Comments on: Dell Really, Really Loves Its Customers

By: No Way - I'll never get service again

No Way - I'll never get service again — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 01:14:08 +0000

Dell’s “customer service” is a joke. I have consulted to them in their call center operations for years, and the only thing they have ever cared about is cost per call, cost per call, cost per call. I love it - they measure CE (for customer experience) as the per-cent of callers who rate themselves either dissatisifed or very dissatisfied with Dell! No other company we’ve worked with (and we work will hundreds….) measure Customer Sat in some upside down and perverse way….Dell hires people with absolutely zero experience in call center operations and expect them to manage the operations. The current director of outsourcing was formally head of diversity - not a great job to equip one to actually run an operation! But, since customers don’t matter, she can get her ticket stamped “I ran something” other than a few secretaries. And the head before her was one of MD’s Executive Assistants from McKinsey - again, zero operational knowledge but a great butt kisser. Dell is no different than the airlines - “customers” are to be “harvested for their money” (a term I’ve heard several VPs at Dell use….) because “they’ll forget the lousy service because when it comes down to it, all the customer cares about is a cheap price”….. And as long as they can sell their average products at a cheap price, they’ll continue to do so. Not one exec at Dell has compensation based on CSAT or repurchase behavior…only on the stock price. They’ll never change. I think we have the Packard Bell or Zenith of the new century….sell your stock and buy HP - they’ve been through adversity and have proven they can get out of it. Dell can’t - their solution is to fire the exec team to buy 18 months on Wall Street….

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 19:19:48 +0000

If they provided good customer service and computers without operating systems I would consider them again. Will be interesting to see if the moves are just warm-and-fuzzy-feel-good (but ignored) tactics or if anything will be acted on

By: Paul Butler

Paul Butler — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:44:07 +0000

I think it’s a good idea, as long as they follow through and put some of the ideas in action. If they don’t do this, people will realize that they don’t actually have the power to influence the company and Dell is just trying to give that illusion. Some of the ideas there are quite good. What surprises me the most is how much the more popular suggestions have the interests of the company in mind as well as the customer; in other words, they are more realistic than I would have expected.

By: robhyndman.com » Blog Archive » Dell Crowdsources Product Development

robhyndman.com » Blog Archive » Dell Crowdsources Product Development — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 17:26:37 +0000

[...] And with a great name - IdeaStorm - to boot. Essentially, it’s a suggestion board with Digg-like voting (fresh off the heels of the Yahoo! Suggestion Board controversy, though, like Pete Cashmore, I think inDiggnation over other sites using voting is as pretty tedious use of one’s time). Details at Direct2Dell, and Jack Schofield at the Guardian blog has a nice overview. Update: My friend Mark has also blogged the story. [...]