- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 1
-
Sparkle (0)
My new laptop from Dell started having hardware problems 7 months after I purchased it. More than 4 months have passed and I've spent over 20 hours on technical support and I still have a $1000 paperweight. I have taken action with formal complaints which in theory are being "handled". (Ask me in a week or two whether this is any more productive than the last four months as the jury is still out.) No one is willing to address the problem once and for all (although they are calling and mailing regularly asking me to pay money to extend my warranty!). Yet I can't stop thinking and seething about the sheer amount of inconvenience and time and money lost to this whole situation.
Multiply my situation by the number of people in a similar boat. How ineffective, unproductive, and money sucking is that?
Let's face it. In today's business world the laptop and desktop are the single most important tool (besides our brains and unique abilities) to a successful career or running a successful business. If you need access on the go, there is no substitute for a laptop. Can you imagine Heather B in her recent post on business travel without her laptop in hand? I certainly couldn't.
That's why it behooves me to wonder how much productivity, money, and sanity is lost on a daily basis due to disturbing customer service with the very tools we need the most. The worst part of it is that as consumers we are at the mercy of the companies and the warranties they offer (and not honor satisfactorily at times). As a self-employed business owner, it is like being held hostage in your own personal hell while watching business opportunities and deadlines go whooshing by.
I know personally if I have to hear one more Dell employee tell me "we care that you're having troubles" or "we will call you back within 24 hours" (and then never do) I could stick a pin in my eye. The sad truth of the matter is that I am not alone. Far from it. Many other professional, intelligent, upstanding human beings are being tortured to within an inch of their wits by the very companies our businesses are relying on - the technology manufacturers.
I read Angela Wilson's "Computer Woes" with great understanding and sympathy. She has a conundrum of problems that have her screaming "Do not bother calling DELL tech support. Never purchase from Best Buy. Never, EVER buy a Hewlett Packard". It does make one wonder - who can you buy from? I have to say I feel her pain when she gets to the bottom line of the issue - how she was treated as a customer:
I am sure there are people who try to take advantage of the system. But I was up front. They have records of the PC issues. Yet, all this aggravation nets me... more aggravation? Whatever happened to a company honoring its customers by providing a working unit if the one you bought was defective? I have receipts. I have logs. This unit, with its sleek look and tantalizing features, WAS BROKE! And instead of trying to honor ME as a customer, I got more headaches than this unit was worth.
I should have bit the bullet and bought a MAC. Not only would I have avoided these issues, but I could have burned all copies of Vista while running naked through the moonlight honoring the Apple gods.
I have been working with technology since the early TRS-80 days. For you non-techies, that is a long darn time back when computers were bigger than early microwave ovens and could do nothing without reams of custom programming. So, I know something about them. In fact I've even performed tech support in my day. I don't profess to know it all and I am certainly no hardware expert. My approach is the opposite of arrogant. Yet, I don't enjoy being spoken to like I am an idiot. I hate it even more when all the painstaking troubleshooting I have performed is dismissed and the non-English speaking, script reading support person starts back at the beginning of the script over and over. But of course THEY are the experts. And sometimes they possess some of the dumbest possible solutions known to mankind.
Ninja Poodles shares a few doozies from her dance with Dell. starts the story off
