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Do Manufacturers Adequately Support Their Products?
Chris Edwards asks: "I've been having quite a few problems with Dell support recently, and would like to ask the Slashdot community a question. To what extent should computer manufacturers support their product? I own a Dell Inspiron 7500
laptop, which has been plagued with problems since the day I purchased it.
The Inspiron 7k series were the first from Dell to take advantage of the new
15"/15.4" screens that had become available. They made one very tiny
mistake; they didn't change the hinges to support these gigantic LCDs. The
hinges on my laptop have broken four times since I purchased it two years ago. To put this into perspective: 8% of the time that I've owned my laptop, it's been in for repair. Should Dell just replace the laptop? Their support department doesn't think so; what do you think?" Dell isn't the only guilty party here. I'm sure you all have had your share of hardware support stories, the recent Ask Slashdot on IBM Deskstars is another example of this. Which manufacturers have a real bad track record of this kind of behavior?
How do they owe you a new one? What they may owe you is to fix the design flaw by correcting it, instead of just putting back the new hinges that will break. You paid for a laptop, and you've had the better part of two years to use it, I don't think you can reasonably think you deserve a brand new laptop because you may treat the hinges a bit harder then the next person.
I doubt the tech people you talk to even have the ability to replace the laptop.
You ask to speak to a supervisor, if that person can't help, they must have a customer relations or complaint group you can place a formal complaint with. I'm sure the superivisor can point you in that direction.
I have to answer emails and write all day
This is almost exactly what I would have said. Try it on another computer. Reinstall the software/driver. Reinstall the OS. Read this FAQ.
A support person can't spend all day wondering if Joe or Sally has utility X, application Y and that's causing driver Z to malfunction. Products are simply too inexpensive to warrant this kind of individual attention on support. Everyone seems to want to pay nothing for hardware - the support is going to suffer as the margins go down. Especially with disposable items like scanners.
When someone asks me, "What is the best computer?" I always give them the same response:
The one you build yourself. If you build it yourself you open up whole new worlds of possilibites that most OEMs never even consider. Want to use high quality Power Supplies, Motherboards, Cases, etc...? No problem. Want an all IEEE 1394 PC? No problem? Want a super nice sound card and a low end/no video card? Hey, you can do that.
Even better is how these days most connections are keyed (especially on the high quality stuff) and most components ship with sane defaults (cable select on IDE devices for instance) so you can just plug it all in and go. Generally I find I tend to pay a bit more for a machine I build myself, but that's because I tend to buy the more expensive parts and avoid cutting corners. I figure it's much cheaper than replacing that ultra-cheap noname HD 6 months down the road.
I read the internet for the articles.
Yep.
I got a Ti Powerbook in April. While installing the Airport card, due to bad glueing where the "white" metal has the foam for the slot-DVD being glued to the "silver" metal on the bottom, the "white" metal broke. (If you have installed an Airport card on a TiBook you'll understand).
Apple Service didn't really understand, but they sent me a return box. Two days later, because they didn't understand, I got it back as was. So I emailed some people at Apple Education, and within an hour of that email, I had a VP call my house and ask what could be done to make this right.
I got a new Powerbook, but with all my data transfered on Apple's dime.
Outstanding service from them.
I totally agree about Dell Inspirons being total crap. After my workplace had 6 of them with the hinge problem and then 3 more bugger up on the power switch, ALL of the Dells were returned. Dell lost quite a bit O'business there.
OTOH, The -best- technical support I *ever* had came from the folks of 3Ware. It was nice talking to a tech-support person who knew what they were saying and getting questions answered, instead of someone just reading you a book, then e-mailing you answers to your questions via email 5 days later. I even got passed to a Real Live Engineer when the tech support person was stumped on a question. Kudos to them!
/*drunk.. fix later*/
That said, in every state (and Dell has a business presence in every state which is why they always have to charge sales tax) there is an implied warranty of merchantability that comes into effect as soon as the sale is completed. This warranty is in addition to any written warranty from Dell. Under the federal Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act, for consumer sales, sellers are not allowed to disclaim this warranty.
The warranty essentially requires that the product you buy be of average fair quality. Four broken sets of hinges is not "average fair quality" IMHO. Additionally, in many, if not most, states there are consumer protection statutes that provide for up to 3X your damages (cost of the computer) plus attorneys fees.
Finally, in some states (Massachusetts is one) for sales to consumers the CONSUMER has the option of demanding a repair, replacement or a refund. Most written warranties state that it is the manufacturer's option to repair or replace.
Hope this gives you some information you can use and I wish you luck.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
All MWAVE modems (99%) are out of warranty at this point, and people had a chance to file for the price of a new modem at IBM expense after the class action lawsuit. Whats the point in supporting it when they agreed to buy everyone a new modem essentially?
It's not like the mwave settlement wasn't made public.
I had a Sony Viao, and it had a problem similar to that described on the dell here, but worse. It had the 15" display, and very tight hinges, to the point that I could see the screen ripple every time I opened or closed it. 3 weeks after I got it, I opened it one day to find the screen had fractured. On contacting Sony I was informed that they do not cover displays in their warrenty, despite not saying that in their warrenty. Eventually I took them to small claims court and the case was ruled in my favor, but one shouldn't have to do that to get what should have been taken care of as soon as I called. After fairly thurough seaching, I found that this was fairly normal for Sony. I currently own a Dell Inspiron 5000e, which has worked fine, but I'm glad to hear that they will at least fix problems even if they don't want to replace the whole machine.
Well, it look like I am an exception but I had very good experience with Dell support. Two years back, I was a tech monkey for a school board. We had a lot of abused hardware under warranty. When I needed a replacement, I gaved them a call, gaved them my support code (a sticker on the back of the machine with a 5 character code) and request a replacement. They shipped me a replacement overnight and I shipped them back the defective part in the same packaging. That's all. Ho, I don't remember to have been on hold for more than 10 minutes, too.
I had similar experience with Compaq in a subsequent job, and with IBM in my current one.
Maybe it is because we where a big customer (a few dozens machine a year), or because we are in Canada. I don't know. But considering my experience I always recommend brand name (Dell/IBM/Compaq/HP) to business. I must not be the only one !
:wq
I also bought an Inspiron 7500 because of the huge screen. My hinges have broken 3 times since March of 2000. On one of these occasions, Dell's parts department sent the wrong hinge three times. I had an unportable portable computer for around 3 weeks.
The worst thing of all is that Dell is content to keep replacing the hinges with the same cheap pot metal, instead of using steel like they should have in the first place.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
It's pretty clear that providing decent support is a good way to bankrupt your company.
Assume about 5% of machines have a problem. Average support is perhaps $300. (Tech support on an hourly basis is *incredibly* expensive when you factor everything in. The tech guy is pretty much the cheapest thing. Add in the cost of part, shipping, paperwork, etc.)
Well, the profit margin on a computer might be (after all costs) $30. It comes down to the fact that as soon as you provide decent tech support, every call probably costs you the profit you earned on 10 machines!
If you never have the unhappy customers buy a machine again, you lose 5% of your customers. On the other hand, you're gaining from the 5% of people who bought from other companies and didn't get decent tech support.
You *might* gain an extra few percent from people who've heard that you have good support, but in all likelihood, many of them will require tech support, (which is why they want to use you) in which case you lose your shirt again.
If you raise your margins so that you can provide decent support, then you lose sales massively. The market is almost entirely price bound. There is no equivalent of BMW or other names that "mean quality" that people are willing to pay for (despite what Apple would desperately hope for).
Somebody claimed that Dell's support has gone through the floor. But killing decent support is what has enabled them to lower the price of their machines and kill the competition.
Of course, with razor margins they can't afford to replace a defective machine. Their only choices are to
(1) Raise their prices so they can afford to replace mechines with design defects (= backruptcy),
(2) Innovate only incredibly slowly so they can catch any possible design defects (= backruptcy), or
(3) stiff you.
The only way a company can afford to provide support is to make it a seperate chargeable item. That way the profits on the support contracts can pay for actually providing decent support.
Same with dealers. Any dealer that actually had a large enough margin to provide service or support went bankrupt 10 years ago.
Of course, the only thing that can reverse this is laws to avoid it. Unfortunately, local (i.e. state) laws don't work. Local shops go under as customers buy from states without the laws in order to get a better price.
In other words, don't expect decent support any time soon.
In no other industry do the products double their performance in such a short time frame. That coupled with frequent halving in price, makes computers unlike any other industry.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.