are presumably where they get their real money from, or anyway a much greater proportion of it than from any one home user. It's like how banks don't bother to open at reasonable hours, because, at the end of the day, your piddling personal account with a few quid in it just isn't worth much of their effort. Or anyway, mine isn't.
 
When my charger pack packed up a couple of years ago for my Inspiron 6400 I found the support really helpful always getting in touch to make sure everything went smoothly. Just a shame that the charger is a piece of shit had to get a new one a few weeks ago after the wiring started to show :D
 
back when the intel chipsets first came to apple I was working on my roommate's apple laptop and his dell desktop. I actually came across two problems at about the same time:

1.) the mac wouldn't boot off my XP cd and it wouldn't boot into OSX because I couldn't eject the cd.
2.) the sata drivers on dell's website weren't working, even though dell said they would.

Start with dell, I call them up and tell them my problem, they wont do anything until they have all my roommate's information at which point they tell me his warranty is void and I'll have to pay them $39.99 if I want tech support, I hang up and solve the problem soon after (newest drivers didn't work, oldest drivers did, good job dell!)

Then I call apple (holy shit, an american on tech support!) and they start to ask me for my information, but since I was still upset with dell I interrupted the apple representative and said, "listen, all I want to do is eject a cd before the computer boots up." and the representative says, "oh..well, have you tried holding down the mouse button when you turn it on?" So I do, it works, and he says, "thank you for choosing apple, have a great day!" Turns out the XP cd must be sp3, mine was sp2.

extra horror story about HP
I buy an HP printer, certified to work with 64bit vista. First vista doesn't recognize it, so I use the HP install cd, which again, can't recognize the printer. So I call up HP and when I finally get an indian she tells me to download their remote desktop program so she can control my computer.

For the next 30 minutes she dicks around trying to get my computer to recognize the printer, she fails and sends me to the next tier. This person does some stuff for about 20 minutes, then brings her supervisor on the phone also, they play around a bit more then stop...and there's about a 2 minute pause where I can here some discussion in the background faintly...then they hang up on me and disconnect from remote desktop.

Furious I return the printer immediately and buy a Lexmark which is immediately recognized by vista as soon as I plug it in.

I don't buy anything dell or anything HP and I highly discourage from other people from buying their products as well.
 
Slacker said:
I mean, my harddrive is BROKEN. I'm not a computer whiz but I feel like that means my data is pretty much ****ed. I'm looking on the brightside- I was running way out of HD space, now I can actually be conservative about what I put on rather than loading my computer with programs and playing crowd-control later.
Click to expand...

New Hard Drive + http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2109p156id111652.htm = Win.

But about your data, it might take some work from a professional to get it restored.
 
My Dell laptop is pretty awesome :arms:

When the videocard broke (probably my own fault) it was repaired and back with me within 2 days. That was business support though.
 
**** dell. we use them at work and they're a pain in the ass stuffed full of bloatware and proprierty hardware. $250 for a freakin powersupply? you're out of your mind. so we just bought a shitty $20 psu that stuck out of the case ..like an extrernal powersupply
 
It's an XPS, but not a gaming/power laptop at all though. Don't know why it was branded in that line, since it's a 13" lightweight laptop.
 
PvtRyan said:
It's an XPS, but not a gaming/power laptop at all though. Don't know why it was branded in that line, since it's a 13" lightweight laptop.
Click to expand...

the XPS line has components you can't get in the other lines, like DDR3.
 
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