Grr.. what's up with Dell?

[Rob Williams]

Wow, I am pissed off at Dell. I mean, I have always dis-liked them for the most part, but they get so aggrovating sometimes.

As most know I'm sure, they outsource all their people to India. This means, when you give them a call, you get to talk to someone from India. This would not be any sort of problem to me if I could understand what the person on the other line was saying to me.

If we are English speaking, we should be talking to English speaking people, who are fluent. The original man who sold me my laptop.. I was on the phone for over an hour before it finally was put through.

The first time my LCD died on the notebook, it actually wasn't so bad, maybe 20 minutes. But today, I called them up and was almost shaking by the end of it.

First gentleman I was talking to, had trouble saying simple words.. I didn't even know what my replies should be. That call ended, and I called back hoping to get someone I would understand better. Nope. After being on the phone with a lady for more than 70 minutes, I finally got an tech order through for a new LCD..

I called knowing 100% sure that my LCD was fried.. so why do we have to be put through this misery of clenching my phone to my ear just to hope to be able to figure out a single word that the person on the other end of the phone is saying?

If I slap over $3K for a damn laptop, I demand customer service in my own language!

</crazy overboard wild daily tangent>

 

[madmat]

That sucks, the whole outsourcing thing is complete bull.

 

[Rob Williams]

Considering how much money they make off people. Hell, take $20 off what I paid for my laptop.. that would have paid for a country side rep who I could have actually understood.

 

[Greg King]

Next time you talk to them, immediatly ask to speak with a Tier 2 or 3 customer service rep. Let them know that it is nothing against them and nothing personal but the higher tier rep, the more likely they will know more about not only your PC, but PC's in general. The guys you talked with were just reading out of a book full of "if - then" statements. [bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep] that. You paid to much for that notebook to have to "endure" their broken english. I mean you cant fault them, they have to make a living to, but you can fault Dell for being cheap. Just ask for someone higher up the ladder and you should be able to at least talk with someone who you can understand. This has worked wonders for me in the past.

 

[Rob Williams]

I never even thought to try that, but I should have.

I am impressed though with how quick this was.. I got off the phone last night with them at around 6:00pm.. and the repair tech was here this morning at 9:00am.

That was amazingly quick

 

[Buck-O]

Outsourcing or not...the fact of the matter is, that customer service has gone to pot the last 5 years. Its damn near unbearable anymore.

I can remember when it was TCI@home i would call and imidiatly speak to a person who knew WTF they where talking about.

Then when it became ATT@home, you started dealing with "and/if" text book readers.

Then when @home went tits up, and ATTbi took over...it got HELLA bad, automated phone trees, and seconed teir "and/if" support, and third tier people that somtimes knew what they where talking about.

Now that its Comcast, things have gotten a little better with first tier people, but for the most part you have to talk to to or three levels up before you get someone who is compitent enough to talk to a person of moderate technicle ability.

I suppose the real answer is that more stupid people are useing more computers now days, and therefore more high end services. So it helps everyone to have stupid people talk to stupid people right off the bat. Saving techs from undue stress. And keeping Joe Six pack from getting frustrated with "techno jargon".


God how i wish it where 1997 again.

 

[Rob Williams]

I suppose the real answer is that more stupid people are useing more computers now days, and therefore more high end services. So it helps everyone to have stupid people talk to stupid people right off the bat. Saving techs from undue stress. And keeping Joe Six pack from getting frustrated with "techno jargon".

You know, I believe that could be true. It makes somewhat sense to me I guess, but they should almost have an option of what tier to go to

1997 can stay back there.. I don't want to go back to the days of modems. *shrug*

 

[Buck-O]

1997 can stay back there.. I don't want to go back to the days of modems. *shrug*

1997 was the year i got onto the infamous 100 man list from TCI for a beta of a program called "DOCSIS Team Trial".

I was one of 100 people on the west coast that had a cable modem. I was a God among dial-up users, and hated by HPB Quake players teh world over (except for this one guy on an ISDN in Montana).
Oddly enough there where 5 of us on the test where i lived, in the Olympia Washington area, becuase TCI had used our area as a fiber optic testbed for their new send/recieve node system. So we all kinda lucked out.

But the biggest thing i remember back then, was becuase everything internet wise WAS dialup for the most part, there was no such thing as "broadband enhanced" webpages, so everything loaded in an instant. And downloading? A solid 750k a seconed reguardless of what site you where downloading from. Including Geocitys.
Speaking of which, i can remember getting most of my MP3 collection started from Geocitys and AOL Member Pages. ROFL! That ended real quick once the whole MP3 craze took off. Kinda strange that the day AOL limited MP3 files on their member pages was the same week they bought WinAMP...weird...but anyway.
Oh, and Planet Quake was actually a COOL site, and File Planet was FREE!
And Blues News....well....Blues actually looks exactly the same today as it did then...heh.

Yup, those where the days...good old 1997. Broadband connected, and hard drive limited. LOL!

But oddly enough, due to my fiances medical condition, and the lack of money to spend around on "fun stuff" im actually back on dial-up. Free, and i cant comlpain there...but still.

Its nice to look back at the days when broadband was broadband, and everyone else was an HPB.

 

[Rob Williams]

Haha, I hear you there. I was not in any sort of beta test, but I was one of the first in town to use our phone companies ADSL service back in '98. I didn't get near 750KB/s, but hovered around 350KB/s downloading off Happy Puppy (Man that was a great site back in tha day).

And Blues News....well....Blues actually looks exactly the same today as it did then...heh.

Haha!

 

[Buck-O]

Haha, I hear you there. I was not in any sort of beta test, but I was one of the first in town to use our phone companies ADSL service back in '98. I didn't get near 750KB/s, but hovered around 350KB/s downloading off Happy Puppy (Man that was a great site back in tha day).

And Blues News....well....Blues actually looks exactly the same today as it did then...heh.

Haha!

Oh man, Happy Puppy...totally forgot about that one. But SO true. I wasted many a meg of bandwidth there. That also reminds me of how you used to be able to visit astalavista without having your virus scanner, pop-up blocker, spyware nuker, and trojan watcher all activated...and actually find what you where looking for.


As for blues...

http://web.archive.org/web/19971210093544/http://www.bluesnews.com/

Am i lieing?




Yeah, so, this thread got hi-jacked.

 

[Rob Williams]

Haha, I didn't start actually visiting Blues until two years ago, but wow. They like to stick to what works I guess, haha.

I wish Happy Puppy stayed with what worked, because come 2000, I never visited it again haha.

Hi-jacked for sure, but screw Dell! There, that made up for it.

 

[Mike AC Ryan]

Have u tried calling Canadian, American, UK costumer service? Otherwise try calling the Dutch, or Norwegian, or any other country with decent english, and tell them you just moved there... Their english is usually good enough :-/

Good luck tho :-//

My brother once *STOOD* on his screen..needless to say it broke ..