scott wrote:

> Unfortunately most people aren't as thoughtful as you, and will just 
> choose the cheapest product or service regardless.  This forces 
> companies to reduce their costs in ways like this or risk going bankrupt.
> 
> Offer someone a laptop for $500 with very good support speaking fluently 
> in your language, or one for $400 with dodgy support, and I bet most 
> people will take the cheaper one.  Companies know this.

If I was buying a laptop for myself, then sure. What irks me is that we 
paid Dell extra $$$ specifically for the support contract. (And I'm not 
talking about small numbers here.) And yet, the support is still pittiful.

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>> Offer someone a laptop for $500 with very good support speaking fluently 
>> in your language, or one for $400 with dodgy support, and I bet most 
>> people will take the cheaper one.  Companies know this.
>
> If I was buying a laptop for myself, then sure. What irks me is that we 
> paid Dell extra $$$ specifically for the support contract. (And I'm not 
> talking about small numbers here.) And yet, the support is still pittiful.

Hmm, Dell support has been really good for me here at work, the support 
system seems to be totally different for corporate accounts compared to 
personal orders.

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>> If I was buying a laptop for myself, then sure. What irks me is that 
>> we paid Dell extra $$$ specifically for the support contract. (And I'm 
>> not talking about small numbers here.) And yet, the support is still 
>> pittiful.
> 
> Hmm, Dell support has been really good for me here at work, the support 
> system seems to be totally different for corporate accounts compared to 
> personal orders.

Well, you would _expect_ the support to be different, considering the 
price, yes. ;-)

When I call BT to tell them my home broadband has stopped working, I 
have to wait 20 minutes to be connected to a call center in India 
somewhere. (In fairness, the person at the other end did fix the problem.)

When I called BT to say our fiber optic link was down, the phone rang 
*once* and then was answered. Less than 1000 ms between the phone 
ringing and a human being picking up. That's pretty ****ing fast in 
anybody's book. And an engineer was in-site within 2 hours to test the 
circuit, with replacement equipment in hand.

But then, for tens of thousands of pounds per year, that's the kind of 
service you expect.

In my experience, Dell is always very sharp about producing quotes and 
sending out invoices. What they're not very sharp at is delivering what 
we've ordered or providing any sort of support if it breaks. Basically 
once they've got our money they spectacularly lose interest. Maybe it's 
only Dell UK, but apparently the guys in the USA are unimpressed as 
well. They're talking about moving to HP instead.

[Why in the name of God we didn't start with HP in the first place I'll 
never know...]

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> When I called BT to say our fiber optic link was down, the phone rang 
> *once* and then was answered. Less than 1000 ms between the phone ringing 
> and a human being picking up. That's pretty ****ing fast in anybody's 
> book.

Yeh, they know who they get their money from and who not to piss off.

The best for me was phoning up the lease company to say that my car was 
making funny noises, then a few minutes later someone calls back to say 
they're on the way to my house and will be there in 10 mins.

Good service does exist, but IME you need to be a *really* good customer (ie 
a company who buys a lot) to get anything.

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scott wrote:

> Good service does exist, but IME you need to be a *really* good customer 
> (ie a company who buys a lot) to get anything.

Maybe Dell just can't be arsed with a company that only has 300 
employees and a $1 share price...

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> Maybe Dell just can't be arsed with a company that only has 300 employees 
> and a $1 share price...

I really don't imagine they know or care about that, simply about how much 
stuff you buy from them.

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scott wrote:
> Hmm, Dell support has been really good for me here at work, 

We bought something like 8 or 10 fairly high-end rack-mount servers (around 
$4000 each or something). Three or four times in the first six months a 
server died, and the support came out and changed out parts to fix it and 
all pretty promptly. Their machines sucked, but their service was OK.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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scott wrote:
> Good service does exist, but IME you need to be a *really* good customer 
> (ie a company who buys a lot) to get anything.

My wife flies enough that they greet her by name on the plane, and the 
captain gives her promotional gifts. Almost kind of creepy, really.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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scott wrote:
>> Maybe Dell just can't be arsed with a company that only has 300
>> employees and a $1 share price...
> 
> I really don't imagine they know or care about that, simply about how
> much stuff you buy from them.
> 
> 

Not even that, or you'll need to buy really really much. I'd say we have
European-wise 4- or 5-numbered amount of DELL PC's with 3-5 year
lifecycles, yet still the support is crappy.

-Aero

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Darren New wrote:
> 
> We bought something like 8 or 10 fairly high-end rack-mount servers
> (around $4000 each or something). Three or four times in the first six
> months a server died, and the support came out and changed out parts to
> fix it and all pretty promptly. Their machines sucked, but their service
> was OK.
> 

That might have an effect - they may have more interest or promises in
supporting 4+k$ servers than 400€ workstations.

-Aero

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