Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Email to Michael Dell

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:5/11/1999; 9:26:10 AM
Topic:Bad experience with Dell service
Msg #:6008 (In response to 5376)
Prev/Next:6007 / 6009

Twelve days ago I posted a story on Scripting News, http://www.scripting.com/, about bad service from Dell on a simple repair for my laptop. The keyboard was broken. It was simply a matter of replacing the keyboard. Dell lost the machine. Eventually they found it, but in the interim, they had sent a laptop to me that didn't work. They hadn't tested it. We used my time (expensive) and Airborne Express (a lousy shipper by the way, they screwed up twice in this roundabout) to do testing that you should be able to do, for your customers.

Dell promised 72-hour turnaround at the beginning. It's now approx 417 hours later and we're no closer to having a working system. This is impacting my business.

Dell had a stellar reputation with me for service, now it's falling apart. You can't make a simple repair, what can I count on you for? I paid a premium, as a business user with limited time, to protect against exactly this kind of foul-up. I have bought six Dell systems in the last two years. I was on track for buying more systems from you, as our business is growing and we're depending more on Intel hardware for our people. But now, there's no way I'm doing more business with you until we get an adequate and fully professional response from your company.

I'm writing about this on Scripting News. Your people were being helpful up until yesterday, now I think they've given up on us and are sending back a system that I don't believe will work. What are we supposed to do then? I wanted *them* to test the system at your facilities and not return it until it worked there. I believe your company is capable of delivering a single NT Workstation laptop to a single customer? This is what your company does, isn't it?

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