Dell complaints

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 2:37 pm Post subject:

The support ratings are based on a VERY small sample. If I'm reading it right, only 15 of 85,000 Dell desktops required service (thus answered the support questions). 15 is not a valid sample of an industry that ships hundreds of millions of something. 15 out of 85,000 also says that only 0.017% of Dell desktops required service--and even Dell admits to a number at least 100 times as large in new systems.

Bear in mind that CR surveys cover products sold in the last 5 years, not just new ones. And they only ask 'did it require service' THIS year. Once you got the initial bugs out of a computer, it generally just sat there running without further problems (hence the 1/100th of the number we'd expect). New ones are gutted and won't maintain that reliability record.

85,000 is a valid sample of Dell shipments for one year, but questionably valid over 5 years. Vendors attempting to jigger the survey? If one does it, they all do it, so nobody would 'win'. Besides, it costs money to subscribe! Other than remodeling the executive washrooms, when did Dell ever just up and cut loose with money?

So, 15 of 85,000 CR subscribers had to repair a Dell--and 14,100 Dell customers complained to BBB that Dell screwed them, in the same year. I suppose that's what Rollins means when he says 'we are improving customer experience' (?).

I think the boxes themselves ARE comparable. If you took 10,000 of each brand you'd find the same number of dead ones. They should be, they're all made by the same 5 Chinese vendors.

What we didn't get to see about the BBB numbers is, what are they complaining about? Could be anything, from bait & switch, to being oversold, to being double charged, to being gouged by Dell Finance, to being stonewalled on warranty obligations, or any myriad of shady practices people find out about after they buy one.

Anyone subscribe to BBB newsletter? How many other major US consumer commodity vendors got 14,100 complaints last year? How many did Ford get? Or American Airlines for that matter? See how hard it is to put stuff like this in context? And how useless it is when taken out of context?
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

Space Goat · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:02 pm Post subject:

From the BBB:

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:50 am Post subject:

Good context, Space. Mighta shoulda thrown that in initially, eh?

OK, so it's 3 years, quasi-comparable to CR's 5 years. I think we can dismiss CR's survey as superficial and inadequate sample size.

BBB shows that the complaints are the exact same ones we see on this site. Validated.

Another mass manufacturer of sometimes-troublesome hardware, Ford, has similar results to HP. (Although, like HP, an unknown number of Ford complaints are filed against a dealer.) That, plus Dell meeting with BBB, validates the HUGE number of Dell complaints as an indicator that something is major wrong.

Which is what we suspected. But we've all been snookered by statistics (that's what they're FOR, isn't it?) so we need to know what's behind those numbers before we draw hard conclusions from them.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

Space Goat · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 5:48 pm Post subject:

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 5:59 pm Post subject:

i_escaped_dell · Dances with Hate Joined: 07 Nov 2005 Posts: 206

What is wrong with Karl Rove?

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 7:38 pm Post subject:

It's Emperor Palpatine!

No, it looks like Emperor Palpatine, but due to international copyright laws, IT'S NOT!
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

PGrefugee · Regular Hater Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 49

Rocke,

If are dealing with the Statesman (Dan Zehr) you are not going to get very far. He comes across as sincere, but he is a Dell cheerleader. You also have to remember that there is a lot of Dell advertising dollars that flow into the Statesman. If you want better traction, contact Louis Lee of Business Week (louise_lee@businessweek.com).

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 8:02 pm Post subject:

Sup, PG? I'm a PG refugee too.

Dan impresses me as objective. His most recent submissions have been anything but 'cheerleading'.

Thanks for the reference, I've already been contacted by Business Week. They have the same objectivity constraints that AA-S has. The mainstream press is bound by their structure. Even this forum is bound by its structure, which aims for objectivity but has much more latitude to raise partially-researched issues than AA-S or Business Week has.

Dell advertises in 'Parade', the income from which is divided between Parade and all the distributing papers. AA-S doesn't depend on Dell for advertising.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'