Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Dell Customer Service Strikes Again; DHL Strikes Out

This post is about customer service or rather the complete lack of customer service that I have continued to notice with many companies. I have had such a horrific experience over the last week that you can expect a whole series of posts about this issue about a Dell, DHL, Godaddy (and that's why I haven't posted in nearly a week). Last week I had a Dell 750 power supply drop dead. Of course it was the machine I had taken out of the cluster and doing mail service as well as some web hosting. (All of my current blogs EXCEPT this one were on the machine). Naturally I called the data center to request a re-boot, at first I assumed Apache had hung. The technician at the data center noticed that the machine didn't come back on nor did the panel lights come on. I had him quickly check wiring and everything seemed alright. So I called Dell. As you might imagine this is where things begin to go south.

After wading through the voice mail prompts, a pleasant Bangalore voice tells me I have dialed the wrong number for customer support. I check the web site again. Nope it's the right number, it's just the wrong number for support. So Dell's customer service number was wrong on the web site. After being transferred again and then again I actually speaking with a customer service representative.

Here's the first part of the conversation.

"Are you in front of the machine sir?"

Well no. This machine was purchased by me and then delivered to the data center by a Dell technician. I am not sure why Dell doesn't understand that.

Here's my response,

"No it was delivered to my data center in Los Angeles. I have had the local technician attempt a re-boot. He checked the cables and the panel lights have not come on."

"Could you have him give us a call from the machine?"

"Why?"

"Because we would like him to take the machine apart and reseat the cards."

"Well I had him check the wiring, the machine isn't booting and the panel lights aren't coming on. I think it's the power supply."

"Well we need to check the cards to be sure."

This is Dell hiding it's unwillingness to respond as a response. It's pretty passive aggressive. It's a rackmounted server in a data center, installed by a Dell technician. If the cards aren't properly seated in the machine, isn't the manufacturer's error? Why should I troubleshoot the problem? Because Dell doesn't want to respond to the contract I signed with them. Rackmounted machines

So I told them I would call them back after the technician had done the requested action. I waited ten minutes and called them back.

"No Dice. What now?"

"We will dispatch parts tomorrow. We have missed our shipping window for today."

"Ok great."

See I have a next day service contract with Dell which is what I thought would be sufficient response time. At the time the machine was part of a cluster so a single machine failing wouldn't be too big of a deal. My mistake when pulling it out to host blogs and mail - I would pay for it in lost revenue.

So I called Dell bright and early the next morning. This is the real kicker. Dell had shipped parts but they wouldn't arrive until tomorrow. This takes my next day response had makes it a two day response.

I called Dell pretty livid. In that conversation I found out the following.

1. Dell uses a just in time model for service. In short they stock NO parts in Los Angeles. That's right. One of the largest computer markets on the West Coast and Dell doesn't stock parts locally.

2. The shipping of the part is the triggering event for the service tech. NOT the original call to customer support. So I should have demanded the tech ship the parts that day. However I didn't know that they didn't stock power supplies for Dell Poweredge 750s locally nor that the shipping of the part was the triggering of the service technician. Dell's next day service response is actually next day after the part has shipped from Texas. So not next day service but rather

3. The shipping cutoff is 4:30 Central Time. This means my service call placed at 5:36 Mountain, 4:36 Pacific (where the machines are actually located) doesn't actually count. Doesn't it make sense that you should keep the same hours as your customers for a company of Dell's size? Shouldn't customers in California expect when you place a service call for next day response DURING normal business hours that you will get next day response.

After this little fiasco (the technician arrived and guess what? It was the power supply) I decided to up my service contract with Dell. So I called their service contracts division. This is also very revealing. Ordering an additional service contract will void my current contract with Dell. This contract which runs through 2007 would essentially be money thrown away. The new contract would run one year. It would actually be cheaper to buy a brand new machine with a new service contract.

I guess that highlights Dell's actual intention =-> sell more machines. Here's a better idea Dell. If you wanna sell more machines, how about a two pack with heartbeat running in the bios? You would sell two servers instead of one, get fewer customer services calls due to higher availablilty and your customers would be happier.

This post is getting too long so next time DHL strikes out.