Tuesday, 13 April 2004
Maybe I Was Talking to the Farmer
I just got off the phone with Dell's support merdique. Almost fifty minutes, at 15 (euro) cents a minute [1] spent justifying why they needed to fix a problem with my putain de keyboard - a problem, I might add, that existed since soon after I bought my portable a year ago.
My troubles stem from poor design, and the company recognized the problem and fixed it a little over two months after I took delivery of my Inspiron. Not that they retroactively fixed computers unless you complained, of course. Bah, "Inspiron" - at times, the only thing it "inspirons" me to do is cram it down Dell's collective throat.
Dell is fine for price/performance evaluations, but don't ever consider them a reliable source for quality equipment. Their whole business model is based on zero stock and quick turnaround. Theoretically, that means you get a custom-built computer. What it really means is that they have little incentive to ship you a computer that conforms to your order - or even a working one. All they have to do is keep shipping by some chance you get what you ordered.
The computer I'm typing this on is in fact the replacement for one that was dead-on-arrival - but even the replacement was missing options that I'd specified and paid for. I also bought a three-year, next-day one-site warranty, for all the good it does me: they won't do on-site repairs unless they deem it necessary.
This brings me back to the keyboard. I have a (supposedly) no-haggle warranty, I have defective equipment (besides the overall wobble problem, my space bar is no longer responsive). I was so worn out with the month-long support process surrounding my initial order that I didn't feel like dealing with my keyboard until now. But why I waited almost a year is my own business; theirs is simply to fix my problem per the terms of my service contract.
Doing things on their terms, I had to open up my own machine over the phone, confirm that indeed there are screws missing in my computer (which goes for the company as a whole) and wait several eternities on hold as I hope that they'll do something about it. All this on my dime, of course.
The service guy accidentally hung up on me, but at least called me back. Now I'm waiting for another callback so that he can confirm our shipping address. Tomorrow, if I'm lucky, I'll have a new keyboard.
Of course, none of this involved the recognition that Dell's industrial design was for crap - nor am I sure that it'll fix my original problem of a loose keyboard. But hey, it beats (for them) working for a living, right?
This is a rant, and it goes nowhere. The only conclusion I'd give is: don't buy Dell. There are too many problems that stem directly from their build-to-order process and too much reliance on spot fixes to correct their quality assurance.
[1] In France, there are few if any toll-free numbers that exist anymore. Pretty much all calls are billed at local call rates or higher - which means that the bill adds up pretty quickly.
What is frustrating is that even services you've already paid for - like, for example, my service contract with Dell - still pass through these toll numbers. Add to that extremely long pre-recorded greetings ("blah blah blah ... Are you sure you've called the right number? blah blah blah ... Why not try our Web site?" "because I need to talk to a person, bitch"), interminable hold times (10 minutes to even talk to a technician) and you're easily looking at a five-euro phone call for every simple call.