Dell Customer Support, WORSE than my lowest expectations. My 2 hour journey with Dell Support.

[JewBear]

Today, I decided to attempt to contact Dell customer support for the 4th time this year regarding the same issue. I own a 2019 Dell XPS 15 7590 and for the most part have absolutely loved it. However, recently it has had a whole set of issues such as overheating while sleeping (both on and off the charger), the screen not powering on when the computer does (almost every time it sleeps now), and in case I haven't mentioned it... overheating when sleeping. To help give a picture of the degree my laptop overheats while sleeping just yesterday I had to force shut it down after I found it had melted some of the fabric on my backpack. 

 

With this recent development of ruining my favorite backpack I decided it was time to once again journey to the depths of hell and contact Dell support. However this time I had a plan. I decided to start with the online chat instead of going right to the phone number, and in my mind, this was going to have a new and helpful outcome like never seen before. After mentioning to my hopefully friendly chat representative that I was having a what I thought be hardware issue, yet before I was actually able to describe what that issue was I was told to send my computer in to Dell so it can be fixed and send back at my expense. As one may imagine, I did not like this option as it would cost money and leave me without a computer for "15-30 business days, for only $59.99 USD". After more back and forth and asking multiple times for other options I was left with just two from my no longer friendly representative:

1. Send my computer in for 60 dollars and then pay the repair on top of that.

2. Do a bios update, then send it in for the low price of 60 dollars and then pay for the repairs on top of that. 

 

This was when I decided it might be best to simply end my chat and call for live support. I dialed up the toll free support number, entered my service tag and was dropped on the phone with a young sounding man in a very loud, quite hard hear anything call center. Before I was able to mention my issue, my name, the laptop I own (though in all fairness he had my service tag so I assume it was known), I was asked if I would like to purchase a warranty. I said no and continued to describe my issues to the representative. After a minute of speaking, feeling happy with how I had described and given information about my machine I felt a change in my representatives tone.  Oh no... it was happening again I could feel it, my spider senses were tingling and I could feel the dreaded sales pitch coming. "Would you like to purchase a renewed warranty on your device?" asked my representative. "Well would this cover my current issue?" I asked thinking that could be a simple fix to no longer dealing with Dell. "Unfortunately not sir, this issue would not be covered by a warranty you purchase as it is pre existing." said my representative. This is where I admittedly got a little flustered,  after discussing why I would want to purchase this if it would not cover my issue and then simply being told to send it in for repair at the "low cost of about $60 and then the repair costs." I decided maybe it was time to talk about the option to trade up my machine for a newer model. 

 

This was the start of the next stage of my Dell journey. First I was transferred to sales, who after talking for a while decided to transfer me to another sales rep, who after talking decided to transfer me to a third sales rep; who had the same scripted conversation with me as the first two reps then decided to transfer me to a third party company that would buy my laptop and give me dell credit. However instead of that he simply hung up. Leaving me with this feeling of regret for purchasing a dell product. 

 

There is no true reason behind my post here today, I simply thought it best to share how horrible dell customer support is and recommend something to all those who will listen:

 

The Dell XPS is a truly amazing laptop with everything most people could ask for and a great battery life to match it. DO NOT FOR ANY REASON think that this means you should buy one. I would rather work on a Chromebook that had good customer support than to EVER own a product that the second something breaks no assistance is given. 

 

In case some of you have doubts or issues with my story today here are some notes about me that will hopefully help give more background:

1. I am a software engineer who is quite confidant and able to work on hardware. 

2. Yes, I have cleaned the fans.

3. No, I will never purchase another Dell because regardless of how great the product is, the company could care less about you as a consumer. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, have a good day!

[Radium_Angel]

I work for a gov't agency.

We get the luxury of bypassing the level 1 tech support folk.

The higher end tech support, isn't any better,

 

I spent a half day trying to get a simple answer to a server question we have here.

You have my sympathy, neither of us got what we wanted.

[trag1c]

I've had similar experiences. I got an Alienware 17 back in like 2014 that I had RMA like 5 times in first year with all a new issue popping up everytime they fixed it because they used nothing but poorly refurbished parts. Also they never performed any diagnostics at or quality control on their fixes. I only had the one year warranty on it and they refused to warranty their work on the 4th time as it came back to just after the warranty expired. I had to twitter shame them to get them to warranty their work. I got it fixed and immediately listed it on Kijiji (canadian craigs list) to get rid of it as fast as possible. 

 

I have never been more disappointed with a product and a manufacturer than that. Never buying or recommending a Dell product ever again either.

[CrowTheRobot]

I work for a school district.  We have a mix of Dell and Acer equipment, but the most recent round of student Chromebooks are Dells.  Typically, in-warranty stuff is easy because they don't even bother asking us on chat to do any troubleshooting steps, but we just sent one out for not booting (probably bad motherboard) and got it back only to find it still doesn't boot and has to go right back out.

[LAwLz]

Are you sure you're actually putting the laptop in sleep mode?

Because in sleep mode the processor isn't active. If it's overheating then it's not in sleep mode. 

 

Maybe you got some program preventing it from going into sleep? 

[RollinLower]

just when you think dell's customer support couldn't get any worse.

you must have the patience of a saint to sit through that.

[Murasaki]

33 minutes ago, JewBear said:

journey to the depths of Dell and contact hell support

Dell and hell are quite interchangable words dont you agree.

[Amias]

Dell has customer support? Isn't that just a sales team?

[PorkishPig]

Whenever I have to contact Dell support I always run updates and diagnostics via Dell SupportAssist beforehand. Every rep I've ever talked to has wasted at least thirty minutes to an hour installing the software and running a BIOS update that will not resolve the issue.

[JewBear]

30 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Are you sure you're actually putting the laptop in sleep mode?

Because in sleep mode the processor isn't active. If it's overheating then it's not in sleep mode. 

 

Maybe you got some program preventing it from going into sleep? 

Yep I am sure, even whipped and reinstalled windows to make sure. 

[JewBear]

13 minutes ago, Amias said:

Dell has customer support? Isn't that just a sales team?

I cannot even tell you how many times I was asked to buy a warranty