Uchi
Dells customer service is really awful. I mean, so bad that I strongly encourage you to buy your computer equipment from a different manufacturer. I have been trying to purchase a Dell XPS 15 9570 directly from Dell for the past three days, but they apparently do not want my money. I placed an order, including a $25 fee for "expedited shipping," which means that I would receive the laptop in one week instead of in three weeks with "standard shipping." (This is shipping to the continental US where we do have UPS & Fedex, not to outer Mongolia by camel caravan.) My credit card company placed a hold until I contacted them a little while later and verified that it was in fact me who was making the order, after which I notified Dell that they should continue to process the order. The Dell representative with whom I spoke said that everything appeared to be in order and I should expect the laptop next week. A few hours later, I received a email saying that there was a problem with the order and I needed to call Dell right away or the order would be canceled. I called Dell, and after being transferred to the "verification" unit, I was left on hold for 40 minutes. (I tried to use the automated receive-a-call-back system, but it was not working, so I was left on hold.) After 40 minutes, thinking there must be some kind of glitch in their calls routing system, I hung up and called back. I was left on hold another 20 or 30 minutes. Finally someone from the verification unit answered. When I explained why I was calling, he said that I just needed to reply to the email with a message saying that I had indeed authorized the purchase, so I did that. That sounded pretty sketchy and not sure why I was made to wait on hold so long just to be told that. The evening of the following day (that is, last night), I received another email, this time saying that the order had been canceled, which I verified by checking the order status online. When I called today to find out what was going on and to try to reinstate the order, the first representative I spoke with said that he could see that (1) the order had initially been placed on hold, (2) the hold had been manually lifted, (3) the order had then been canceled because the credit card had been declined. He could not tell from the notes in their system whether the credit card had been declined by my credit card company or by Dell. He offered to place a new order (which would be available with "express" shipping 10 days from now) or to transfer me to someone who might be able to see why the previous order had been canceled and to try to reinstate that order. I requested the latter. The representative I was transferred to told me that the system showed that there was NO problem with the order. I said that that did not make sense because I had received an email saying it had been canceled, the online status update had shown me that it had been canceled, and the previous representative to whom I had just spoken had also said it had been canceled. After some more checking, this new representative said that she could see that it had been canceled but did not know why. She offered to transfer me to sales to have a new order placed. I told her that it would make no sense to place a new order until I resolved why the previous order had been canceled, since a new order could very well be canceled, too, just wasting my time. I then decided to check with my credit card company again, just to be sure that there was no problem on their end before attempting to place another order. The credit card company confirmed that they had not declined the purchase request and that the cost was well within the available line of credit. Apart from all of that confusion with the Dell service representatives, I also had a hard time understanding most of them, both from the low audio volume of their phones/devices and from their accents. (I dont necessarily object to companies using overseas call-centers, but I do object if their doing so makes it difficult for customers to understand what the customer service representatives are saying.) I am a past Dell customer. My first desktop was a Dell, and one of my first laptops. In terms of laptops, I have also owned a Thinkpad and a budget Acer. For the past 10 years my main laptop has been a MacBook Pro, which I have liked so much that I bought another one for my parents. I didnt have so much trouble with Dell in the past, and I havent had any significant problems with the MacBooks. (In fact, the one time I needed to speak with Apple, it was a quick and easy conversation.) How does Dell stay in the business of selling laptops to the public if their customer service has become this bad? Despite the difficulty I have been having with customer service, I was going to give it one more shot with Dell, but after reading all of the complaints in discussion forums about the problems other customers have had with the XPS 15 9570 and 9560 (dead pixels, display backlight bleeding, coil whine, poor quality control on the fittings, not going to sleep properly and overheating in backpacks), I am worried what the experience might be like if I actually manage to get one of their laptops and need support with a technical problem. I am going to cut my losses and buy from a different manufacturer. I recommend you do the same. Good luck.
