returned Dell 1520 inspiron

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I literally had the 1520 for just under a week and unfortunately, things went wrong.
I brought the 1520 as a replacement for my ageing dell inspiron 1300. I spec the 1520 up to a good standard:

intel dual core t2330 1.6ghz, 533, 1m
120gb 7200 RPM
XP home OS
Nvidia GE force go 8600m gt 256mb
intel pro wireless 3945

total cost was £630 which was good price at the time last year end of december. Got the Laptop, turn it on. And all was sailing ok. However, after the days went by the 1520 the Intel wireless card was resetting and kept asking me to input my wireless hub settings. I thought it was nothing, software on the card was updated too.
The day after intel card got buggered I started to get weird error messages when I logged on to the desktop. I cross reference the error codes and they were linked to some of dells softwares that came when I purchased the lappy
and they were affecting my programs on start up also.
Uninstalled the culprit program, reset the laptop. didnt get any errors. Great! But some of the programs on the program list still kept getting error.

At this point, I could waste my time uninstalling programs and get the lappy running, but I wasnt really happy with the level of customer service, I knew from the start it was bad a few years ago I didnt know that till this day it was still crap. it took the customer service team 10mins to try and put me through the right person and they still coudnt do it
In the end, I used the UK berkshire address and had to post the damn thing myself. As they wanted me to go through a stupid procedure before I can get a full refund. I got the full refund in the end, without going through the procedure by talking to my credit card company on how about going to such lengths.
But theres a very good lesson here. I had my dell 1300 inspiron for 2 years now, the only thing I changed was to reinstall the OS which clean wiped any software of dells. And since today, its been running great and hasnt once failed since the OS reinstall.
I don’t honestly held any grudges on dell, I just wished they could sort there act on the customer service much better.

 

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Try IBM quality laptops!

 

Is some times hit and miss when you buy new machines, Hope I can improve their service, Start A new job with DELL on Monday.

 

Totally agree, we used those laptops and pcs back at one of my past jobs at work and were great. The renault F1 team also uses there laptops.

cool, congrats dude whats the work your going to be doing there? I think the customer service with mine is linked to Home Users and gets run by a outsourcing company in India.

-Mallet

 

Cheers, is 1st line support. 4 weeks of training then an exam you need to pass first time.

 

Yup, the job i just left bought mostly dell hardware, so I know how easy it is for things to go wrong with the hardware.

Hopefully that will help me a little.

 

we have dell desktops and lappys and servers at work, servers are great but all the desktops from the 260-280 models are now getting the old failing cap problem, most of the 260s and 70s are out of warranty but the 280's are a recognised fault and dell replace them for free for us which is great

However when I call dell to get one sorted, beep beep beep, ring ring ring ring..service tag number please (im in india now)ok i'll put you through. ring ring, hello how can i help (now im in scotland), the scottish call center I always find really helpfull, I tell them the problem and they are sympathetic but they have a script to go through and theirs no way around it even though i've told them exactly what the issue is from the start. OK sir will get a tech out to replace the part tommorow. click end of call.

Brill that should be it but no normally later on in the day I get another call asking for me by name but pronounced in some weird and wonderful way (im in india again now)basically saying someone will visit tommorow. I already know this so why are they telling me this again and why do they choose people with virtually no command of the english language to call me when im busy doing something else.

In short I really like the dell scotland call center, they are always very pleasant (even though they seem to work to a strict script). But I hate the additional call from an indian call center telling me something I already know!

 

I can totally relate to your experience as I go through exactly the same process when dell desktop hardware issue arises. I must say as well that I don't have anything against the staff from dell's India call center, but find their technical know how a bit lacking.

 

Neither do I but I always seem to get the ones that dont really understand what im saying to them perhaps its my berkshire accent!

 

I was told in the interview that there is a script to follow, but employees are do not need to use it if they know the problem and solution (don't know how much of this is true)

The day i got told I had the job , i had to phoned up dell with a problem with my vostro laptop. After fixing the problem i have received 7 e-mails from the support team, bit of e-mail overkill i would say)

And a cd address to <my name>, Dell dummies, <my address>

 

You guys have failed to understand the idea of an offshore call centre. They are deliberately designed to be as confusing, frustrating and annoying as possible so that you DON'T COMPLAIN. The whole way of doing business has changed so radically in the past twenty years in the UK that it is unrecognisable from what it was.

Take washing machines, for example. It used to be that you went into a department store to buy all your white goods. You would be treated like a king/queen when you did - they'd have a guy who knew absolutely everything about washing machines pandering to your every whim - you'd get a cup of tea, a chat about your exact requirements, a delivery date AND TIME to suit you and a warranty that came free with the product and lasted 10 years. This is because they understood the value of customer loyalty - if you had a good product, that did what you wanted it to do for a long ol' time, next time it came around that you needed a new one you would probably go back to the same place you brought it from.

Now, with commodity goods ridiculously cheap, made from shite parts that they know mean it will conk out after three years, large companies couldn't give a toss about retaining you as a customer - its allo about turning over the new sales volume for them. Customer service is nothing but a hindrance - hence the move to paying ridiculously tiny wages to staff who barely speak English, can do nothing but read from a script, have no initiative or desire to help you and instigating labyrhinthine call systems that are designed to make you give up and either bin the laptop (believe me, this happens more than you'd think) or put up with its crap performance/failings until someone 'in the know' advises you exactly whats wrong with it.

It's extremely sad - but if you want a decent laptop or PC in the UK you would be much better off going to one of the smaller system builders like Cube 24/7. They have a vested interest in keeping you as a customer because they work on such tight margins that they can't really afford bad press - if word goes round that they are crap, they'll go under pretty quickly.

Incidentally (back to white goods now!) I once worked with a guy whose brother in law worked for one of the big appliance manufacturers (I won't say who, but the UK operations were based in Raynes Park) in Quality Control. About 15 years ago they moved to what they called 'the Sony Walkman model'* of QC. This entailed buidling and testing refrigerators to fit the 3 year cycle. What this meant in practice was that they would continue to shave fractions of a penny off the cost of their parts (everything from the cage of the machine right down to the individual screws in the components inside it) until they got to what they called 'the sweet spot'. This was:
90&#37; of the machines failing within six months after three years of use
5% failing before three years of use
5% going on for long after three years of use
How long was the guarantee at the time? You do the maths
It should be noted at this point that my father-in-law still has a fridge freezer made by this company sometime between 1975 and 1978 and its still going strong...

*Anyone who ever owned a Sony walkman will know exactly how this story pans out...

 

...you mean, Lenovo? IBM doesn't make laptops anymore.