A Positive Dell Support Experience

Hello,

In a previous thread ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=30182) I provided a short review of my new Dell Latitude 610 notebook I got about 2 weeks ago.

In that thread, I promised to lay out a previous Dell support experience I had so thought I would take time to write up something here tonight. I'm doing this because, despite what you frequently read here and elsewhere, Dell does have pretty decent support. It isn't perfect - but then again - what support is these days?

In any event, prior to purchasing my laptop, I purchased a flat-panel 19 inch monitor from them. I purchased the monitor since I was moving and didn't want to haul around my huge 19 inch CRT.

Order was placed and all went well. Monitor arrived and, just as all reviews said it was, the monitor was a perfect monitor. Looked great, superb image quality, just one little problem...it didn't seem to want to work quite right with my older, 2.5 year old Dell System that had only VGA. The result was that the whole image was "slanted", for lack of a better word. Imagine a straight line going across your screen. What would happen is that the straight line would, from left to right, trend down the monitor as it went towards the center. And from the center, the line would then begin a slant up to the right.

In short, the whole image was a bit distorted when viewed at the proper 1280x1024 resolution. While it may have not bothered other people, it most certainly did bother me. So I called up Dell.

I've recommended Dell to other people, and two of them have used their support. Both times for my friends went quite well, although the language barrier at times proved frustrating. However, this was my first time utilizing dell support and customer service, so wasn't sure what to expect.

I called up technical support and we ran through a whole bunch of tests. Nothing changed the "distortion" on the screen I saw. The first tech was undoubtedly "offshore" judging by his thick asian accent, but I could understand him and he was exceptionally polite. Running out of ideas, he transferred me to another tech, this one in Canada or the US as the English was perfect with no accent. We went over a few more things, with the same non-result.

In the end, Dell shipped me out a replacement monitor via overnight DHL. As promised, it arrived the very next day - despite my living out in the middle of nowhere in NW Montana. Oddly, the person who dropped off the new monitor didn't pick up the old one. As it turns out, Dell will ship replacements out via overnight, but returns take the slow boat back - and are handled apparently by a different delivery person within DHL. Made no sense to me, but whatever.

In any event, I plugged in the monitor in (Dell shipped out a refurbished monitor as replacement, soemthing I wans't exactly thrilled about) and exactly the same results as before.

So, called up tech support again. Ended up talking to a US tech again this time (perhaps because I ordered through the Small Business Division). The tech was rather stumped. Was put on hold for a while as the tech essentially "went around the room" getting suggestions from other techs.

In the end, no good solution was found. So...Dell did something that was really quite amazing. The monitor I ordered was $379 on sale (a 19 inch Ultra-Sharp Flat Panel). They offered to upgrade me to the 20 inch Ultra-Sharp Flat Panel that cost more than $700 at the time - at no additional charge!

However, I turned them down on this offer. Not because it wasn't a generous offer - it most certainly was. However, the 1600x1200 resolution was just too darn small for my tastes. 1280x1024 resolution is about as small as I want to go. And even on a 20 inch monitor, 1600x1200 would just make text way too tiny.

Well, after this we just arranged for the return of BOTH monitors - as no one had come by yet to pick up the first monitor. And this is where things began to get a bit messed up, although Dell was not at fault. Indeed, they helped clear it up, but more on that later.

They gave me a second return tracking number. Soon there-after, DHL showed up and picked up both monitors. The delivery guy, though, was a bit confused about the whole thing for some odd reason. He took both boxes, but only provided one tracking number for both packages - which I thought was a bit strange. But who am I to question the delivery driver??

Well, my worst fear was materialized. Both monitors shipped, but I only got credit for one of them (the credit showed up on my account 2 days later for the first monitor). So, I called Dell yet again. This time spoke to someone most definitely in Asia. However, the accent was not noticeable and the agent was exceptionally knowledgeable about this - probably because it happened before! In any event, the agent looked over my previous tickets (quite a bit of them by this time), called DHL, and within 10 minutes all problems were solved. Apparently, DHL messed up the packages - treating the single tracking ID as only one package, not two - and not telling Dell that two packages were actually part of the return shipment.

After the call, got a email from the agent saying all was well and that my account would be credited the next day. And sure enough, the next day, the account was fully credited.

In any event, this whole experience, despite being rather time consuming, made me quite pleased with Dell support. It also gave me confidence to order the notebook from them just a week later when the Latitude I wanted finally went on sale.

What was very nice about the whole thing is that the monitors were all quite fine. They just weren't 100% compatible with my wimpy, VGA video I had inside my older Dell System - at least that is what the techs figured out. I wondered if I would be charged any sort of restock fee due to all of this, but that wasn't the case. Dell fully refunded everything.

In conclusion, Dell may not have the worlds best support, but it doesn't seem awful by any means either. The language barrier can prove to be a challenge at times - and some patience on the part of the customer IS required for both the language thing as well as giving the techs the information they require (like looking at the back of your computer for the service tag).

And as a sidenote, a friend who ordered a computer through them that I configured for her also had to go through Dell support. The computer worked fine, but alas, Dell for some odd reason shipped out TWO computers and monitors, instead of just one.

What made this a bit of a problem is that she lived in an area where DHL does not deliver (find the remotest part of Montana, look for a tiny town, and that is where she lived). Yet, Dell solved the problem by arranging for UPS to drop by and take away the extra components - which probably cost Dell a small fortune since my friend truly lived in the middle of nowhere.

Anyways, hope these two postive support experiences give people hope that Dell can and does have good to excellent customer/technical support.

Jim

 

I have the 2001FP Dell monitor. To me the text is much larger on my Dell monitor than my SXGA 15" T42, but I'm glad it worked out for you.

 

Thanks for the positive post. It's nice to hear that some people are actually happy with Dell support for once. Maybe people in this forum will want that technicians extension # ;p.

 

lol yeah, i think there support is getting better. But it seems still they need a lot of improvement. Cool hear to that there are nice techs.

 

fyi- Dell LCD monitors look terrific outside their native resolution. I too hate the tiny fonts of the higher resolutions. Most LCD panels loose a lot of clarity when not in native resolution, but Dell's LCDs maintain their crispness (at least set on DVI input).
And- I agree- although Dell's support can be a little frustrating at times, ultimately they go out of their way to satisfy the customer, and I think Dell offeres a great product for the price point.

 

I think that was one of the problems and the techs even suggested as much - my old desktop didn't have DVI. It had analog only. When I changed the resolution off of 1280x1024 things looked pretty darn bad - like all other flat panel monitors I've seen that aren't run on their native resolution. Because of that, I wasn't willing to take the chance on getting a 20 inch that would do the same thing.

The funny thing is that I've since gotten a flat-panel monitor to go with my laptop. It is just as good if not better - and far more packable - than the Dell 19 inch I ordered. The Samsun 960bf is an absolutely beautiful monitor and works flawlessly with my Dell Latitude notebook.

What is nice about this monitor is that it is ultra-portable for a 19 inch flat panel because it actually "folds down." Moreover, unlike virtually all other flat panel's I've come across, including Dells', the back on this monitor is fully closed off (you can't look down into the monitor). This is very nice since it will prevent dust and cat hair (a perpetual problem for me due to my kitty), from getting down inside the monitor and, worse yet, getting in the screen itself.