Advice needed on "Dell support"

Right now I'm well into the 2nd hour of waiting for "Dell Chat" support, I have given up trying to reach them by phone, the two times I actually did get connected to a live person I got handed around till I give up and hang up. it's a run around, I get connected to someone they ask all the questions then tell me they are going to connect me to the right department for my problem, then another wait and so on.

I first tried to reach them for a HD problem I have with my laptop back in Oct. and after about 1 hour of wait I gave up, same thing a week or so later that time I did get to the live person after about 45 minutes got transfered 2 times put back on hold and had to hang up while still sitting on hold since my work was closing the office, that was a 2 hour ordeal wasted, tried again before I left to see my parents for the holidays same thing another hour gone.

I got back last week so I decided to just take the laptop to the Dell store we have in a mall about 20 Miles away, after telling them my story and my problem they said they couldn’t do anything except to agree with me that their phone support is useless and suggested the online "Dell Chat" so here I am, got tied of just sitting here and looking at the screen and the words "Waiting in queue..." for the last 1hour 47minutes and I thought I share this wonderful experience with you guys and possibly get some feedbacks or suggestions.

I’m not a big complainer but this is a bit much, I’m open to any ideas.

 

Call customer service and complain to a manager. Use all the empty threats you can, like, "calling the Better Business Bureau" or, breach of support contract due to non compliance. Truth be told, there are a lot of directions you can take, if you are willing to throw some money at the problem (hire a lawyer).

 

@burnout: did you try restarting the chat window? That is not to say that I am defending Dell Support. I have lodged two complaints against them with the better business bureau already. I was having similar issues. I was never transferred to a supervisor, I was told that one would call me back. When I was called back I do not think I was talking to a supervisor, but another tech.

They farm out their support and I do not think their support teams do anything but read a computer screen.

I would recommend you try getting your problem fixed through MajorGeeks, or even google it a few (10-20) times. The only time I brave the Dell Support crap is when I have a hardware issue and it needs replaced.

 

Hi Adrynalyne, I actually did request to talk to a supervisor one of the times and they told me that the supervisors are very busy and they couldn’t give me a timeline on how long I have to wait to talk to one, so that kind of told me all I needed to know and I dropped the issue just so not to make the guy mad and have me put on permanent hold again, but I got put on hold again anyway.

I will probably do the empty threats thing if I get them on the line again, and as far as hiring a lawyer, I’m not in a financial position to go that rout, just started my own business and have to tighten the ole belt for a while till things get going.

Hi comperroruter, I had 2 “Dell Chat’s” tonight (or this morning now) the first never got connected I could see the window refreshing every 30 seconds or so and after about 30 minutes I closed it and tried again and they did come on the second time after about 20 minutes and ask questions like my Phone# service tag # model# … and transferred me to the laptop/hardware department after about only 15 minutes for that wait another tech comes on and said “Thank you for contacting Dell Consumer Hardware Warranty Support. My name is Mahesh. Please give me a moment to review your question. While I review your question, let me inform you that you might get an invitation to participate in a survey at the end of this session. You would be asked to rate our interaction on a scale of 1 to 9 with 9 being the best. In order to participate in the survey, you must close the chat by hitting the "EXIT" button. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.. In the mean time may I have initial shipping address and contact number for the system .” So I give it all over again, a few minutes pass and she typed and asked what kind of PC I had and I told them again that I had a laptop and gave the “service tag” # to them for the 2nd time she types back “Let me transfer you to Xps system support.” And I waited for over 2 hours and passed some of that time posting this thread till I disconnected without ever talking to anyone that could help.

I am trying to get some help true Major Geeks in the following thread that I posted yesterday http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=82126
so hopefully I can fix it with the help of Major Geeks and without Dell “Support”, the less I have to deal with them the better.

 

Well, a valuable lesson has been taught, as crappy as that sounds. Don't support companies that outsource to other countries. Thats when the quality goes to crap, and nobody else is the better for it except Dell, who is lining their pockets with ill earned profits.

 

I reviewed the reply you received in the other thread. Aside from messing with it physcially, I agree with what was posted. If its still under warranty, and your hard disk cannot be located, Dell is responsible, provided it isn't from a problem you caused, dropping it, etc.

Maybe you are going about this the wrong way. Instead of having them troubleshoot, maybe you need to try calling them and confidently tell them you need your laptop repaired, and need to set an appointment for a repair technician to fix it.

It may not help, but when you are dealing with a-holes like this, all you can do is pick at them(or fight them with a lawyer, which isn't an option for you).

 

That will work, but you will have to call them several times and consistently nag them about it. I had a CD Drive go bad and it took about 5 times for them to finally say they would send someone out to replace it. That 5 times does not include chatting online with them. Like I said, two complaints to the BBB fixed two problems for me. The first one was because I reformatted and lost my recovery partition. They wanted me to sign up for a year's membership to their technical assistance (239.00). I did and all this gained me was a cd with my drivers on it.

Not a very scrupulous company. I will build my own next time, or have someone in my area build it for me.

 

I am going to take the laptop to the local PC Connection tomorrow and have them diagnose it and fix it, then I will think about my options with dell. One thing is for sure that I will never, never, buy another Dell and will recommend against anyone else purchasing a Dell, from what you guys are telling me it looks like this kind of unprincipled behavior is their business model, unfortunately it’s making them lots of money.

I think the best thing is share our comments with others and encourage them to do the same, this is the only way to discourage this kind of behavior by hitting them in the pockets. I will keep you guys posted as to how this thing plays out, maybe it can help some one deal with Dell in the future or better yet save them from dealing with them.