Dell Set To Jump On The IT Services Bandwagon
from the all-aboard dept
As Dell has begun to clarify its long awaited turnaround strategy, the market has rewarded the company by pushing its stock higher over the last few months. Meanwhile, a number of analysts believe the company is on the right path, although this is by no means a universal sentiment. In addition to its retail strategy, CEO Michael Dell is also indicating that the company will beef up its IT services business. At the moment, the company has a small, but rapidly growing service unit, and it's not surprising that the company would like to expand would like to expand in that area. All across the industry, companies have turned to services to offset slow growth and commoditization in their traditional lines. IBM is the most shining example of a company that's successfully undergone such a transformation. But while Dell's intentions are logical, it's not going to be easy. Michael Dell says the company wants to make acquisitions in this area, but any such deals are going to be pretty expensive, since everyone has the same idea these days. Furthermore, Dell will have to overcome its reputation for being weak on support in order for this business to really thrive.
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Dell: Please look inside
For their product segment, the market has moved fast and evolved in different directions in the past 3 years. Instead of trying other revenue streams, I would say Dell better increase the appeal of their products, doing those things better what they are best known for.
Else, the main business will continue to shed market share, and the other streams will remain stagnant, purely market driven.
What a pity! We don't wanna lose such a great brand.
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Re:
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Dell + Service = ROTFL
We use Dell as part of a very large corporate agreement (well over 100,000 servers and god alone knows how many PCs)
Their service is unilaterally shit - actually at least you can put shit on your roses and achieve something, so it's far worse than that
They are appalling at honouring their agreements - a 4 hour onsite agreement becomes 4 hours from when THEY THINK they need to be onsite (not fromt he start of the outage). They spend absolutely ages messing around going "run this analysis tool" then "run this other one" before they will go anywhere near your problem
Commonly this means an outage lasting all day before they will attend, just to replace the part your engineers identified as defective in the first few minutes
I admit I am from an outsourced IT provider so they would be competition for us, but I really don't think we have anything to be scared of from them. If Compaq were doing this it might be another story (ahh - sits back and remembers the glory days when Compaq were our supplier)
If they can't even service their own hardware properly what chance do they have of an entire infrastructure?
Thanks for the laugh Joe – I needed it (I just got off a call regarding a malfunctioning Dell server!)
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Hmm...that explains!!
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@enrico
>They are appalling at honouring their agreements - a 4 hour
>onsite agreement becomes 4 hours from when THEY THINK they
>need to be onsite (not fromt he start of the outage). They
>spend absolutely ages messing around going "run this analysis
>tool" then "run this other one" before they will go anywhere
>near your problem
Sounds like you're missing the point there. Your customer is getting exactly what they are paying for, 4 hour onsite warranty response once the fault has been identified and a part selected.
They aren't paying for a 4 hour service contract, they are paying for a low-cost service model instead & if it was important enough to them to have systems up and running within 4 hours from an outage then they'd have spare systems & parts onsite in addition to a service level agreement with a maintainer, but the thing is, that costs a LOT more than just buying a 4 hour warranty from Dell..
Loo.
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Re: @enrico
Sounds like you're missing the point there. Your customer is getting exactly what they are paying for, 4 hour onsite warranty response once the fault has been identified and a part selected. This is possibly true but my experience is that the helpdesk staff are either utterly incompetent, or stall analysis of often extremely easy problems until they have an engineer available (why is it that it takes Dell so long most of the time just to confirm what my engineers already told them the problem was in the first few minutes? My guys aren't THAT amazing how is it that they have super powers compared to Dell?)
Dell then proceed to make promises "You'll have an engineer at xx:xx" and he does not arrive (last year a Dell engineer apparently managed to get stuck in a traffic jam for 3 hours on a German Autobahn at 0400 in the morning!). Last week we had an engineer get delayed by rain in India (fair enough not too uncommon - they get monsoons after all). Three hours later on a teleconf we were told by someone else "he has just left" - so I assume the mud he had got stuck in was in their reception then?
As for spare parts - I have worked on Compaq, HP and various other brands of servers over the years, I have NEVER encountered such unreliability before working for a company who use Dell. We can't afford to have that many spares - we'd need another building just to hold them!
The fact of the matter based on experience with many different vendors is Dells support across the board is shit. They are uncooperative, disorganised (try arranging a global contract and you'll find Dell operates entirely at a country level and local countries do not honour globally made agreements) and unreliable
I'm tired of shielding Dell engineers from angry customers, tired of trying to state that this new powervault is reliable unlike the last one whilst keeping a straight face, and I’m tired of spending my nights chasing up Dell engineers who failed to keep their promises (again)
I can't wait for our contracts to expire.... ;0) ahhh the heady dream of it all
/rant
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Dell Set To Jump On The IT Services Bandwagon
The New "Dell IT Services" push looks to be manned by Dell Employees and the early results are great.
A visit tio the first of it's kind, Dell Retail Stores in Dallas, Texas shows a store and service department staffed by Dell Employees with many years experience, and a committment to fast, reliable service for the Dell Computers brought to them for repair.
No overseas operators for hours on the phone, no third party repairmen in your home. Just take your ailing computer to the service counter Of the Dell Store in Northpark Mall, Dallas, Texas and say "Fix It".
Guess what ... it happens!
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Re: Dell Set To Jump On The IT Services Bandwagon
What most people don't realize is that Right now Onsite service for Dell is NOT PROVIDED BY DELL. Those services are provided by NON DELL EMPLOYEES under contract to third party companies. Many of those Foreign voices you hear answering Dell Support Lines are also NON DELL EMPLOYEES under contract to third party companies.
Translated:
We don't give a flying fuck about you at present and we'll damn well send whoevers cheapest for us (Hell be thankful we can't send the cleaning lady). However in future if you pay us shed loads more money we'll send our own numpties
No overseas operators for hours on the phone, no third party repairmen in your home. Just take your ailing computer to the service counter Of the Dell Store in Northpark Mall, Dallas, Texas and say "Fix It".
Wow!! revolutionary!! hold the fucking front page!! Dell have announced that they will actually try to fix your PC when the hard drive fails instead of screwing you around on the phone. You just have to drive to Texas from wherever you are in the world
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Re: Dell Set To Jump On The IT Services Bandwagon
here's my experience...
I'm quoting from the Dell website: "Our devotion to XPS technology is matched by our 24-hour dedication to XPS customers. Customer Dedication: With a limited warranty minimum of one year (upgradeable to up to four years), your technology investment is protected. XPS-level service includes 24/7-access to our rapid-response support team, made up of specially trained XPS experts."
I used both the online chat help as well as calling on the phone. I talked, in total, to 6 different first line help guys. Each of these "specially trained XPS experts" read the same script and asked me to try/test the same, retarded things (like trying a different mouse...there's not even a theoretical chance a defect mouse might be causing the issue, or asking me to uninstall software I had installed, even though I told them the problem occurred out of the box, prior to installing anything, etc...), when informing the 2nd to 6th guy that I already did everything they asked or suggested to try, they refused to move forward (to the next retarded item on their script) until I re-did whatever they were asking me to do.
More than once, after an hour or more of this retarded-ness, they passed my on to their supervisor, each of which basically re-tried most of the script, although, I must admit, when told I already tried it, they moved on to the next thing, (I guess their main job is just to verify the crap has been tried by the minion), resulting in them assuring me they would pass along the issue to an expert team and get back to me the next day, two days, within 72 hours. Which none of them did, hence me every time having to re-initiate contact.
I also asked about Dell factory testing the computers before they're sent out, I was assured they tested every computer, so I asked the guy to explain how it was possible to test the computer and not notice a problem that is plainly visible as soon as the computer is booted up (to which I never got an answer, not even a bullshit one).
Bottom line: it took Dell 35 days and wasting about 62 (I exaggerate you not) hours of my precious time and a shit load of aggravation (both from having to work with a big black square as a mouse pointer (it's always fun to have to guess what icon you're clicking on and selecting text is always fun too) as from the stupidity of the "experts" I had to deal with and having to try the same retarded things not once or twice but 6 to 7 times), to finally come to the same conclusion I had told every person I had talked to from the start (as in the first minute of the very first conversation with the very first person)...there was an issue with the graphics card.
In the end they transfered me to customer service because I wanted to complain, after explaining the situation in detail (I was getting fucked around for more than 60 hours, you bet your ass I make my complaint as excruciating as possible for the customer service people). After informing them in detail what had happened, they offered me:
1) a $75 coupon for the Dell website
to which my reply: you really, honestly think, after just buying a new computer AND my current support experience, I will be buying, or even consider buying anything from Dell any time soon?
2) an all in one printer (after 10 secs on their site, turns out Dell sold that particular model for $69)
to which my reply: you know, the whole concept of making a second offer is for it to be better and more appealing, so how going from $75 to $69 accomplishes this isn't really clear to me
at which point I got transfered to another supervisor (who offered a $200 all in one printer, still ridiculously cheap, if you take into account that even at minimal wages, I would have made a lot more by "working" 62 hours, not to mention the discomfort of not having a correctly working computer for 40 days)
Oh, and when that all in one printer arrived, it claimed there was no color cartridge installed, even though (of course) it was, but how long it took to get that rectified is another story...
Would it be possible for this to be the exceptional horror-story? This to be the one exception that somehow fell through the cracks of an otherwise superb support platform? Sure that's possible, but I have heard stories from other people (I personally know) as well, which would make the probability of occurrences statistically (if the this incompetence would truly be the rare exception) less likely than winning the lottery several times in a row.
(decent customer support would have been: Dell immediately shipping a new graphics card or computer, after all, it was defect before it left the factory.)
So I really don't care how good anybody else claims their experience with Dell's support is, I know better
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Interesting....
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Not THAT bad
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http://warrantypartsdirect.dell.com/us/Program/index.asp
Basically call, or jump on a website and say "we need this part." Obviously HUGE room for abuse, so they do make you pay to enroll, but still a good deal.
"The Dell Warranty Parts Direct Program is a service and support plan designed specifically for IS Professionals who have technical expertise in diagnosing and servicing computer systems. This flexible service program supports Dell customers who use a Help Desk for service dispatch, provide Self Maintenance or for Dell customers who want to appoint a service provider to maintain their Dell branded hardware."
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Re:
Any idea what the response times like? (and do they live up to them?)
Anybody know how well this works outside the US - only a 10th of our IT is in the US
Sorry to sound overly negative but I don't really want to throw more money into the the pit that Dell support is without good reason - I already have to employ one extra head in my wintel server team just to chase them up for late deliveries, escalations etc
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Re: SailorRipley
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Re: Phil
"You have issues, big time"
(")LOL(")
"Get over yourself."
(")LOL again.(")
"This isn't a test, there's no right or wrong answer."
(")LOL. LOL again(")
But seriously now. There isn't much relevant content in your response now is there....
I never said I was the only customer, in fact, one would have to be really retarded to think that or to assume anybody else thinks that...unless you're looking for a rather lame straw man of course...
True this isn't a test. False there is no right or wrong answer: either Dell provides good, mediocre or crappy IT support (I know this is simplifying it somewhat, sure one could create a non-discreet spectrum going from "absolutely fantastic" to "absolutely worthless" and quantify it). And the (overall) quality of Dell's support would fall in exactly one category. Just because it might not be easy to determine the right answer, doesn't mean there isn't one...
"Some people have had good experiences with Dell Support, some haven't." This is true...and furthermore the ratio of people having good and bad experiences with Dell Support would determine whether Dell Support (overall) is good, mediocre or crappy.
Btw, I could have just said "I have bad experience with Dell Support" but I chose to give the details, so everybody can judge for themselves how they would categorize this particular instance of Dell Support, I prefer to just provide facts and let people judge for themselves rather than making everybody take my word for it by simply stating a conclusion.
My initial post was a reply to:
"Because all my experiences with Dell support have been nothing less than fantastic. Occasionally I've gotten the tech who can't troubleshoot his way out of paper bag, but for the most part they've all been fantastic."
Said initial reaction has two pillars:
1) mainly (as I in passing do refer to experiences from people I personally know and trust not to exaggerate) first-hand experience = FACTS
2) math, more specifically statistics...
let me spell it out for you: if "Occasionally I've gotten the tech who can't troubleshoot his way out of paper bag, but for the most part they've all been fantastic" is true, let's say "occasionally" means 1 out of 10 techs is an idiot, that would mean me landing 6 of them in a row is a probability of 1 in a million (and I'm not even taking into account the other poor support I have experienced and heard of from friends)... so you see, it's not my opinion, but actually math's/statistics opinion...in fact, it's not opinion at all, it's straight math, which allows for very little subjective motives or data.
What did you do in your post again? ah yes, spew some unsubstantiated opinions, insults and straw men...
well, it IS a strategy too of course, I just don't know how effective it is, or how credible/intelligent it makes you look, but hey, go for it!
(yes, that very last paragraph is my opinion)
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Re: Re: Phil
Said initial reaction has two pillars:
1) mainly (as I in passing do refer to experiences from people I personally know and trust not to exaggerate) first-hand experience = FACTS
- First hand experience does not equal facts. Experiences are not facts, they're just memories based on interaction. I could say I have "experienced" a UFO sighting, but that doesn't mean I did. If experiences were facts, what about the people who have had good experiences with Dell Support? Does your so called "fact" make those who have the opposite opinion wrong? No. You are using OPINIONS and trying to masquerade them as FACTS.
2) math, more specifically statistics...
let me spell it out for you: if "Occasionally I've gotten the tech who can't troubleshoot his way out of paper bag, but for the most part they've all been fantastic" is true, let's say "occasionally" means 1 out of 10 techs is an idiot, that would mean me landing 6 of them in a row is a probability of 1 in a million (and I'm not even taking into account the other poor support I have experienced and heard of from friends)... so you see, it's not my opinion, but actually math's/statistics opinion...in fact, it's not opinion at all, it's straight math, which allows for very little subjective motives or data.
- In your second pillar, you used the words "let's say." This means your "numbers" and "math" are hypothetical, which means they are not true, which means they are not FACTS but OPINIONS. Therefore, they are not true numbers but again are OPINIONS. You can use hypothetical numbers to illustrate your OPINIONS but they are NOT FACTS. Again, you are using OPINIONS and masquerading them as FACTS.
The question before you on this topic is not an ethical one with a right or wrong answer but an opinion piece. Therefore, everyone is entitled to their own OPINIONS. You have not addressed what I said in my previous post which was "Your opinions do not supersede everyone else's." Your extreme disregard for the opinions of others who think differently from you therefore has made me say "Get over yourself" in my last post and I have no reason to see you any differently now.
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Dell / IBM
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