Dell Social Blunder?
While Dell has been given credit for the use of social media in the press, Dell staff in their first Dell Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) felt differently. Blogger Claire Celzi in her post (she attended the CAP) reported "they dropped the ball and went after shiny objects, while allowing their social media customer service efforts to languish. While they were busy creating fan communities, Dell Swarm (group buying), giving speeches and receiving accolades, many people like me were stuck in what is known in the biz as 'Dell Hell'." She continues that "Dell has recommitted to using social media in customer service settings, more than doubling their social media listening team to be able to respond to customer concerns with actions, rather than just pacifying or ignoring complaints." Earlier this year Ron Rose joined Dell to head up their global platforms where much of social media has to be implemented. So there is progress ... but here is my latest experience in 'Dell Hell'. I have a next business day warranty but it seems like a next year warranty so far.
PS The last section of this post gives some tips in escalating problems with Dell.
PSS (06Jun12) Dell opened a Social Media Command Center in 2011 so at least Dell owners can reach a real person.
Dell Customer Advocate?
"My name is John" is one of the highly-ranked posts you'll see when searching for Dell Customer Service on Google Search. Here is a response from a customer (two years later) who had trouble penetrating the front line of Dell customer support. My impression - you get through (if you can) to someone knowledgeable in Dell and your problem will generally be fixed. But getting to that knowledgeable someone is a challenge. Make sure you get a case # or problem # if you use the phone. I always use chat/email to make sure I have a record of your encounter.
Update: The email address for Dell Customer Advocate no longer monitored.
If it makes you feel better (e.g., you aren't alone), you can see the gripes and problems with Dell customer service between roughly 2004 and 2007 on this post.
When a global warranty is in name only
I have been using Dell Laptops for over 10 years partly because in the early days problems were resolved more or less quickly. Reliability wasn't the greatest but I was willing to live with it partly due to interchangeable accessories (power plugs) and docking station (as long as you keep within same line of Latitudes). As many have been reporting over the years, service has been degrading but at least being in USA the actual repairs were done quickly and I am buying business laptops not low-end consumer models.
I teach in Lebanon and my university buys almost exclusively from Dell. So I thought any problems would be resolved quickly. Note that I bought my own Latitude D630 as the university wasn't issuing laptops (well they did offer an 8100 with 128MB RAM which was less functional than my 8200 ... another story). Here is my journey ...
End of November ... video fizzles out (no external VGA output either) on my 2 1/2 year old Latitude D630
1st week of December - per Dell website asked to contact Dell EMEA support (this is where users are defaulted by IP address). Two requests sent via their request form - no response - not even acknowledgement of receipt of request. Then I contacted Dell Chat on 4 December, 14 December, and 16 December. The first chat ended with "no problem a service request will be issued". On this last chat I was finally informed that I had to do a tag transfer to EMEA which will take at least 10 days. Actually 10 days is NOT true (at least for EMEA). Chat as a social media tool is cool ... and initially I was happy that the problem was resolved. But of course I was very upset to find out that I had been given the wrong information and wasted two weeks (turns out two weeks is a drop in the bucket). Dec 16 - gave up with chat and contacted Dell Hardware Support by email asking for help. Also filed the first warranty transfer request to EMEA (website says minimum of six weeks).Tag transfer e-mail response: "The current processing time is up to 6 weeks for all requests into and between an EC-EMEA country. Transfer coming from Asia, China and US into an EC-EMEAE country will be considerably longer."
Comment: Now why on earth does it take six weeks or longer to transfer a tag? A mystery that maybe Dell can answer. And the parts ... well the laptop of my colleague (same model but just bought in Lebanon) was repaired while I was waiting to get my tag transferred. Feb 10 wrote to Dell Hardware Support trying to find out the status of my warranty. I had just called SETI in Lebanon (Dell's distributor) and they essentially said "Who?". No record of a transfer. Feb 11 send copies of EMEA transfer forms as requested. Feb 16 told to resubmit EMEA. Now it is 2 1/2 months without a computer and back to square one. June 14 Gave up trying to get it repaired in Lebanon. Transfer still seems to not have taken place. So I initiate a repair request while in USA. July 2 I have a Next Business Day Warranty so setting up a repair in US more or less is seamless (well at least better than what has happened to date). Unfortunately the repair only lasted the length of time the technician spent packing up. July 3 Requested repair but due to traveling (vacation) we decided it was best to return to depot to resolve the problem.
July 9. FedEx box for depot repair finally arrives (after a reminder email).
July 19 Check to see why laptop has not been returned. FedEx delivery fails due to incomplete signature (only knew this checking FedEx tracking). Dell left out the apartment #. Call FedEx and the 800 number sends email to local office. Local office calls and says it can't be delivered the next day because Dell hasn't authorized the change of address and isn't answering their phone # given.
July 20 Go to FedEx and they allow me to pick it up in person with ID showing the delivery address.
July 30 wrote to customer_advocate@dell.com to see what can be done to avoid a future calamity (see old link about this role). I'm tired of borrowing my wife's computer (and vice versa) and buying a spare seems to be a waste given technology obsolescence. I'll post a synopsis of their response when(if) I get one.
Update; The email customer_advocate@dell.com is no longer monitored.
July 31 Drafted a letter to Steve Felice - President of Consumer, Small and Medium Business. I'll send it after I resolve all the problems. I'll let you know what he has to say.
Aug 1 While researching this piece, I found a Dell2Dell blog post saying that the Nvidia GPU is defective and I'm eligible for a warranty extension. Now if Dell knew these were defective why didn't they contact me and saved us all a lot of grief.
An additional problem, not sure if related to above, that my Dell advocate (my words) from Dell Hardware Support is helping me with - it may be a hard disk problem or something more.
The error I'm getting is "User Profile Service service failed the login user profile cannot be loaded" when trying to logon to my administrator account. The admin account can't be logged into but I still had user access control authentication working. Microsoft won't deal with the problem because my OS is a Dell OEM version. But is Dell actually modifying profile code? You would think Microsoft would own up to this?
05Aug My advocate has ordered me a replacement hard disk. Now I just need to clone it.
26Aug Finally cloned my hard disk. Ghost32 wasn't successful probably with the multiple partitions present on the Dell drive (diagnostics, OS, recovery). Now that I've ruled out hardware ... need to pursue registry changes.
27Aug To deal with the profile login error look at the following resources:
Vista - The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded which also links to Fix for Vista's: The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded. These two pages will likely cover most situations.
Hooray! I've resolved the profile error.
January 2011 - Sent an email to the Dell executive - President of Consumer, Small and Medium Business segments - no response.
July 2011 - Got my support renewal offer today reminding me there hasn't been a response. I found my email and printed it out sending to President of Consumer, Small and Medium Business because it made me feel better.
August 2011 - Surprise! I was contacted by Dell Executive Escalations. I wasn't expecting a reply. Well hopefully the warranty transfer issue will get some attention.
Escalating Support Problems With Dell
Whether you use phone, chat, or email (I prefer the latter two for documentation) you can ask but are unlikely to get beyond the first level of support. Requests by email seems to be more effective (at least for me) in getting someone at Dell to own the problem (for at least a few weeks).
Your next step (discovered July 30th) is the following sent to me by Dell:
If you have gone through the normal support channels described above and your issue is still not resolved, please click here <https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/outstanding_issues_tech> to report it to us so that we can help remedy the situation; you can expect an eMail response back from Dell within 1 business day.
I found from this 2004 post a link to Unresolved Customer Service Issues on the Dell website. You can find more details by going to the Dell Support Home Page. You will see on the bottom menu a link to Unresolved Issues.
Beyond that you only recourse is to try and reach someone higher in Dell. Here are some links I found to senior Dell management if you really need to escalate your problem. (link) (link). You'll have to match up the names to their current positions (link to executive team).