Wow! I have long been telling people that one of the easiest computers to buy is from Dell. A quick phone call to their 1-800 line or a trip to www.dell.com and you can have a computer shipped to you in a week just how you like it. They aren’t the cheapest but they are not astronomically priced either.

The problem is now their service has gone down the tubes. Even before receiving the laptop we (my dear wife and I) had trouble with the sales rep we were talking to. With an attitude just slightly better than rude we had to get him to reconfigure the system we wanted so it would be precisely right. After a few revisions and a few contract adjustments as well for monthly payments we decided he had it right and we made the purchase.

A week and a day go by and we get a shiny new Dell box with a computer in it that had a french keyboard. I was upset because one of the contract revisions we asked him to make was to send it in English. This mistake is made all the time here in Quebec but after being corrected once I think they should get it right the rest of the time. Not the case here obviously.

We called the customer support line and I went through about 4 people before my parental duties took me away and I handed the phone off to my wife. After 1 or 2 more people she was speaking with a ‘manager’ who seemed very appologetic. Fantastic – we are making progress. It sounded very strange to me that they would have to rebuild a completely new machine and send it to us rather than have us go to a repair depot or send a repair technician (we did get the complete care warranty) but we were happy it was an acknowledged mistake and waited for the new package.

A week later and a new box arrived from Purolator. Open it up and boom – FRENCH KEYBOARD. At this point I am really pissed off and I call back Dell customer support again. I know how it is to get an angry person on the phone when you haven’t dealt with them personally from doing tech support in the past so I keep my temper to myself. That is until I am told that I have to return both laptops to Dell via RMA and when they have been cleared replace a brand new order for what I want.

Needless to say we fulfilled the first part of that arrangement but not the second. I even went as far as to tell the rep on the phone that I would in fact send them back but wouldn’t order a new one and he didn’t seem to care. Dell isn’t going win any customers working like this. In the past they had their service to go on. Putting a dude in a mall with a kiosk isn’t going to change the fact that you need to have good people serving the customer – especially at the time of PURCHASE!

One Dell customer lost now and probably a ton in the future. I will never recommend Dell again.

Hope your computing purchases in the recent past have been a lot more plesant than mine.

Geek on!