Lily Tomlin’s new job: Running Dell’s ‘customer care’
While PDAs can be great for electronic books in many cases, I’ve now got even more reason to question the e-book industry’s love of this platform.
In dealings with PDA buyers, some Ernestine imitators at Dell are slavishly plagiarizing in real life from Lily Tomlin.
Relying on outfits like Dell is a great way to screen out booklovers who aren’t committed techies or expert bureaucracy-fighters. Customers had better learn to deal with morons in departments with Orwellian names like “customer care.”
Scary even for geeks
Mine isn’t the only horror story inspired by Dell and other PDA vendors. Geek.com has some beauts.
I’d love to see the outfits like the AARP, NEA, ALA and maybe even library systems arranging for mass purchases of better machines for e-books–such as tablets. From Dell? Maybe. But only with enough clout on the consumers’ side. I can see a role for book chains, too. As flawed as p-book stores can be, their service is stellar by computer industry standards.
Ideally the tablets could display e-books better and hopefully be sold and swapped out–if defective–in a more consumer-friendly way. While powerful color-screened tablets aren’t affordable for the masses, that day will come soon enough. Meanwhile consumers are in PDA Hell.
Existing PDA sellers can’t hack it
The existing PDA biz just can’t hack it. Would you believe, PDA sales actually fell slightly in the third quarter of ‘03 while PC sales went up. That’s partly because cell phones are the craze and the PDA makers aren’t as inventive as before–but I suspect that the public is also put off by the way the vendors people take consumers for granted, despite the fact that the machines are personal digital assistants.
All too often PDA owners end up in the “computer boot camp” portrayed in the commercials for Dell. Except that the worst drill sergeants often aren’t techies at all. They’re just business-side morons who can say little more than “That’s not our policy.”
Mention “customer loyalty”–I own two Dell desktop bought directly from the company–and the Ernestines and male equivalents at Dell will come up with gems such as: “That’s not a factor.” No irony. They mean it. Seriously.
Oh, the fun Joseph Heller could have had with this.
Telephone fiends
Dell’s “customer care” bozos balked when I kept trying to send them $120 for a two-year “advanced customer exchange” policy on a refurb Axim X5 for which I had paid $130 and shipping. I like the jog lever. Great for moving through e-books. Wonder if the new models would be as good.
So far I haven’t succeeded at getting Dell to take my money despite the mini-killing that the company could make off me. Why? Because I was evil enough to have bought the refurb from a well-known discounter, which understandably doesn’t want to reveal its sources to Dell (although I’m absolutely convinced they’re legit).
As caring as Ernestine on a bad day
If my experiences are representative, is it any wonder why PDAs are not selling as well as they should? Now that I own a Dell PDA, the ‘tude is: “We don’t have to care. We’re the computer company.” Dell said it might take as long as 15 business days just to get the change of name processed, assuming it was even granted. And that would be before I sent the existing machine in for an exchange.
Oh, and the much-ballyhooed Dell techies did not quite come through either. While ActiveSync on my Dell still isn’t working perfectly, it is back in service again after more than a little troubleshooting on my part. I presently believe that buggy software from Dell or Microsoft, not the actual hardware, has caused my problems. They beset me after I did a Microsoft security update on my Optiplex with which my Axim now communicates when earth and Mars are properly aligned.
Someone at a large federal agency reports similarly dismal results from Dell. I wonder if the CIA deals with ‘em. Perhaps Dell’s customer worry supervisor will be terminated someday with extreme prejudice. I’d send people to HP and IBM, but still can feel the sting of old memories from the former–when the techies kept denying that my hard disk was defective, right up to the time it crashed.
Rx if your organization deals with Dell:
Mafia-style procurement officers
Just the same, the benefits of the technology are worth it, considering the joys of e-books–all the more reason for libraries to hold PDA classes.
Plus, libraries and other mass buyers can sic Mafia-style procurement officers on Dell and the like, with heavy penalties for nonperformance.
Still, that won’t help me now. Sad, isn’t it? Dell won’t even let itself gouge me. My friendly suggestion is for Michael Dell to bring back the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” guy and put him in charge of “customer care.” He might be pushy, but never as obnoxiously anal as the customer worry specialists.
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