Customer Service Rant #124,763,276

[haltz]

I have been on hold with Dell for 45 minutes. I was on hold for almost two cumulative hours on Friday. Their online customer service chat has been either unavailable or hasn't picked up in anything near the wait time quoted on the screen since Thursday (read: never, but sometimes there's that glimmer of hope when they give me a wait time -- unlike Space Mountain, Dell's psychological trick is to severely underquote).

I have finally figured out that by lying to the automated lady (who I want to punch in the face despite the fact that I know she doesn't exist) I can get one of the thousands of people from Sales to answer right away about the "new order" I'm going to place.

They apparently can't help me though and must transfer me to the (I [expletive] you not) Order Modification Department. It seems like the epileptic chimpanzee that works the phones over there just can't keep up with the call volume.

Here's the best part. I want to upgrade my order before it ships. I'm trying desperately to give them more money!

[haltz]

Still on hold.

LOLOLOL

[clevername]

I actually just placed an order with them yesterday. It's still processing. I'm hoping no issues arise so I won't be joining you on the hold lines in the next few days.

[haltz]

I know you are all really engrossed in this saga.

I finally gave up and I've been trying to call the Dell store at Yorktown mall. No answer! Whaaaa!?

If I have to go there to make things happen, I'm going to make lots of loud noises or something.

[Simbagal23]

Well, that sucks. I have to admit, we've purchased computers from Dell twice and each time we've had no problems (even when calling customer service). We received a new laptop about a month ago and noticed an issue with the keyboard area. We called Dell, they sent a replacement (which we received within 2 days), along with the paid shipping label to return the defective laptop.

Sorry you are having problems.....we have truly had nothing but good experiences with Dell.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Do they have phones at those Dell Stores? Aren't they just the little pagoda things in the middle of the mall?

I had to call for help on my Dell Laptop when the light on the screen died. After getting sent to India and put through some...unusual sequence of events to identify the problem, it was very easy. Guy came the next workday and fixed my problem plus another error I was getting on boot up.

[clevername]

ever get ahold of them?

My order shipped today after ordering last night, so no calls necessary. Of course, I wasn't buying a computer or something that had to be built or modified.

[haltz]

Do they have phones at those Dell Stores? Aren't they just the little pagoda things in the middle of the mall?

Turns out it is. They told me on the phone that I could cancel my order there and just buy what I was getting from them. So I made the trip thinking it was like a Mac store. Wrong! It's basically a kiosk.

Here's all I wanted. To upgrade the slimwhatever CPU that I'm going to use as a media center to 250 GB. After my conversation with Fat yesterday I was going to add some speakers. I thought I was going to cancel the other order and walk away with these goods. This was worth it so I didn't have to wait for the tentative Aug 15th ship date.

Me: "Uh, hi. I called a while ago about not being able to speak to customer service online or over the phone."
Nametag #1: ...
Nametag #2: "Oh, yes sir. That was me."
Me: "Thanks. So I can cancel my order here, correct? I thought this was a real store."
Nametag #1: "Well it is, you can see some of the products here, and we help you, like, fill out the order online. ... Now, if you have your order number I can call our Order Modification Depar ..."
Me: "I'll be right back." *Walks outside, smokes cigarette, counts to thirty thousand*

"OK. Sorry about that. Here's the order number."

15 minutes pass

Nametag #1: "Alright, I've put in our store code so it shouldn't be much longer. We get to bypass the wait. If you want to take the phone, the agent will be right with you."
Me: "Uh, sure."

15 minutes later

Agent: "Hello, my name is [unintelligible]. How may I help you today?"
Me: "I just wanted to change my order around last Thursday, and was still prepared to do so today, but now I don't want to ever do business with Dell again. Just cancel my order."

Ten minutes of Why and form filling out

Agent: "Can we just have your phone number to follow up later."
Me: "Follow up on what?"
Agent: "Just in case anything arises."
Me: "Like what?"
Agent: "Just anything that possibly could."
Me: "I don't understand. When I hang up this phone my order will canceled, I will have an e-mail confirmation, and then I don't want to talk to anyone from Dell again. Give me one possible scenario where you'd need to call me."
Agent: "In case there are problems with the cancellation, or if we need to do a general follow-up."
Me: "I'm not hanging up until that's done."
Agent: "Well, we just ask that ..."
Me: "Don't you already have that from my original order?"
Agent: "Yes, if we could just confirm that ..."
Me: "No."

Fun. I decided that I'm going to build it myself.

[G. Keenan]

This whole conversation happened in front of the kiosk guys? Awkward.

[Cronos]

Agent: "Can we just have your phone number to follow up later."
Me: "Follow up on what?"
Agent: "Just in case anything arises."
Me: "Like what?"
Agent: "Just anything that possibly could."
Me: "I don't understand. When I hang up this phone my order will canceled, I will have an e-mail confirmation, and then I don't want to talk to anyone from Dell again. Give me one possible scenario where you'd need to call me."
Agent: "In case there are problems with the cancellation, or if we need to do a general follow-up."
Me: "I'm not hanging up until that's done."
Agent: "Well, we just ask that ..."
Me: "Don't you already have that from my original order?"
Agent: "Yes, if we could just confirm that ..."
Me: "No."

Fun. I decided that I'm going to build it myself.

LOL.

Dell is notorious for terrible tech support. I was going to post earlier to suggest that you just build it yourself like I do with my PCs; I think you're better off. You'll save money if you spend some time looking for just the parts you need cheap(like off of e-bay or something) and if you can put it together yourself, if there's something wrong you'll probably be able to figure out what it is.