Saturday, September 17, 2011

Why I've lost confidence in Dell

Every computer I've ever owned myself has been a Dell. Up until this past week, my experience with them has been consistent: I get 4ish good years of use, then have a hardware problem. The faulty hardware problem is promptly resolved via excellent warranty support, and I get another year or two out of the computer, after which I'm happy to replace it for something more up to date. Because of this longevity and excellent support, I've always blindly turned to Dell when buying my next computer, figuring it means I won't have to worry about my computer for five years.

Unfortunately, this confidence was shattered this past week.

The computer is a Dell XPS 15 bought brand new in December 2010. Last Saturday, I started having problems with Windows loading. Sometimes it would freeze on the Welcome screen, sometimes I'd get a black screen with a mouse cursor, sometimes the desktop would load but nothing I clicked on would do anything. After a System Restore failed without rebooting Windows, I called tech support.

I didn't have to wait on hold at all, just do the menu dance, and a very nice tech walked me through some troubleshooting. I appreciate his work because he started at a more advanced level than I'd been troubleshooting at rather than reiterating the basics, and was very patient through a troubleshooting process that took over an hour. We eventually determined there was a problem with my wifi adapter (I hadn't noticed because my primary internet connection uses an ethernet cable), so he uninstalled and reinstalled it, and my computer booted up beautifully. He then told me that I'd be receiving an automatic follow-up email, and if I had any further problems I should forward the email to the address indicated and they'd give me a priority call back. Brilliant idea! That would mean we don't have to troubleshoot from scratch if the problem reoccurs!

Unfortunately, the problem reoccured the next day (Sunday). And, on top of that, the computer couldn't find the wifi adapter that had just been reinstalled the day before. So I forwarded the email to the address indicated and got an automatic reply saying they aim to reply within six hours during their business hours (9-7 Central).

But they never called back.

I emailed again on Monday and Wednesday and tweeted @DellCares (who requested a DM with pertinent information and said they'd look into it), but I never got my callback.

Meanwhile, my computer was deteriorating. I was working in Safe Mode with networking, unable to access games or music or word processing. Boot-up was slower each time, the computer couldn't always detect its network card, bizarre things started happening (itunes opening when I plug in my ipod even though I specifically set it not to do that, then telling me it couldn't read the iphone even though it isn't an iphone; browsers giving me random encoding errors even on simple websites).

On Thursday, I gave up. I got an external hard drive, backed up all my stuff, and reinstalled everything from scratch using my recovery disk. It took three hours (back-up, reinstallation, and getting all my settings just so), but everything has been working properly since then (knock wood).

But this makes me lose confidence in Dell for two reasons:

1. Serious, mysterious problems that hinder useability even though my computer is only nine months old. I've never before in my lifelong relationship with Dell had to actually use the recovery disks. This makes me nervous. Whenever a boot-up takes a second or two longer than usual, I start worrying that it's a sign of a serious problem.

2. I didn't get a "priority" callback! I waited five days, requested it four times through two different mediums, and no one called me. I've always gone with Dell because I could trust their support, and now I can't? And this despite the fact that I invested in the biggest warranty possible? What will happen when I have a bigger hardware problem that can't be fixed with a full reinstall?

In the interest of fairness, I should say that I never called Dell back either. I had the option of calling them again and starting from scratch, and I opted not to, first because I still had internet access in safe mode and I decided I'd rather relax and go about my life than wait on hold/going through first-level support. I figured the phone would ring when there was someone ready and available to give me second-level support. I should also point out that, in response to my second complaint to them, @DellCares apologized and told me to contact them so they could escalate me if the problems reoccur after reinstallation.

But I've still lost confidence, mostly because they specifically told me that forwarding the email to the address specified would get me a priority callback, and it didn't. What other promised support might I not get in the future? What if it happens when I need to work? What it happens when I'm away from home and my full resources and dependent on wifi? (That is why I bought a laptop in the first place, even if I don't often end up taking it out of my apartment.) What if I were a less technically proficient customer and a full recovery wasn't easily feasible for me? And WTF even was the problem in the first place?

This loss of confidence spirals out and affects my interpretation of my whole relationship with the company. For example, during my tech support call, the technician told me about a product Dell solves that detects and repairs problems with your system. It was clearly part of his script to push this product, which I normally wouldn't have given any thought. But sitting there working in Safe Mode awaiting a callback that wasn't coming, I started wondering if they put something in the computers to deliberately make them malfunction so they can push this product.

Sometimes when people blog about problems with products or support, the company wants to make it right. The unfortunate thing in this case is that there's nothing Dell can do to make it right, apart from doing their jobs properly in the future. Getting my callback now would be useless since I got the computer working. Free stuff would be useless because there simply isn't anything I need from Dell. A store credit would be irrelevant because there wasn't money involved in this interaction, unless they wanted to give me a store credit that would last for five years and win back my trust in the meantime. (If I do have to buy a new computer in less than five years, it won't be from Dell).

All Dell can do to win back my confidence is have my computer work properly for the rest of its planned life, and give me support properly next time I need to call them, preferably without trying to sell me software at the same time. But, even so, I'll probably be doing at least some cursory comparison shopping next time.

Update: Dell initiated a follow-up call on Tuesday (9 days after I requested a call back) and we made contact on Wednesday after a round of telephone tag. They apologized for the delay, saying it was due to "technical reasons" (which doesn't instill confidence when I'm after a solution to a technical problem), listened to my whole story, and apologized for the mix-up, but there wasn't much else they could do for me because I'd already used the recovery disk.

1 comment:

CQ said...

Not entirely by choice, my PC is over nine years' old. At the time I knew which brand name components I wanted, including a last available demo-used monitor.
Soon after purchase, I took the mid-tower to a small music recording shop for a $15 installed heat sink to replace a noisy secondary fan. That wasn't something I had planned on.
I glued the heat sink back in place a couple of times over these years and updated ram and hardrive, otherwise it is steady as she goes. Made a couple of reinstalls; one for the newer harddrive, another was a wonkiness matter at the time.
Today, however, I wouldn't know where to turn to for quality.

For a laugh see my entry regarding a fellow blogger's eight free car rentals and currently four tablets review.
I'm still using only part of a 160Gb drive since I still use a win98 Partition Magic program for backup. (Turned out Win98 has a 130 Gb maximum).