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Dude, Dell's service has slipped, but company's working on it
Mon Apr 29, 6:08 AM ET
Michelle Kessler USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO -- Dell Computer's once-legendary service has slipped -- and the No. 1 personal computer maker is taking steps to bolster it.
Many surveys say Dell is still the best at service in the PC industry, but there are signs of trouble:

* More than 4,740 customers complained about Dell on consumer Web site PlanetFeedback from October to March. That's up 40% from the previous six months.

* The Better Business Bureau in Austin, where Dell is based, received 1,195 complaints about Dell during the same period, up from 616 in the six months before. The BBB started taking complaints online, which boosted the number. Still, there is ''no doubt'' that more customers are unhappy, says BBB Vice President Carrie Hurt.

* Customer satisfaction among Dell server buyers slipped 1.5 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2001 from the quarter before, says Technology Business Research. Dell's rating -- 84.8 out of 100 -- tied it with Compaq (news - web sites) Computer for first place.

Rick Chase, a Dell customer-service vice president, acknowledges service slipped. ''We recognized it, and we responded to it,'' he says. Strong holiday sales in 2001 surprised Dell, Chase says. It scrambled to hire techs, but training needs of six to eight weeks left the service department understaffed. Dell has added hundreds of techs to its team of 3,000.

Layoffs might have fueled the problem, analysts say. Dell cut about 5,700 jobs last year. No service representatives lost jobs, Chase says, but support staff did. ''Whenever you try to grow a business and lay off workers at the same time, you have problems,'' says Giga Information Group analyst Rob Enderle.

Dell's customer satisfaction has long been high. That's partly because its products are still known for high quality. And Dell technicians are good at solving problems over the telephone.

But fast growth makes it harder. ''Dell is straining at the limits of its model,'' says IDC analyst Roger Kay. ''Once it gets to be really big . . . it creates more difficulty in responding quickly to customers.''

Dell moved some service operations to India last year. Customers say that communication breakdowns between India and the USA leave them hanging. ''I spent weeks and weeks calling up, getting disconnected,'' says Dell customer Peter Frost in Hawaii.

Harold Brown, an Alabama-based engineer, bought a Dell PC in August after years of good Dell experiences. This time, he says he spent 20 hours on the phone with Dell getting the PC to work right.


My Take:

Complaints almost doubling in a 6 month period compared to the previous 6 months? That's a metric that should scream "TROUBLE" at somebody intelligent. When you lay off thousands of people and then say it didn't affect your customer service, you're blowing smoke out your ass. Maybe if they didn't send over 800 customer service and support jobs to Bangalore, India during the past year, [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=32902|earlier post,] customer satisfaction might not have dropped. Maybe if they weren't so intent on being cheap and hiring mostly recent college hires this past year, they might have had skilled and experienced employees pulling their fat ass out of the fire.

They made their bed; now they get to sleep in it.