On Hell. Uh... I mean, Dell.

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

My last note I sent to them, the last in a series of several...

"Hello Sumeet,

"So, after many, many hours chatting with three service reps, getting booted from chat for no apparent reason, waiting by the phone for calls that never came, more chatting, many replaced drivers, emails, a replaced motherboard, more replaced drivers, emails, waiting for new OS disks to arrive to try and repair the problem, more emails, a whole disk back up and a reset to factory conditions of the hard drive, three weeks later, I finally have the machine back in working condition.

"That was quite possibly the most painful encounter I have had in my adult life.

"Now, I have to just restore everything to what it was and hope whatever caused this debacle doesn't creep back in.

"All is all, I do thank YOU for your time and effort. It's just the rest of it that only years of therapy and a bottle of Jack Daniels will hopefully erase.

"Thank you

Simon"

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I've been referring to them as BOfD for years.

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

BOfD? Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do!
In other words, huh?

[azurelunatic]

Are you familiar with the Bastard Operator from Hell? "Bastard Operator(s) from Dell" rhymes so nicely...

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

I was... unaware...

But with you elucidation, I will happily read this now.

"A REAL computer has ONE speed and the only powersaving it permits is when you pull the power leads out of the back!" I blurt. "In fact, a REAL computer would have a hole in the front to push trees into and an exhaust pipe out the back for the black smoke to come out of."

[manuka.livejournal.com]

Why on earth do you deal with India with Dell?

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Even HP has outsourced a lot of their tech support to India.

[manuka.livejournal.com]

Unless you're dealing with consumer-level support, Dell's support is all in North America.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Ah, I did not know that.

It's possible it was just someone from India or of Indian descent in the USA.

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

since when? even at a business level we've had a lot of issues speaking with someone who spoke and understood english. the only way we found to avoid dealing with this is to pay out the ass in premium support options and even then it's hit and miss.

[mynameisnotreal.livejournal.com]

'Sumeet' was only the last one in a chain of people I dealt with. I have no idea of the ethnicity of any of the others, or where they were located.

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

it could just be that i've just gotten very VERY unlucky in the past *shrug*

[manuka.livejournal.com]

We get Gold support for all our machines, and cost is minimal (and well worth it). If you have an account rep who's any good at all, s/he should be adding Gold to your boxen for close to nothing.

They now have a program where you can get certified and bypass level 1 (and dispatch your own parts). That costs a little extra for non-Gold machines, and is included on Gold and above.

Best time to call server support is around midnight... Those guys on the late shift are pretty laid back, and they don't make you go through a lot of the BS.

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

i kind of wish we did that cert process. it'd make life easier. my supervisor at my old job had it and i was told i was going to get it but they never followed through. i think you have to be associated with a company in order to go through that certification unless they changed it sometime in the last couple years.

[jecook]

It's largely worth it. It saves the hassle of calling them up and telling them "Yep, it's bad, send us a new one, dammit."

Now if the boss can get off his ass and get the stuff going to renew my cert... I'm the one that calls shit in most of the time... *is crankly because he told boss three fricken MONTHS ago...*

[curmudgn]

New words to mention: "ProSupport." All the old "metal" support contracts are being phased out in favor of Pro. And in your case, "with Warranty Parts Direct."

[manuka.livejournal.com]

The inability to get a technician who has a good grasp on English, let alone technical English, has been the reason we've fired (or threatened to fire) a few of our major vendors. Sonicwall, while their product is made of win, keeps sending me to India. Used to be that on the enterprise-grade stuff you went to the US, precisely because the level of proficiency in English was higher than their outsource vendor could provide. Now they've acquired so many different products and companies that it all goes to India. Usually the first person to answer the phone and dispatch the call is in the US, and if you're nice to them they'll send you to a US-based tech. That's the only reason we still send thousands of dollars a year in their direction.

[dreamatdrew]

Sonicwall hardware is (generally) made of win, but their CS/TS departments have a total collective IQ of -472, based on every time I've had to deal with them. No matter where my call got routed to...

[manuka.livejournal.com]

It's pretty hit or miss, really. A lot depends on the specific product.