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 COLUMN
Dell's closed ticket A TELLTALE SIGN of a support organization in trouble is when the support representatives seem to consider all incidents closed once they're off the phone.
It's rather sad for me to see this. Through the years, one thing I could always count on was the stark contrast between Dell and Gateway when it came to support complaints in The Gripe Line. Screams of pain from Gateway customers were actually a major factor in the decision to launch The Gripe Line eight years ago; and even after Gateway managed to get its support act together reasonably well, I continued to get far more support-related gripes about Gateway than Dell. During the past year, however, that has changed. Earlier this year I would have put the two about even, considering their relative market shares among InfoWorld readers, but in the past few months the noise level on Dell has completely drowned out Gateway grousing. And as is often the case when vendors are having support problems, the complaints about Dell seem to be coming from all quarters -- big customers and small -- and across the range of product lines. If a common thread exists, it's the closed-ticket syndrome. Readers say that after fighting their way through the long periods of waiting on hold, automated responses, and attempts to push them off to software or peripheral equipment vendors, the Dell support representatives seemed dedicated to cutting off communications as quickly as possible. And although no help may have been forthcoming, the next attempt to call or e-mail Dell starts the process all over again from the beginning -- because the incident will show up as having been closed. "Every time we call, you'd think they never heard of us," says one reader who was struggling with a crashed server. "It's ridiculous. Each [technical support person] wants to go through the same basic questions: Is it plugged in? Did we download the latest drivers? Of course we've done those things. We're professionals. Are they? ... We've spent an awful lot of money with Dell, but they've seen the last dime they'll get from us." "It really irks me to hear Dell say they are going to meet their income numbers no matter what it takes, since now I know what it takes," says a formerly happy Dell customer who wound up returning a Latitude 8000 because Dell could not, or would not, fix a problem with the Windows 2000 installation. "It also irks me to hear them advertise that they have won more service awards than any other PC company. I think we need to have equal time to say that those awards were for past performance -- future performance may vary." Some users of Dell's support Web site report that they get much the same treatment online as those on the phone. "Recently, my under-warranty Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop developed a problem with the monitor," writes another reader. After submitting his issue to Dell's Premier Support Web site, he waited more than a week until he finally received a notice from Dell saying they had e-mail problems and asking him the resubmit his query. "Then I had to badger tech support continually with follow-up e-mails to get any kind of response. Par for the course: My problem was clearly evident during the power-on self-test, as I explained to them, so Dell asks me to download the latest drivers. I explain I already did all that, with no resolution. Now it's been over 10 days since I got any type of reply back from them. If this type of support is 'the New Dell,' then I'll go elsewhere for my computing needs, thank you very much." The most frustrated readers were those who had been forced to go back and forth between Dell and its partners without getting answers from anyone. "This is an example of the so-called vaunted Dell support," writes one reader when sending me his futile e-mail exchanges with Dell and the OEM vendor of a software utility in which each repeatedly referred him to the other. "Why won't these guys give me an answer? I would pay $100 more if my PC came with manufacturer's support for the software rather than the totally useless OEM support." Even when Dell is trying to follow up, its follow-through can be a problem. "I've had problems with a new Dell computer and have tried to get help from the tech drones at Dell without success," writes another reader. "When I reported this on a User Satisfaction Survey I was sent, I received a prompt message that purported to be concerned about my satisfaction and appeared eager to solve my problem, but yet it had an invalid reply-to address! Obviously Dell has found out a great way to improve customer satisfaction. No one ever replies to the follow-up e-mail, so they must no longer be dissatisfied." What's caused the spike in the number of complaints about Dell? We can only speculate, because Dell officials did not respond to my queries. At least that leaves me in good company. Got a complaint about how a vendor is treating you? Contact InfoWorld's reader advocate, Ed Foster, at gripe@infoworld.com, or voice your opinion in our Gripe Line Forum at http://forums.infoworld.com . Discuss this article in our online forums MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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