Bombay Quotient

My Dell laptop has become a liability for me. I currently use a Dell Inspiron 1420 but I thoroughly regret the fact that I bought one. I’m writing this post especially to warn other laptop purchasers about the troubles that they might face with a Dell laptop.

Incompetent engineers that only know how to replace a part but hardly know to fix your problem. Well, I understand that most engineers don’t come directly from Dell but I’ve serious doubts about the company that they partner with. As per what I know through their management personnel, every engineer gets simply 2 refresher training courses per year between intervals of 6 months. Moreover, when you continue reading this post, you will also realize that these engineers lack of soft-skills and professional business etiquette.

• Frequent spare-part replacements - Please don’t get carried away by the word that Dell is good at support because this also implies that many Dell laptop users face problems and complaints.
• Getting insulted and getting hung up by rude personnel at the Dell Customer service center - This actually happened to me! These are the words of a customer service executive: “I do not understand what your problem is. You are really confusing me.” and he hung up on me! (For those who may have doubts about how much I understand computers and who think that I may not be savvy enough to explain my problem - in my defence: I’ve reassembled my desktop computer a number of times and have been using computers for over 10 years now. Thus, I was precise in my explanation to the Dell call-center guy about my problem
• NO SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT FOR SUPPORT - Coordinating with two companies for one problem - You may have to coordinate with Dell for the spare-part delivery and communicate with the support company separately for the engineer to arrive at your site. In India, these engineers call up twice before and after they arrive around your site and ask for detailed directions to it. No, I don’t live in an underground basement of a building in the dark alley of the Unknown! I’m sure that these guys from the support company (Unisys is Dell’s partner in providing support services in Mumbai) would instinctively call me even if I lived at the Taj Mahal and ask: “Sir, could you please direct me to your home, am standing right in front of a white monument-like structure!”Too many cellphone incentives maybe?Often, if the spare-parts are not available, you will have to request (in addition to the money that you paid for the warranty!) Dell to expedite the process and additionally inform the vendor company to send the engineer when the spare-part arrives
• Waste time on giving unnecessary feedback:
  
  Yeah, they love taking feedback from you and making you feel as if you’re being heard! Well, don’t fall for this - You already lost a lot of your time in all the problems you faced, you don’t want to waste further time, just so that it makes you feel good. With over three levels of management (I’ve spoken to one officer at each level!) just in the customer support hierarchy, I wonder if the management even comes to know about the problems of the customer
• Last but not the least, every problem arises mainly as a consequence of a low quality product. Dell laptops get really impressive support but the problem is that it’s REQUIRED!

Below is a mail conversation between me and a Dell customer support agent (at the third level in that hierarchy!):
This post is a comment I tagged on a blog-post about how Dell Support is really Impressive!

I think Dell Support is not efficient because resolving a laptop problem by replacing a spare-part is no big deal and does not really resolve the issue all the time. for major problems with laptops. With high regards, as Rajiv, even I purchased a Dell 1420 laptop and have had major problems with almost all the parts of the laptop - my LCD, motherboard, heatsink and keyboard have all been replaced three times. This has created a lot of problems for me. I’ve spent over 40 hours of my valuable time attending to their slow and inefficient engineers (their vendor company provides the engineering support - in Mumbai it is Unisys). The engineer was highly incompetent and did not know about a couple of spare-parts which is pathetic! Upon repeated complaints that fellow was also fired by Unisys and Unisys was warned by Dell about having appointed such personnel. Regardless of this, my issue was still not solved and the senior engineer took over 10 hours to get it fixed. You won’t believe this: Over Rs.1,00,000 worth of parts were replaced for my laptop which I purchased for Rs.65,000 (and that was 8 months back) and Dell wouldn’t replace my laptop but harass me with their incompetent support executives wasting time at my home and not getting the problem fixed, day-after-day.

Sending an engineer on site is one thing and getting the problem fixed is an entirely different thing!

I’m so unsatisfied with my Dell laptop that I would not recommend anyone to buy it. Support might me good but what’s the point if it’s required every now and then? To me it seems that the only reason why Dell is popular is because they give a lot of support after the purchase but unfortunately a laptop purchaser disregards (like I did) the question why this support required? From my experience, I would surely say that it’s because their laptop build quality is low by use of very low quality spareparts.

Mail conversation between an unsatisfied Dell customer (me) and a management executive of Unisys (Dell’s support company in Mumbai):

Dear Mr. X,

This is with regards to a technical engineer (VVV- Tech ID: 499310) who has visited my site to repair my laptop (the issue is yet not resolved).

Below are the actions of your engineer which are unexpected and a customer can simply not tolerate it:

• He switched off my laptop directly with the power button instead of going through the Start menu in Windows. And when I pointed this out to him, he said ‘Once in a while it’s okay’. This is simply ridiculous and I can not tolerate someone mishandling my laptop in such a careless manner!
• He’s often on the phone while at the site and attending frivolous personal calls and wasting my time.
• The engineer made 2 mistakes during both the visits at my site:
  • He marked the motherboard spare-part box as ‘Used’ even when he had not used it to replace my old motherboard and thus confused the other engineer (XYZ - Tech ID: 483864) who visited the site later.
  • He did not understand what to do with another spare-part which was dispatched to my site. It was some sort of cream that was to be applied on the heat-sink which he was not aware of. The engineer who followed him (XYZ - Tech ID: 441402) pointed out that it might very well be possible that because VVV did not apply the cream (it’s actually a silicon grease which comes in the form of a sticker that you stick on top of the microprocessor with it’s base on the heat sink), the motherboard may have conked off. This is gross negligence and utter incompetence on part of VVV.
• The most annoying aspect of my experience with your engineer has been the fact that he invited one of his friends over to the site and lied that he was a senior from your company. My house is not a hang-out place for Unisys engineers and their friends. The purpose is to resolve the issue and vacate the site as soon as possible because it’s not the Unisys office or a playground!

I request you to look into this matter and see what can be done. I think that a communication from your end personally would convince me that the feedback was important to your management.

Further, I’m also appaled because the complexity of my laptop problem is so high that Dell had recommended your company to send a senior engineer, even then your company sent VVV who is not senior (which is very evident). It was only after Dell recommended them again that they sent the senior engineer (XYZ- Tech ID: 441402). A lot of time already has been wasted. Please resolve the problem at the earliest so that we can both utilize our times in a more productive activity!

This experience has compelled me to believe that your company has employed an unprofessional and incompetent engineers and that you may even continue to do so.

I consider this e-mail to be an important feedback for the management to improve upon its affairs of human resources.

REPLY:

Hi,

Firstly apologize for the unethical behavior of this engineer. In order to ensure professionalism and customer service the engineer has been terminated with immediate effect and is no more with our business. Thank you for the valuable time in providing this open feedback.

Thanks & Regards

Mail conversation between an unsatisfied Dell customer (me) and a technical executive at Dell India:

Hello,

It’s a pleasure to be a first-time Dell user and experience the excellent post-sales technical support. My service tag is: GCP4R1S and I got your reference from Mr. A. Dell has been my first laptop purchase for my medium enterprise and has been recommended by a lot of my friends. Although, having suffered so much with three components (consistently) is really appaling. The problem is all the more grave because it costs me a lot of time when the executive comes down during business hours.

It is important for me to know why these problems persist because A’s answers were really not very convincing. At the same time, I also asked A why are these problems occuring for such a frequent purchase. This is sure to affect my decision to purchase additional laptops for my business. Please revert to me via phone (if possible) to discuss this in detail because it’s of my prime concern, especially when I’m considering the purchase of additional laptops from your company.

Another mail to him since he did not revert to this one for over 10 days!:

Dear Mr. AB,

It is not usual for me to not get a reply to e-mails regarding concerns of any product or service that I’ve purchased from a well-established company as yours.

A simple reply over e-mail is considered ‘polite’ when I deal with companies following ‘decent’ communication norms.

As of date, my laptop problem still remains unresolved and over twenty hours of my time has been wasted by your on-site engineers, while over Rs. 40,000 worth of spare-parts have been changed.

You should know better how to deal with such an issue! Resolving it will save a lot of our time so that we can thus utilize it for better purposes rather than ranting and reverting over e-mail.

A phone-call from you would be highly appreciated but I have not raised my expectations that much.

Regards,
Dhaval Doshi

PS: I also see that those who am marking copies too do not seem to understand the gravity of my situation.

Almost two hours and I got a call for him. I think even that is a really long amount of time . I cooperated with him but forewarned that I’m not willing to send my laptop all the way to Bangalore (from Mumbai) just so that he could look into the problem, since it was already over 50 hours that they had spent time on trying to resolve the issue.

Problem still persisted, thus another mail to them:

Dear Mr. Abraham,

Thanks for having reverted to my call yesterday about the laptop problem and concerns about your vendor Unisys.

I’m glad that your vendor has taken substantial efforts in redressing the problem in that engineer’s behaviour and his incompetence. It shows a lot about their professionalism and standards. Obviously, this indirectly reflects upon the strict work-ethic that you follow at Dell.

But I’m still in utter disappointment because my laptop issue is yet not resolved. As I write this, the engineer from Unisys is at my site and he has already replaced all the parts, including the microprocessor, the heatsink, the motherboard, audio panel. The problem still persists and my computer fails to boot successfully! All this has happened after over 30 hours of time spent by engineers at my site and after having replaced parts worth over the actual cost of the laptop!

Regardless of all these difficulties I’ve gone through in coordination with you and everyone at your company, I’m willing extend my cooperation to help you resolve this ASAP. As per our talk yesterday, I’m still patient for today, but I’m not happy that the Dell Customer Call Center has asked the Unisys engineer to again coordinate with another top executive at Unisys. I still don’t think that Dell understands the issue and its gravity, so I will bold my concerns below:

I’ve already taken a lot of efforts in cooperating but Dell (not Unisys - the vendor) does not have a single point of contact for my issue. The guys at Unisys need to coordinate with ten different people to get this problem resolved and I do not like the idea of the engineer waiting at my house on the phone on queue. How come you do not have a separate queue for engineers who are on site? My laptop problem stands quite complicated and I would like to know what is Dell’s alternate plan of action - regardless of what Unisys has in store for me. I think Dell is answerable and needs to take an effort to resolve the issue and not simply rely on the vendor. The spare-parts are being shipped from your end and the engineers are doing their job and am being as patient about it as possible to give my time. Dell should know better about how to handle this.

I’m writing to you with the hope to get a response from any superior above you, in case you can not help me at your position. Please make sure that this is taken as a serious concern and not just another customer ranting away. Specifically, also keep in mind that as a consumer (and citizen of this country) I want to exercise every right possible to get redressal on this. Further, I’ve already recommended my friends against purchasing Dell laptops - I’m sure your tech team will be saved off many efforts.

I’m marking a copy of this mail to Unisys and some Sales representatives I know at your company (who have often not responded earlier to my mails) so that everyone is aware about the situation.

This was followed by another half-an-hour phone call ranting and complaining about their incompetency and delay in resolving the issue

So what really happened here?

There was a simple LCD change required. Additionally, my keyboard was required to be replaced. In around three visits by the engineer, these two parts were changed twice. Suddenly, audio panel gave problems, so another visit got the panel changed and yet another visit to change the motherboard! What followed was a roller-coaster ride that was due to some mistake by the engineer which carried away some heatsink part along with the old motherboard. Thus, the motherboard was replaced and the microprocessor too. Moreover, upon close inspection I found that the LCD was defective which they simply denied to replace and I had to argue with them about it too! How can you hand over a brand new LCD with spots to a customer and deny to replace it!?!

Here is a list of Dell laptop components that were replaced in about 15 days of service that Dell provided. Impressive? I don’t think so! :

• LCD (3 times)
• Keyboard (3 times)
• Motherboard (3 times)
• Heatsink (2 times)
• Silicon grease that’s provided separately (2 times)
• Microprocessor (once)
• Dell Media Center Remote Control (It was lost with the motherboard replacements so I had to ask them to send me another one!)
• Audio Panel (four times)

You gotta believe me! :

Anyway, I’m stuck with this for awhile and this blog post isn’t going to help me find buyers interested in a second-hand Dell laptop (with almost brand new parts! ;)); I think am gonna head to craigslist.org now…:D

Disclaimer:

Although, this experience was with Dell India, please keep in mind that ultimately the laptop is made up of the same parts (a lot of them from China) be it Dell USA or Dell India!

Update:

• Other Dell users with some really bad experiences. :
  • This guy wrote to Mr. Dell about his laptop after hiring some professional legal advice about his problem!
  • Another one