I've been thinking a lot about the customer service I expect from companies that I give my business to versus companies that I no longer give my business to. Also, how much is a "deal" worth?
A month before we left for Amsterdam, the boy found the camera that I had been lusting after for quite some time on sale for a ridiculously low price. I had researched the hell out of digital SLRs and had pretty much decided that I wanted the Canon Digital Rebel XT in black. (Much props to Magnus for passing all of his great camera research on to me.) Through a combination of sales and coupons, Dell was selling the camera for about $750. Amazon, and most other online retailers were selling the camera for $950-$1,000, and you couldn't find it at a brick and mortar store for less than $1,000. The camera only came out a few months ago, and $750 was certainly the lowest price we'd seen. Dell only had the silver version of the camera, but I decided I would be OK with that. $750 is a lot of money to spend on a camera (remember, I work in education...) but we went ahead and ordered it so that I would have it in plenty of time for our trip.
And then we waited. This being a about a month before our trip, I wasn't terribly worried about the time frame. Dell's website said that based on their current supplies, etc., I would have my camera in 1-2 weeks. After a week and a half and my camera still hadn't shipped, I started to get a little antsy. So we called Dell's customer service hot line.
I have bought Dells in the past for work,and had I known that they had made such drastic shifts in the outsourcing of all of the customer service to India, I'm not sure I would have purchased the camera. We called on May 24th, and we were told that the camera was out of stock. Dell's website still clearly listed the camera that I purchased as being "in stock" and the same 1-2 weeks arrival estimate. We asked how this could be? "Anwar" never really answered that question. He said that he would have to start a new help ticket (with a number) and investigate the situation. He gave us his line and his direct extension. We weren't terribly impressed by his understanding of the situation, but we felt like we had some recourse because we had "tracking tools" to get back in touch with him.
He never answered his phone again. Over the next three days, his voice mail box filled so full that it would accept no new messages. But the status of my ordered changed the night we talked to him saying that the camera had shipped on May 22, 2 full days before I talked to Dell. This would have been great news, if only it had actually happened. After trying for 4 days to get in touch with Anwar, "Nancy" called me. (In the course of this problem, we talked to quite a few Nancy's and Daniel's with very thick accents. I would assume that those names are as scripted as the unhelpful dialog Dell provides to resolve customer issues.) Nancy also told me that the camera was out of stock and no longer available, but that she could refund our purchase to the credit card we used. The camera was no longer listed as being for sale on Dell's website. I asked why my order was listed as shipped and she couldn't answer that question. The call ended with promises of more investigation. I no longer trusted Dell knew what the hell was going on, so I did a little investigation of my own.
I called DHL, who was supposedly delivering my camera, a week after my camera had supposedly shipped. I was unable to resolve the tracking number Dell issued me online at their website. DHL told me that Dell never shipped anything through them with that tracking number.
At this point, we became pretty certain that Dell was either lying their asses off, or had no idea what was actually going on. Either way, it seemed unlikely that I would get my camera. We canceled the order, paid $100 more at a different online retailer for the black version of the camera and I got it in the mail with free express shipping 3 days later.
Throughout the entire ordeal with Dell, we kept meticulous notes on order numbers, help ticket numbers, who we were talking too and dates and times. We posted to the Dell forums, only to have the posting erased by Dell moderators as other irate customers chimed in about experiencing similar problems. We weren't posting in order to bitch to other customers, we were trying desperately to be heard by someone at Dell who had some kind of authority to tell us what the hell was going on and to try to fix the problem. I read yesterday that Dell is shutting down it's community forums. I will speculate that the moderators can no longer keep up with erasing the irate narratives posted there by customers as confused and defeated as we were.
As a result of this, we now have $200 in credits at a company that we have no real desire to ever work with again. Collectively, we spent hours on the phone trying to resolve the problem. (My time is worth more than $200...) The best part was that after we canceled the order, Dell took over three weeks to remove the charge from our credit card because they were still trying to tell us that they had shipped the camera. A week after we canceled the order, they listed the camera for sale on their website again, and estimated the same 1-2 week arrival time.
As both a personal customer and a technology purchaser in higher education, I will never work with Dell computers again.
On a more encompassing level, I am now researching how companies treat their customers before I part with my money. I love my new camera, but I would rather that I hadn't had to go through such a hellish experience to get it. The boy and I are both in need of new cell phones and we would like to combine our plans. Cell phones are purposefully complicated in the first place, but I have rejected purchasing new phones/plans from at least 3 different companies in the past week because once I spent some time looking into their customer service ratings, I realized that the potential existed for a situation very similar to how we had been treated at Dell, and I have no desire to ever go through something like that again with a company that I can exercise my choice not to patronize.
