Dell Computers Inc. (On-line Order Botched)

Dell Computers Inc. (On-line Order Botched)

RE: Dell Order for a WebCam on 12/23/04.

I placed an order for a Web Cam with Dell using their on-line shopping pages. The item was "in stock." If ordered by 1/6 it also received a $10.49 rebate from Dell and free shipping, a $5.50 value.

This was ordered as a Christmas gift for a student on semester break. I have limited time to get it all working, including software, and get the student trained on use of the product before they go back to school. Therefore, it was important that the item ship from stock and be received this week so I could get that done.

Dell did not ship, still has not shipped, and they now show it on backorder.

1. Waste of time number 1: First I tried to use the Dell chat to inquire. I am a home office, home user, and I have placed orders for laptops before with Dell. They should know who I am and that I work from home. I filled out their chat form, and submitted it. Only after all that, did they advise me that I was not listed as a home user, and therefore, they refused to chat with me.

2: Waste of time number 2: Second I called the toll free number listed on their order tracking web pages. The automated voice menus system they have is very methodical about trying to redirect your inquiry away from any human interaction. I had to try twice to this number. On the second try, Dell transferred me to an unlisted, non-working extension at Dell and a recommendation to try a non-toll-free number in Texass.

3. Waste of Time number 3: Third I went back to the order confirmation email and retrieved another toll free number to try at Dell. There was the same concerted attempt to steer me to their automated order tracking system, but somehow I subverted that this time, and I got through after a 10 minute wait to a human being (someplace in India). This fellow was polite in the extreme (as if a gun were held to his head), but very slow to verify my account status. I had to repeat everything to him 2-3 times and spell out many items. After 5 minutes of that, he found me on the system and my order. I asked to speak to Michael Dell (with deadpan seriousness) or a manager. He agreed to try and have a supervisor call me back. I told him that if I did not hear back from Dell in one hour, I would cancel the order, and I would "never ever ever order anything from Dell again."

4. Its been two hours...but hey who's counting.

The real issue here is not the web cam or the shipping delay, although that really ticks me off. The real issue is that companies like Dell are so flaming incompetent to deal with customers using the web. They have menus that would make a federal bureaucrat proud, and would make any expediter wet his pants at the enormity of the challenge. Computers were invented to speed things up. Somehow, the same bureaucratic mentality has crept into customer support web page design, and now we are worse off getting issues resolved than ever. I firmly believe that in the last 10 years of computing online, almost every company has made the decision that the customer should be forced to deal with their web page mess whether it is helpful or not. If customers do not like it, they can just click-off.

That is the negative side of the story. There is a positive side though if the right person is listening. If there were one person (some upstart with some gumption) who has been on the run-around end of these things a few times and with the desire to make some money, I bet there is a fortune to be made by introducing a new model of how to use the web to support people and HELP THEM FIND A) WHAT THEY WANT TO FIND, NOT B) WHAT THE COMPANY WANTS TELL THEM. F*** FAQs and all that ad nausea crap we all have to deal with.

I can almost always get more information speaking to someone competent (familiar with the product and who speaks my language) than I can from a poorly designed incestuous network of web pages or by speaking to someone who never saw the product. Until personal computer vendors figure out how to solve this, any of the productivity gains that non-user bureaucrats (e.g., Greenback, the fed chairman) imagine to exist will be at best, self-limiting.

Steve D Click this link to e-mail the above consumer: Email User Consumer