To Hell with Dell

After reading and hearing great things about the Dell XPS 13 laptop, I bought one a few years ago and have been pleased with the performance. This year when I needed to upgrade, against the advice of everyone, I decided to stay loyal to Dell.

Girl, do I regret my decision.

My new and improved XPS 13 laptop which cost over $1500, arrived with a defective earphone jack. I am a consultant and need to be on video calls every day, so of all things that might not have worked in the middle of this pandemic, Dell sure picked the right one.

Dell’s troubleshooting guide suggested I reloaded the audio drivers, but this did not fix the issue. I contacted technical support and they reloaded the same drivers with no success. At this point they admitted that the laptop had a defective headphone jack, said it needed a new motherboard, and that they would send out a technician to replace it.

We need to take extra precautions because my wife has an underlying condition, so I asked Dell to send me a new laptop, rather than have a stranger come into our apartment during a pandemic. I was told this was not possible and that my only option was for a technician to come to our home and replace the motherboard.

Five days later the tech arrived. He was thoroughly professional and told me he had been tested. He wore a mask the whole time. However, Dell had sent him the wrong motherboard. The more concerning issue was that when he opened the laptop, I noticed the internal screws had been stripped away — which means Dell sent me a refurbished laptop and charged me for a new one.

Clearly, I was glutton for punishment because rather than return the machine and go to the Apple store, I asked for a new laptop. Dell’s customer support asked that I return the defective laptop before they shipped a new one. I explained that I needed it for work and they acquiesced, but said it would take five weeks to arrive. I was told that there was nothing they could do to speed-up delivery and reduce my inconvenience, even though the fault was entirely theirs.

Deeply frustrated, I sent a LinkedIn mail to Bill Scannell, Dell’s Head of Global Sales and Customer Operations, on first February, detailing my experience and alerting him of the fact that they had sent a refurbished laptop. I am still awaiting his response.

A few weeks later, I got an email from Dell saying the laptop had shipped, but the tracking number they provided stated that it had been received by C. Chase in Oakton, Virgina. After wasting more time, I figured out that Dell had emailed me the wrong tracking number.

I received my laptop seventeen days later and have had nothing but heartache. The performance felt sluggish from the outset and on day three the machine froze multiple times. Tech support, explained that the issue this time lay with the “Support Assist Recovery Tool” update. One that Dell recommended as a critical update. They told me to ignore this update because it apparently messed with the rest of the software.

Less than two weeks later, I was on the phone giving away two more hours of my life to Dell tech support. You guessed it — the headphone jack had stopped working…

Once again, they deleted and reinstalled the audio drivers but could not resolve the issue. In fact, what the tech did ended up killing ALL audio output on the laptop. At this point I suggested that we restore the laptop to an earlier point, since the audio and headphones had worked twenty-four hours earlier. It worked but was a temporary solution, so I asked how they would fix the issue and I was told to pause updates for one week, by which time Dell would fix it.

To be safe, I decided to wait an extra two weeks before I enabled critical updates, still careful not to run the one for “Support Assist Recovery Tool”. On the morning of the nineteenth March, my headphone jack stopped working again, just in time for my 9:30 am client meeting.

The moment I finished my meeting I called Dell’s customer service to ask for a full refund for my laptop and the peripherals I had bought for it. The first person I spoke with asked me for the background of my lengthy ordeal starting in December. Then he told me that his department could not authorize a refund and transferred my call to someone who would.

The next person I spoke to, once more reciting my saga, asked for the order numbers for the laptop, mobile USB adaptor and power chord before informing me that he too was not authorized to provide refunds. After reciting the entire saga to customer service agent number three, I was informed that my request was outside thirty days, so Dell could not provide a refund.

My patience was starting to wear thin, but rather than lose my temper, I gently explained that the issue was that Dell had given me two faulty machines and not that I had changed my mind, so their regular return policy did not apply. At this point I heard the all too familiar refrain, “Sorry Sir, my department cannot process refunds, but I will transfer you to the right place”.

By now my Gandhi-like patience actually had worn thin. After I recited the entire saga for the fourth time, I added that I was aware that my request was beyond their thirty-day policy, but given the circumstances I expected them to make an exception, and did not care if I had to speak with Michael Dell to make it happen. Clearly, not wanting to deal with an irate customer she did what customer service departments in inept and dishonest corporations are trained to do — she transferred my call back to the automated voice system menu.

Forty-five minutes had passed and I was now back at the beginning.

I pleaded with agent number five, laying out my case for a refund and explaining my exasperation with the fact that she was the fifth person I was speaking to, with no resolution in sight. She promised to help and told me that she also could not authorize a refund but would set up a refund request, which will need to be approved by another department. She told me that Dell would respond within 24–48 hours with their verdict. Not the resolution I wanted.

Every company makes mistakes, the test is how they react and respond after something bad has happened. Any company can make the buying process easy and convenient, but great companies ensure that the return process also favours their customers. That it is designed to lower barriers and ensure a smooth, easy and painless resolution to their issue — no matter what it is.

Think about how easy Apple and Amazon make it for customers to return things and get refunds, or how it only takes one call to American Express’s customer service to get resolution on any issue. Now think of wireless and cable companies and how their after-sales service process is designed to give customers the runaround. They create friction and put-up obstacles every step of the way in the hope the customer will give up in frustration.

While I wait for the powers that be at Dell to issue a full refund, which I expect, I will be visiting the Mac store to do what all my friends have been telling me to do for a few years.

p.s. I will post an update once I hear back from Dell. In the meanwhile, I hope someone forwards this note to Michael Dell because any good CEO would want to know about such an experience.

UPDATE: 48 hours after posting this article someone from Dell Corporate contacted me and offered a full refund.
However, I had to pay for packaging (they paid for shipping) for the laptop and each peripheral, which had to be shipped separately. I asked Dell to refund the cost of packaging but they refused and behaved like they had done me a favour. After my experience, I don’t believe I should have been out-of-pocked even one penny.
In summary, Dell’s customer service is designed to make it hassle free for Dell and NOT for the customer.