(start rant) This review I write with a smile on my face. I am sure 99.9% of you know what I mean when I say I will enjoy bashing all that is Dell. I have many opinions outside the realm of the music world on Dell but I will try my best to limit it to just that as best I can.
I will start out by saying I used to work for Dell. I know I know, why would you EVER do such a thing? Well at the time it seemed like a good idea, and it took me till I started getting personally physically threatened before I decided to get away from that company. I know better than most how their service works and how their products are built, so take that as you will.
My first use of a Dell product in the music side of my life was with a projector I owned. It was a Dell HD projector, and I used it as a combo TV for my house and projector for my DJ gigs when I first started offering projection as an option for my DJ packages. This worked great to begin with, but within the first year the projector began to fall apart. After getting a major run around from Dell we purchased a light bulb to see if that was a problem. It was not, so we sent it back to them for a refund. Never got the refund and never got the bulb back.
During this time I also purchased a Dell Inspiron 1700 series laptop to replace my aging Compaq for DJ gigs. This seemed to be an ok system, until I discovered the majority of CDs would not play on this laptop. Apparently dell was using drives that had issues playing protected discs, and had no fix for it. After hours on the phone with Dell, explaining to their highest level “techs” what the problem was, they offered a $50 gift card to Dell. What am I supposed to do with that? I don’t want anything else from you, I want your product to work! Needless to say after causing a big stink on their message boards and returning the laptop, they finally acknowledged the problem and issued a patch over 2 months later. Way to go Dell.
For any of you that want to stick up for Dell, explain to me why they have one of the highest complaint numbers with the Better Business Bureau, and why they have lost their spot as the number one computer maker in the world. Poor customer service coupled with low quality product and shady business practices is why.
Bottom line, stay away from all things Dell, you are doomed to be disappointed and frustrated, so spend your money elsewhere. You will thank me in the long run when you are not waiting for hours on end on the phone to get someone who is 100% incompetent and rude. (end rant)
10 comments:
There's plenty wrong with this post, so I guess we'll start with the top.
First, I'm not quite sure where you worked at Dell, but it definitely was not the IT department. I'm supposing you worked in sales, or customer support.
First, Dell is a giant because they're at the top of the league. They know how to build millions of PC's quickly, un-costly and get it to you very fast. They have support that far outreaches their competitors even while most support is not going to go well. You're getting mostly workers that can't get decent jobs as they don't have the knowledge supporting you. Even that the higher paid ones have to write the reasons something might not work down for you to help the customers.
If you were personally or physically threatened, I'm guessing you were talking to a mentally unstable person (which isn't Dell's fault), or you provoked someone. You do Not seem to know much about how their products are built or you'd know that they delv far greater than the PC makinb business.
Next you claim you own a Dell projector. If you knew much, you'd know that Dell doesn't make any of these, they just slap their logo on it. Your Dell Printer is an HP, your Dell Projector is a Coretronic. The list goes on. You must also not know of google, which can help you find answers to most of your problems. Such as the reason your projector was not working. If you ordered a Bulb from Dell and returned it, you would receive a refund. It probably went back on your credit card which is I'm sure near maxed out.
After this you claim to have purchased a Dell Inspiron. The Dell (Notebooks, no longer called Laptops for years) are one of the top 2 Notebooks in the notebook world against HP. Unless you consider custom built ones or Asus's template notebook systems to build your own, which then are far superior. You had a CD drive issue, or DVD drive issue. So buy another DVD drive and replace. It takes almost no time to do so. I am willing to bet it took longer to write this insane post than it would have for Dell to ship you a new drive, which they offered to do. DVD-ROM drives are worth less than $50, you got a bonus. Then, you claim a patch was already there. Why didn't you do that in the first place? Were you so mind numbingly retarded you can't check the drivers and firmware updates for these devices? The first place a person with any intelligence checks, is the drivers and firmware updates section of any makers website.
Dell has high complaint numbers because they are the largest maker out there for this industry. I would also like to see your comparison to the others. Dell sells more volumes than any other competitor at current and has for quite some time. Thus with those numbers you get high complaints as more problems can arise. That's like saying Microsoft has more complains than IBM or Apple. Well of course they do, they have almost the entire market dominated.
If I sell 500 million PCs, I have the possibility of 500 million complaints. If I sell 5 million PCs I have the possibility of 5 million complains. Does that mean if I have 4 million complaints, and Dell has 10 million that person B has better stuff? Um no. You go by % of sales to customer dis-satisfaction. Otherwise Microsoft and Apple would both be bankrupt.
So far you seem to no nothing about business, customer service, any insider info as I have more than you do from both IT, Customer Service and Sales, and you blame the wrong people and don't seem to know why.
I am almost positive my comment will be deleted or ignore, or better yet will try to be rebutted with snide remarks. However, I don't care.
I will reply to your comment in a civil manner as I don't have any reason to start nit pick fights on my blog.
First off, optoma made my dell projector and lexmark at the time made dell printers, of which i had purchased two that both had to be returned for warranty repair. I know this because I did research on it, and in my pursuit to fix my now gone projector I was in contact with optoma to get replacement parts, which i decided to instead just replace because of the price of the parts. While working for the sales end of Dell, We had multiple lexmark techs in to fix our lexmark "dell" printers at our location.
You must work for dell to defend a company such as this, and they are not at the top of the league anymore, that was taken by HP a while ago. I use google which is why I know this.
Dell did not offer me a new drive because they claimed they did not have one to fix the issue, they only offered me $50 to "fix it myself." This at the time was not the soultion i was looking for as it would still be money out of my wallet to make a new system work the way it should. That is Dell's fault.
It's strange that I am physically threatened on more than on occasion at a place of employment because of their products. I have never before or since had that happen to me, so that was telling me something. Respond if you'd like, I stand by my opinion and facts.
I'm not sure you stated any facts I didn't know. I do not work for Dell, I have never worked for Dell nor will I probably ever work for Dell. Not because I don't like Dell, I just don't work in the field that they require right now. One of my current teachers does work for Dell in this field, I know people who work in IT, Sales and Customer service at Dell. The customer service person I know has since quit.
I think you're hating Dell for all of the wrong reasons if you're going to hate a company. You also seem to have no idea about the Dell servers, which are very good.
Lexmark does not make good printers, you should hate Dell for the fact that they were dumb enough to slap their logo on such a piece of junk. Very high end Lexmark's I will state usually work fine. Low end ones, the ones most people get or purchase do not work well. I know as I've owned 3, they belong in the trash from the start.
I don't think you're providing all of your story, I lived with the people who worked at Dell, so this isn't just he said she said. If your DVD drive broke within the warranty, you'd get a new laptop or they would come to replace it. I'm guessing this happened outside that realm, or you're just lying. I know for a fact, this isn't opinion, that Dell will replace anything that they can't get to work correctly. I know this first hand with a current laptop. The video card sent would not do full 1080p output when it very well should through DVI. They had me on the phone for quite some time and we tried everything I wasn't able to think of. I waited a couple months for a new driver and nothing. I called Dell back, both before I opted to wait for a driver, and then they offered to replace the full laptop and ship me another. This is how Dell works, this is how Dell is designed. This is what managers tell their employees. This is Fact. They also have to take the customers word for it. If they tell you do do something and you say, "I already tried that" They are forced to believe the customer. Customer is always right at Dell. I'm guessing you called elsewhere or are not telling the full truths.
As you did not list the model projector that was 'bad' I just listed one of the makers of a Dell projector.
You are physically threaded because whoever you spoke to is mentally unstable. Search for bad customer service tidbits in google, this happens all over the world for all different stores and products. Just because you happened to work at Dell doesn't mean it only happens with Dell. That same unstable person probably does this with other products he's too stupid to figure out.
The fact is, you worked in 1 very small portion of Dell. You seem to mostly be a customer rather than an employee inside scoop. This isn't to deface you, its merely to state that what you have written doesn't represent that company in full.
Again, I do not work for Dell, nor will I most likely ever work for Dell, even though they do a lot for their employees, I'm not even going to go in the Employee benefits packages and Dell donations, your piddly I had a bad experience once wouldn't measure up.
You are by no means an expert on this topic is all I am saying, nor am I.
When looking at BBB's website. The number for Dell from the early 80s hits total complaints reaching, 12,873. It also shows that they are all resolved. It seems Dell responds to every BBB inquiry and resolves the issue. Most of which the customer just wrote a complaint and didn't follow up afterwards. This is usually due to early frustration with something. They let out their aggravation on the BBB and then Dell fixed it and they were fine, or found out they could simply download a driver and all was okay.
They actually have an impeccable record on there. Some companies I've looked at who offer deals have many bad complaints that were not resolved, or the company did not respond to. While the actual number is lower, their % of happy customers and the company taking action to fix said problem is far lower.
Dell has been in BBB from 1984, its 2007. This is 23 years. If you were to divide this the numbers it'd be 660. While this is in no way a reality as I'm certain many of the complaints are from the last 5-7 years, it's not very high, I actually expected much higher numbers.
It also has to do with the department in which you work. If I work at Sony customer service, the only people calling it are people who have problems. So it would seem that they have problems with a ton of stuff. Except people only call in with problems, the ones that are working fine sit idle.
That said if you take the ratio of complaints to sales its easy to see that they are quality. While I will not boast Dell to be the best, this is why they are large. This is why Sony is big, they had good service and quality products.
Ever heard the term "You get what you pay for"? I believe this also applies. Someone paying $400 for a PC for some reason expects it to act as a $1200 PC. Someone buying a Samsung TV expect it to be as clear as a Sharp Aquos.
While some companies are small and charge less for higher quality, its generally that you get what you pay for.
You can see all BBB records on bbb.org. While its also hard to add up some as some companies break it up for each sate, I'm trying to find where you got your numbers. I'm thinking you just made a statement that wasn't able to be backed up by numbers though and just think it's high.
My specific dell case of the dvd drive took me up 5 levels of dell tech support and into their business operations. It was within one week of purchasing my dell laptop and is in no way a lie, you can verify this with a mutual acquaintance we apparently share. I was told the drive was functioning properly by Dell because they apparently had not been made aware of the issue until my forum posts on their site. I was offered a $50 dell card for my trouble, which did not fix my drive, bu they told me it worked fine, when it obviously did not. If it had, they would not have released a patch later to fix it. In my two years with Dell, I saw more cases of things like this happening than I care to explain here, but this case was no lie. The same with our projector bulb and same with two failing printers.
I don't care that Dell uses other peoples parts, as I know very well they do, but to marketing others junk as your own is saying your product is junk. You say I should be mad at Dell for choosing lexmark, I say I should be mad that they sold me multiple defective products with their name on it, no matter where it came from. I am not claiming to be an expert on Dell, I just have seen more than the average consumer from my experiences as an employee and consumer. This is why I choose not to endorse Dell and in fact try to stray others away from a similar experience. Not that everyone will have the experience, but I see a higher chance of it with Dell than any other computer manufacturer.
And there is where you're wrong. You are stating "I see a higher chance of it with Dell than any other computer manufacturer." Have you worked for other computer manufacturers? Do they sell the volumes of PC's that Dell does? You are again hearing only the bad. That's like saying Sony has all bad stuff, they make nothing good, I read complaints about people having problems with their products all the time.
In fact, if you've owned a Compaq or HP they are MUCH worse. I know this as fact as I know how they are both built. HP and Compaq (when Compaq was a PC maker) built their PCs where they could not be upgraded unless purchasing Compaq parts. You cannot use certain DIMM slots without their parts. I can say that Compaq and HP are worse because I hear more complaints about their products. None of this makes it so. Dell ships systems that you have the ability to customize further and choose parts you want. HP you are limited. This is one fault of HP. You can request better drives and higher quality parts with Dell. With others you're stuck with the Maxtor junk and terrible cards they feed you.
I would not refer anyone to purchase a 'budget' PC from Any manufac. simply because you Get what you pay for. This comes from any maker of any product.
If you actually worked at all companies or had data to prove any of this other than, I heard about, or I saw lots of bad stuff. Then I'd say you might be somewhat right. In fact, what were you doing buying all of these Dell products when you seem to dislike them so much? Why didn't you move to HP, buy an Alienware or easily build your own PC with quality products?
Data from the BBB itself.
Auto Dealers New
& Used
Cellular Telephone Service & Equipment
Home Repair & Remodeling/Improvement Svcs.
Home Builders & Contractors
Internet Shopping Services
Auto Repair
Furniture – Retail
Cable & Satellite TV
Health Clubs
Department Stores
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/17/HP-tops-Dell-as-worlds-largest-PC-supplier_1.html
HP is now the worlds largest computer manufacturer, not Dell, so please get the facts straight.
I own a hp/compaq laptop with memory that was not "specifically for this compq laptop" installed. The dell laptop mentioned was suppsed to replace it being a faster dual core system, but was returned after the drive issues.
When I started working for Dell I decided to give them a shot having no gripes before I started working for them. It was after being employed and using my discount to purchase items that I realized how poor of quality they really were.
I build my own desktop and have for years, and have for many others, I just don't build my own laptop.
I reference my complaints of dell to what I saw personally as an employee of dell. I am not saying others do not have the same kind of complaints, but I would be willing to bet money that Dell is one of if not the worst for it. I was involved in training seminars to try to "boost public image" during my employment because of the hard hits the company was taking. This is not just opinion this is fact. If you did not work with them then you cannot say you know. You are doing nothing but stating other points or trying to keep your argument afloat that is being dismissed at every point.
My opinion is that Dell is a company to avoid and that is what I am sticking to. Others can choose to believe it or not, but most in the tech community will agree that a 500 dollar computer from Dell is recipe for a letdown in quality. I don't care that it's low end, i don't care that you get what you pay for, If what you pay for is a company name and customer service with your PC, then you expect it to be honored, and Dell falls extremely short.
My mistake, as of late 2007 HP managed to top dell. I have not been keeping up to date by the month. I also give credit to HP Notebooks, as I said before, they are very good.
I am looking at an HP that requires HP memory right now, and there is a Compaq in another room that has the same issues. This was to sell more of their products.
I am choosing to disregard half of your erroneous statements. I never said Dell had the highest complaints of all the BBB, I mean they have the highest of all computer manufacturers. I have answered all of your questions to the best I can but feel you are no longer doing anymore than trying to incite rather than truly debate. I will be deleting all further comments from you because of this.
It would have been nice to keep this civil but since you have decided to lower the intelligence level my trying to say comments about a mother you obviously are seeing your loosing argument going no where. Thank you for your blatant disregard for civility on an esaily debatable topic.
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