Dell complaints

[pleaseno]

I’m dreaming of a place called Delltopia.

The story begins with a large cold corporation, thousands, nay, millions of unhappy customers with Dell computers, and customer support in a land far far away.
The internet is bursting with countless message boards, blogs, and user groups filled with complaints regarding Dell products. A call to ‘support’ connects customers to a variety of people speaking strange languages, but all having the same arrogant attitude and treating you as if you are an idiot and everything that is wrong with your computer is your fault. You are left on hold, transferred a dozen times, and told that you need to call a completely different number in a different land, also far far away.
If you have not paid for the extravagant ‘service’ you can skip ahead to the *.
If you have paid for the extravagant ‘service’ they will send someone to your house to replace the motherboard that wasn’t the problem to begin with. Your computer will still not work, and after a month of phone calls and emails they will finally send you a replacement for your four month old computer. The replacement will be inferior to the original one you purchased, will not maintain a wireless connection to the internet, and will overheat and crash continuously. They will then send you a replacement for the replacement computer, and it too will not work properly.

*Then one day, an angry customer looking to off-load their over-priced paperweight, also known as a notebook computer, throws the computer out the window of a speeding car and inadvertently hits a low-level Dell employee on the head. Yes, you literally can’t wave a stick without hitting a Dell employee in central Texas. This is now known as the “drive-by computing.”
Temporarily knocked unconscious but otherwise unharmed, the employee proceeds to lunch and returns to work with a small bump on their head and the notebook computer tucked under his arm.
Unbeknownst to that employee, the bump is actually growing inside of his brain.
Throughout the day he begins to experience strange tingling sensations in his whole body, hands, face, and especially around his eyes. Water even begins to seep from his eyes and drip down his face onto his nice Dell shirt. Something develops within this employee that he has not felt since he joined the company 13 years ago – he is beginning to have feelings, to care.
He finds a way to fix his own Dell home computer that has been plagued with problems from the start. The feeling it produces is so good and so strong that he knows he must share this. He finds a hateful message board online and carefully chooses one frustrated Dell customer to help that speaks the same language that he does. He makes direct contact with this surprised customer, never transferring them once, and with the absolute minimum of hold time. He puts aside the scripted responses that years of Dell training have impressed upon his brain and actually helps the customer. With a polite, humble, and patient tone he breaks free of the ‘it’s not my department’ mentality, gets to the root of the problem and fixes it, all in under an hour!
Word of this Dell employee spreads rapidly across the internet. Is it a bird, a plane, the Lone Ranger? No, it’s a caring Dell employee – the legend begins.

Now you might think the story ends here, that Dell discovers this employees transgressions and promptly hands him a pink slip. Not so. The employee goes virtually unnoticed within the large corporation. In the outside world though, he is a hero. And his own store of good karma sees a major jump in inventory. He has done a good thing. The seed has been planted. And good things will grow if properly cared for.
Each day the employee sneaks up behind another Dell employee and hits them on the head with the same errant notebook computer that knocked him out. Yes, by now you’ve assumed correctly that it has magical powers. So, each day one more employee begins to care and helps one more customer and one more and one more and one more and one more and one more. Until finally, there are no more unhappy Dell customers left in this wonderland. And it is called Delltopia. And it all started with one Dell employee and one Dell customer.

I’m not advocating the practice of throwing computers at anybody, although I’ve fantasized about it myself. And yes, I had to put that Deus ex machine crap in there; it is after all a story about computers. And I know, it will never actually happen, but one can dream, right?
-My name is Rita, and I'm an unhappy Dell customer
This is a short story I wrote to channel all the negative energy that Dell has inflicted upon my life. I am a first time poster to this forum.

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Welcome, Rita. Nice writing, refreshing style.

Mirror image of the real story. Every day, those helpful, productive people get hit over the head with faulty leadership and become Bain Zombies. Then they either walk out, get driven out, or stop being helpful and productive (other attributes, i.e., buttsnuggling, are more rewarded than productivity).

Not that Dell is the only place that kind of stuff happens. But as much of the company's growth capital that top management siphons off, they should have been competent enough to see it coming and head it off.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[FallenAngel]

The whole reference to going unnoticed is funny, seeing as how that kind of thing DOES get noticed, but it's generally viewed as a career killing mechanism.

Why?

Because if you truly did care, and you truly did go out of your way to actually drop a script and do what needed to be done...you'd cost the company money, and we can't have any of that now can we?

You're viewed as a threat to their bottom line when you begin to question their use of scripts and tools and such to solve a problem by avoidance rather than actual assistance. Ask anyone near me and they'd all say the same thing, but due to the fact that they have a bigger fear of being unemployed by "rocking the boat", they choose to say nothing at all.

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Zamatterafack, long ago in a galaxy far away, Dell phone folks were helpful and resourceful. They were the 'award winning' in 'award winning support'. They had a stake in the company (talking about before-outsourcing), and the tools and authority to actually solve problems.

Two things happened. First, as FA alludes, support is a cost. Dell has 5,000 middle managers, all with the same job description--"Tell me a way to pinch a penny this afternoon that I didn't know this morning". (See any reference to 'customer' or 'product' anywhere in there?) The Bain Wisdom decreed "we have so many customers, we can do without the 10% who have 'problems' and save all that money". Legally, they couldn't just disconnect the phones and still use the word 'warranty'. So they did the next best thing, made support so inaccessible that people would rather have a root canal without anaesthetic than call Dell. The Bain Wisdom only applies to spreadsheets, not to people. Therefore, it reckons without the fact that those 10% 'problem' customers talk to the other 90%--and the company develops the (ahem) 'reputation' it has now.

Another thing happened within support itself. The system was so open, so easy to access and work within, that a few bad apples (I don't know 'how few') were dispatching RAM, drives, entire computers to themselves, relatives, acquaintances. Dell has an FBI retiree running a full staff of embezzelment investigators (and they stay pretty busy). They found the fraudulent dispatches. Then management moved to plug the leak.

Remember HAL, the computer from '2001-Space Odyssey' who went paranoid when told by programmers not to trust the mission to his human operators? That's how Dell support works now. The system is no longer open or accessible. It's overwrought with checks and balances--so much so, that it's like airport security--assumes everyone is a criminal, customers and staff--and reacts accordingly. Cancelling dispatches. Telling you your hardware failure will 'go away' if you pay $99 to have your hand held through reinstalling Windows.

'Expert' support staff who really DO know how to fix your computer, aren't allowed to. If you were an expert at something, how long would you work in an organization that didn't permit you to exercise your expertise? Or procedurally second-guessed everything you did? I'm pretty desperate for a job. But I'd rather carry ice cream bars door-to-door in my underwear and sell them, than work for Dell support.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[FallenAngel]

Ice cream bars...in your drawers?! Now there's a visual that I didn't need

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Including a couple pounds of dry ice--can't sell them melted.

Remember the 'South Park' episode where the kids' teacher invented an alternative transport device that consisted of a giant wheel, and a 10" pole that sprang from the seat and occupied the driver's colon? And their slogan was "it's still better than dealing with the airlines". Well, dry ice down your shorts is still better than dealing with Dell. That's the image I was aiming for, not so much serving dessert out of my skivvies. But then, every sales pitch has to have a gimmick .

And think about it. Eating dessert out of a stranger's underwear is still preferable to dealing with Dell.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[pleaseno]

"And think about it. Eating dessert out of a stranger's underwear is still preferable to dealing with Dell."

Sadly, that is true. What flavors have you got today?

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

B-u-u-u-a-a-h-h! Struggling at this point to stay tasteful, let's say talcum powder. Anybody who knows what that tastes like, isn't in a position to say "Ewwww!".

But there is the trademarked brand of ice cream novelty "Nutty Buddy". Works on enough levels .
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[Sakura]

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

[FallenAngel]

I thought the bikinis already contained "tacos"?