Dell is Done
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The saga is over. The king is dead. Dell has lost and may never recover.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
The final nail was hammered into the coffin, at least in regards to my personal issues with Dell. If you are reading this for the first time, Richard Binhammer, a member of Dell’s blog outreach team, contacted me to see if he could help me with my complaint regarding my desire to purchase a laptop from their small business section. I have a Dell Preferred Account, which allows me to purchase from their Home and Home Office division, but somehow, foolishly, they have erected barriers when someone like me, who works a day job and pursues a career after hours as well, wants to buy from Small Business. The strange thing is that I could buy that system with my own personal credit card, but not with the card Dell issued me. Four years ago a telephone sales rep was able to help me. This year a team of people, including a member of their customer resolution team, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Margo, the person who contacted me from their customer retention team, told me that the person who had helped me before had “massaged the system.” Hello? No kidding! Does that surprise you I wanted to say. That was a person who understood that Dell’s primary existence is based on selling stuff to people who want to buy the stuff they have. They didn’t hurt anyone…in fact no animals were harmed during the transaction.
Somewhere along the line Dell forgot what they are in business for. Don’t be surprised if Dell becomes the next acquisition target. Their brand still has value, but it is being crushed by poor decision making by people inside who are more concerned about protecting their turf than they are in selling stuff - including a particular laptop I heavily coveted.
Following is my recent email to Richard…
Richard;
I want to thank you for at least reaching out to me to try and help me resolve this issue. Unfortunately for all concerned, there is no resolution Dell is willing to make to satisfy me.
I was given three options. Use a personal credit card, which obviously was an option before this came about. Lie to open a Dell Small Business account, even though I am not a small business. Margo expressed some respect for my decision not to go that route even though others have. Third, to buy from a different vendor.
After my conversation, realizing that the Dell that had won my business four years ago was indeed dead, I went to Office Depot and purchased a HP DV9000T notebook computer. I upgraded the RAM and hard drive as well. It came with Vista so I will be wiping the drive and installing Windows XP, which I also purchased last night.
Four years ago a front-line sales person found a way to make me happy when the computer I wanted was on your small business site. He got the job done and left me feeling good about Dell. I have since then referred a ton of business to Dell and was a member of the team that evaluated companies and eventually selected Dell for our growing software business. I can no longer do that. There have been grumblings due to your poor support about buying our rack mount servers and peripheral hardware elsewhere, and up to now I have been staunchly opposed.
That is no longer the case.
I can see now why you are getting your asses handed to you in the marketplace. The company that all the other computer manufacturers feared when I was selling systems no longer exists. In its place is an aging leviathan bogged down by the unwieldy burden of bureaucracy. Instead of finding ways to earn business you fall back on policies and procedures. Those P&P are slowly strangling your once vibrant company.
You can spend all day with touchpoints, blog outreach and all those nice, cozy terms that make you feel like you are doing something, but none of it matters if you destroy relationships with your staunchest supporters. Up until last night, I was one of those.
No Mas
Ben Ice
6 Comments
binarypc
March 17th, 2007
at 9:05am
Shoot, I’m having horrible customer service problems with AMD right now on a processor that is overheating. One person asked for test results like temperatures, fan rotation speeds etc. I even tested the processor with an AMD recommended Heat Sink / Fan combination off of their website and gave them the results from that. Somewhere after giving them all that info, they decided that the only e-mail support replies they would send me were copies of their warranty policy and how if I continued my 3 year warranty would no longer be valid.
As a long time user, giver away of and recommender of AMD products, I’m seriously concerned with where their tech support is taking me right now.
(Oh, and after perusing their forums I found that many other customers have been RMA’ing other processors from the same line for overheating.)
binarypc
March 17th, 2007
at 9:19am
Missed this info - it’s a new processor - bout 3 week old, Athlon 64 X2 Dual core 4400+ 65Watt.
Cheryl
March 17th, 2007
at 10:52am
Hi-
I just wanted to say that I mostly agree with you about your comments on Dell. I too was a staunch supporter of Dell until approx. two years ago, when I ordered a VERY expensive laptop and it never worked right. I understand that a computer is a piece of electronics and some can come off the line just right, and others not so much, and I got one of those. I was OK with that-what I was not OK with was the support or lack there of from Dell in resolving the issues. Since this is not my first go around with computers, I purchased the Lexus of warranties to go along with the computer, and basically had to fight tooth and nail to have what was clearly in black and white taken care of and even then, it was not until I threatened my attorney that things looked up. I still ended up with a “refurbished” replacement for my laptop, but I did get upgrades that pretty much evened things out.
I am still of the mindset that Dell computers (when you get a good one) are a good value, we have a PC that is going on 6 yrs old, and with just a few upgrades is still current and a workhorse.
I will also say that the recent move of customer service (most aspects) back to the United States was WAAAAAAY overdue, and I am so very glad. I had to call recently and was so pleased to have little to no wait time to reach a CSR and immediately got someone whose native tongue was the same as mine, it was nice to not have to spell phonetically every word I said. I was not happy with the solutions to the problems I was having though, and thought the rep. was too fast to pull out the “system restore” card, I mean I could have done that myself. I am not sure if other reps. are more highly trained than the one I reached, or that is the level of training they all receive.
So… all in all I think the Dell of years past is gone forever, and the Dell of today is a mixed bag. I will say this, my next computer purchases will come from elsewhere, as I have other things in my life that are much more worthy of my time, I really just need to turn it on and go, and have no problems.
abenjamin
March 20th, 2007
at 9:45am
Cheryl;
And there you have it. What Dell (and other companies such as AMD as binarypc mentioned) fail to realize is that we fight for what we want and when they allow us a win, we become an even more ardent supporter, because THEY FIX THE PROBLEM TO OUR SATISFACTION!!! The Dell of old was able to help me even though that wasn’t how their business units were set up with a front-line sales person. That reflected the can-do attitude of Dell just a few short years ago. What has replaced it is a miasmic sloth of a company that can’t find their “John Brown hindparts” with both hands. So here we have two examples of staunch advocates they have lost, and we all know it is just the tip of the iceberg.
Christopher Lawton
April 3rd, 2007
at 4:24pm
Hi Richard,
My name is Christopher Lawton. I am a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and based in San Francisco. I cover PCs, and I was very interested to reach your blog about Dell. I wondered if you’d be interested in speaking with me for a story I am working on..? It wouldn’t take too much of your time, and I’d be happy to describe the story in more detail. I just had a few questions about your experiences, particularly online. If you are interested, please shoot me an email and let me know. Thanks so much. Hope to hear from you.
Best,
Christopher Lawton
abenjamin
April 10th, 2007
at 10:39am
Hi Chris;
My name is Ben. Richard is the Dell dude who told me this dude was NOT getting a Dell. Ok, he didn’t say that outright, but the end result was the same. Anyway, I sent you an email today, sorry for the lateness but fantasy baseball consumes several weeks of my free time during the spring.