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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?
The intersting bit is the support contract. We seldom use it. Typically, our own Computing Services techs are modifying units when they come in the door (some of our labs need zip drives, but the administration doesn't purchace them... so we add them on site. As an example). But the other factor has been response time. Even though we have a support contract, it's simply easier to say "We can fix this. Fix it now and send the broken part back to Gateway."
So how good is the support when we really need it? I have no idea... Computing Services answer to my problems with the Dell on my desk has largely been "You shouldn't be trying to do that anyway so it's not really a problem..." Ah well... that's another can of worms...
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
It would not even cost you anything, since we have something called a 'Small Claims court' which deals with consumer disputes such as this.
I don't know if you have such a thing over there. Another angle to try would be the credit card company. In the UK, the credit card company is jointly liable for anything you purchase with it. So there is another avenue to explore.
Finally, how the hell can they claim that a laptop display with three or less broken pixels is 'acceptable' ? You can bet that Michael Dell's laptop screen has all its pixels functioning.
As in all things, the squeaky gear gets the grease, so complain, complain loudly, complain often. Make it cost-ineffective for them to mess you around.
True Story...
t ml
A little while back, my old flatbed scanner quit working. It had had heavy use, and was several months out of warranty, so I figured it was a write-off.
I did my research and tried to pick the best USB scanner out there in terms of price, features, and reliability. I ended up with an Acer 640U flatbed scanner. It's a nice scanner, and works preotty well. It's advertised to work with Windows 9x, 2000, MacOS, and Linux, if I remember correctly.
Well, I work under W2k for the great deal of my multimedia and graphics tasks. Just after a fresh install of the Operating System, the scanner works like a champ. However, after more than a little bit of use, the driver starts malfunctioning. Obviously a DLL conflict or something similar, right?
Well, a quick call to Acer to try to track down the conflict let me know that I was not privaleged to phone support any more because my product was out of warranty. Do they offer per-incident pricing for phone support?
http://www.acercm.com/support/technical_support.h
Apparently not. Even if they did, I could probably spend less on a brand new scanner than I could on 1 or 2 hours of support calls.
I resorted to newsgroup and messageboard searches for problems like mine, but couldn't really find any. I'm certain we've all had problems like this before, right? Where we are absolutely the onle ones to have them?
So, after a while, I tried emailing Acer's support like the page linked above suggests. I included detailed system specs including hardware specs, OS installed, a fairly comprehensive list of software installed, error codes and anything else I could think of. I specifically stated in the email that I thought that my problem was being caused no doubt by a software conflict, and asked for help tracking down the conflict.
The reply I received was along the lines of:
"Apparently there is a software conflict between the Acer driver and software applications installed on your system if your scanner will work with other computers. You should try to track down this conflict and uninstall the confilicting software."
This is adding insult to injury in my opinion. Either the support staffer who answered my mail was so untrained as to be useless, which is a real possibility in any support staff, or he or she didn't care, or had been instructed not to provide specific help to email support problems. So, despite the fact that the Acer scanner is actually a very good scanner, the software can't be trusted to keep working, and Acer's support of that software is in no way useful.
Sorry guys. Next time, I'll buy the Agfa Scanner.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I have a Dell 7000 at home and I like it.
It also uses the 15" display but I never had the hinches break or anything like that, but who knows, maybe they decided to make them thinner on the 7500.
Yet, it wasn't without problems.
On the first Dell I got the Keyboard stopped working after two days. They wanted me to ship my unit back to get it repaired. After making clear that I am pissed, that this is a one week old computer I got a replacement within 24 hours (nice). I transplanted my HDD and thought I was off for good now, only to realize 3 days later that the HDD died on me. Luckily I hadn't returned the old one yet put the original HDD in and everything worked fine.
6 Months later the DVD ROM went. It couldn't read the DVDs anymore but CDs were fine. I had moved to Europe at that time and when I called Dell they told me I am out of luck because Dell Europe has nothing to do with Dell US, my warranty didn't cover it (great), so I lived with a defective DVD ROM.
6 months later I moved to Canada, and 2 months after that the Drive stopped working alltogether. Again I was calling Dell and I heard the same story: Dell Canada has nothing to do with Dell US. Again I raised hell, escalated it and they finally agreed to send me a replacement (I have to say the Dell Canada people were very nice and helpful).
A week later I had a new DVD ROM, only problem: Instead of sending me a "swap" unit together with the Floppy drive attached to it, they only sent me the DVD ROM drive. Fine, no problem, unscrew everything, reassemble it, done. When I called them back and asked them why they did this they told me that this was the wrong part, usually they send out complete units for customer maintenance, but apparantly a technician was supposed to do the swap for me. Oh well, no harm done.
A month after that the Display went, or better the lower third of it. Same thing again, calling Dell explaining why an AMERICAN Notebook needs service in Canada, no problem this time. They have a technican call me.
A week later (some scheduling conflicts on my end) the guy drove up to work and replaced the display in the office.
So: Even though I had some bad experience with Dell and it's international Support, in the end I could get what I needed.
Would I buy another one? Yes, because Dell isn't worse or better than anyone else.
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
That was Monday. Tuesday Airborne Express shows up with a box. I signed for it. Opened it up and inside was foam packaging for my TiPB and a Return Airborne Express slip. So I put the PB in it and called Airborne Express. They were back an hour later and picked up the box and shipped it to apple. (This is all at apples Expense) So. I send it out Tuesday. On Thursday my Powerbook is back in my hands and in Primo condition.... How cool is that?
I said it once, I'll say it again. Apple Rocks. If you think otherwise... You most likely haven't used one.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
At my old job I had a Dell Inspirion 7000. It was a decent laptop. Then one day the ethernet card refused to work after rebooting. It did that both under winblows and linux. Typically in those cases I have found that the hardware is hosed. So began my month of dealing with Dell's "award winning" tech support. Personally whoever gave them that award totally overlooked the unix vendors. I've had far less headache dealing with either HP or Sun for support. HP was a hassle since they refused to believe their hardware was at fault, so you always had to open the call as software, then get the software guy to agree with you, get transferred to the hardware guy, who wanted the part's serial number before sending the field guy out for support. Sun on the other hand, sent the guy with the part without the hassle. Soooo needless to say I was expecting this sort of support out of Dell.
Wow was I mistaken. Each time I called them it was at least a 4 hour session, with vast stretches of time being placed on hold, or sitting in some call queue. Nevermind I have already determined it was the ethernet card that was having trouble. The tech I spoke with insisted on following his script in front of him. "Have you re-installed windows?" He about went nuts when I mentioned the system was a dual boot system. Pretty much his answer was reinstall with windows only and call back. *click* Nice.
Called back, waited in phone queues some more, got another guy who went through same script. This time I didn't mention Linux. He arranged to have the laptop shipped to them to be fixed. But I was to keep all peripherals, HD, ethernet card and so on. Humm, why is the laptop going back and not the broken ethernet? *shrug* Back it went. Two weeks later I got it back. This time the LCD wouldn't work. Swell. Back in the phone queues, and another 4 hours blown. Shipped laptop back again.
Two weeks later, got the laptop back...this time the keyboard didn't fully work, and other wacky problems. 4 more hours on the phone and shipped it back again.
Another two weeks, laptop arrives, finally works again. But original problem still exists. Called Dell again. Waited in phone queue for a few more hours, got a guy, who pretty much was telling me to ship the laptop back to them again. *sigh* I told him that wasn't the problem, it was the bloody ethernet card--ship me a new one. Put me on hold. Came back and said he couldn't do that. Told him I'm sure he can swap the ethernet card. Back on hold. Came back and wanted *my* credit card number to charge me for the card, and then refund *my* credit card when they recieved the old one. Told him that was unacceptiable, as this was *work's* laptop. Back on hold. Came back and said that's all he could do. Asked for his boss. Back on hold. Came back and said sure, we'll send you the card, as long as you ship back the old one. Like I wanted to keep a broken ethernet card....right.
Needless to say, because of their lousy tech support, I will not buy a Dell system for myself, let alone recommend it to anyone. That and I also saw the two other Inspirion 7000's that work bought at the same time as mine have many many more problems than mine ever did. I was lucky in that I got the good one of the batch.
"If you insist on using Windoze you're on your own."
I've worked at one or two jobs where they told me I could move on into Programming or other interesting areas after I've worked at Tech Support for a while and maybe gotten some certifications. I hope this uy has something in writing or he may be stuck in tech support for longer than he thinks.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
IANAL, so I'll not weigh in with more opinions on the particulars of this case.
What I will say is that, as a computer parts, peripherals, and software consumer, product support is incredibly poor. I recall downloading drivers for my Creative Labs soundcard and having said download render my system non-bootable. E-mails to tech support went unanswered for two weeks. How did I get a response? Started a script that e-mailed them once per minute. "I must assume that your e-mail is not working..."
Calls to my cable modem provider, Cox Communications of Fairfax, VA, are answered by incompetents, disconnected, or just result in a fast busy. When an HP CD writer failed, HP wanted me to dial a 900 number for "tech support" when all I wanted to know was where to send it for repairs (they cost more at the time than now). I tried calling Microsoft to report a bug in IE6. They wanted to charge me to take the call! What a racket: Put in thousands of annoying bugs and then charge people who try to report them!
The software industry has become incredibly arrogant. They sell you a "license" and disavow all responsibility for making the package work. Tech support often costs money -- even when the problem is the publisher's fault. They seem to feel that taking your call at all is doing you a tremendous favor and think nothing of leaving you on hold for half-an-hour while playing you pre-recorded lies about "unusually heavy call volumes" (for the last year and it's still "unusual") or how "important your call is" (if it was so damned important, why don't you hire enough people to answer the phones?).
I can only hope that the downturn in computer-related purchases will make them hungrier for sales and more responsive to customer needs.