(no subject)

[inahandbasket]

dear annoying user...
No, Dell does NOT take 3 weeks to replace a part, we pay them for next day service for a reason.
No, you do NOT need a new machine as a result. It's a simple hardware replacement, and will NOT take 3 weeks, for the tenth time.
-inahandbasket

dear Dell technician...
I'd appreciate you not sending me an e-mail regarding an urgent issue requesting the service tag of the laptop in question, WITH THE SERVICE TAG of said laptop IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL!
You are the reason that techies as a stereotype are scorned, second-class citizens, and the subjects of ridicule.
-inahandbasket

Comments

Dell down under

[rorted.livejournal.com]

Sketchy is an understatement. I did some work for a large company that spent millions per year on Dell gear. Their servers were all under 24/7/4hr SLA's. The most common call I made while working there was when one of the 50 or so aging 4mm DAT tape drives died. (Their hapless IT manager who purchased the gear didn't seem to understand that DAT is slow, small, and fails about as often as your average hooker gets laid.)

A typical support request would go something like this:

• Call the support number, wait a mimimum of ten mins to get connected to some poor sod in Bangalore/Kuala Lumpur who's being willingly exploited for piss poor money (presumably to match their piss poor technical and English language skills).
• Sod tells me he doesn't have a matching contract or asset information - overseas databases were constantly out of sync with the copy here in Australia.
• Sod won't re-route the call to an Aussie call centre without consulting a supervisor, so I'm forced to wait for one to become available.
• I haggle with Sod's boss who reluctantly passes the call to someone in Oz.
• Aussie rep tries to convince me that external tape drives aren't covered by the contract (even though they were explicitly included in it), and thus not eligible for on-site troubleshooting.
• For reasons mentioned in the previous points, I'd usually be unable to get my call logged under the correct SLA. In these cases, I'd log it as a warranty call, then call my Dell account manager in Australia to get the information changed.
• Once the call is correctly logged, Dell assign it to a third-party company who provide the on-site tech. Dell and the third party reps have a seemingly dysfunctional relationship at the best of times, which is exacerbated by either side getting hammered by calls. For this reason I commonly would wait 24 hours (on a four hour SLA) between logging the call and the third-party calling to arrange the visit.
• 75% of the time, the tech would not show up at the arranged time. The techs are all contractors who get paid per-visit, so they often try to attend calls according to their own convenience rather than by the assigned priority, so as to save time and petrol and therefore make themselves more money.
• 48 hours after logging the call, I've abused my account manager sufficiently and constantly enough so that he calls third-party, kicks their arse, and magicks a tech.
• Tech calls me to inform that he's arrived on site. We down the server, then tech realises he's actually got the wrong part. I die a little inside. Because the tech won't release the call once it had been assigned (which would mean losing money), I'd often have to wait 24 hours for the tech to get the right part and re-attend.
• About 25% of the time, the tech would foul up the replacement job somehow and leave site without informing me first. + more time for a reattend.

The above is a mere subset of things that could go wrong on any given call. I'd average about hours, not minutes dealing with Dell per call, when multiple things broke at once chasing up Dell became my full-time job for days at a time.

Re: Dell down under

[sethb.livejournal.com]

You know, if you're spending millions a year, it might be a lot cheaper to buy spares and a lousy service agreement. Something breaks, you replace it with your onsite spare (15 minutes), then mail the broken one to Dell to get it repaired/replaced in a couple of weeks.

Unless, of course, you have a way to force Dell to refund the cost of the service when they don't respond in 4 hours.

Re: Dell down under

[rorted.livejournal.com]

The largest component in that cost is the hardware itself, service fees are a fraction of that. When you've got centralised infrastructure on-site spares are good, because one part serves as redundancy for many servers. However in a one-server-per-site scenario, you're effectively doubling the cost of your infrastructure, and that's without taking into account that 90% of the sites don't have an onsite IT person and the costs associated with sending one there.

Re: Dell down under

[kayfox.livejournal.com]

Third party company... Unisys...