I'm on hold waiting to speak with a Dell Tech Support representative, presumably in India. The Dell 2405FPW UltraSharp Flat Panel LCD Montior I recently purchased (using our corporate discount at work) arrived in a broken state.

When powered on, the video display is horribly distorted. I should be seeing the on screen display (before I hook up any video sources) but instead I see what looks like a single line of pixels stretched vertically to the point that they consume the entire display. Attaching a real video source (VGA or DVI) fails to rectify the problem.

So I found the on-line Dell 2405FPW manual and confirmed that I've attempted all the troubleshooting ideas they've published. No help there. It's still messed up.

I then found the phone number to call: 1-800-822-8965 (for individual home consumers who purchased through an Employee Purchase Program). On the first try, I navigated the annoyingly stupid IVR system. It starts by making me press buttons on the phone and them strangely transitions to using voice response, which I hate. It's slower, less accurate, and more frustrating. I was eventually put into a holding queue where I waited about 10 minutes before simply being disconnected.

I called back and repeated the previous steps. But this time I found myself patched through to a phone in a call center in India (I could tell by the accents). However, nobody was actually talking to me. I somehow ended up on the phone of a person who was talking to someone else. I got to overhear bits of several office conversations before the representative said something like "thanks for holding. I'll transfer you to my manger now. I've spoken with him and explained your situation."

Huh?!

I tried to interrupt and explain that it was highly unlikely, since nobody had talked to me yet. But before I knew it, I was apparently speaking with a manager. About 20 seconds into explaining the problem, he hung up on me.

So I've called back a third time and decided to document my progress so far. I'm starting to think that if they're treating me this way, I have every right to charge back the credit card charge. I've followed every instruction they've given in the manual and when I call, but so far they're simply not helping.

They are wasting my time and making me regret purchasing another Dell product.

While writing this, a representative picked up the phone and asked for my computer tag number. I explained that the problem was with a monitor, not a computer. She then asked me for the order number. I worked to look it up in my email and suggested that it'd be faster for her to find it. She found the record and then informed me that my call had been sent to the wrong department.

WTF?!

I asked how I could ensure that doesn't happen next time I call. Was there a different answer I could have given the IVR? She had no idea.

So now I'm back on hold for the fourth time. Dell really puts the "service" in customer service, don't they?

Update: According to my phone, I've been on hold for 35 52 minutes now. I wonder how long this will take...

Update #2: After 53 minutes on hold, I was connected with "Austin" who examined the record and realized that he couldn't help me. Since I had purchased the monitor through a corporate discount program, I needed to talk to someone else. (Where have I heard that line before?!)

As I write this, he's connecting me to that department. He took my phone number so they can call me if the call is dropped. (Heh.) Total time on this call so far is 62 minutes.

Update #3: About 10 minutes later, I was connected with "Apollo" (heh) and we went a few rounds so that I could convince him that I'd tried everything. He then determined that they need to send me a new monitor (duh). I had to give him all my shipping information again, even though he has access to my previous shipping record. That makes no sense. I also had to read him the serial number off the back of the unit. Why do I suspect they already have that info as well?

Update #4 After another 10 (or so) minutes on hold, he collected a bit more info and gave me the case number and dispatch numbers I needed. He'll get the monitor shipped to me and I'll ship them the bad one. Total time on the call was 1 hour and 26 minutes. Amusingly, he was able to give me the "right' 1-800 numbers to call and the extensions to dial. I guess the third time's the charm or something.

What fun. Why couldn't I have accomplished this all in 5 minutes on their web site? Wouldn't that be cheaper for them and easier for me?

Posted by jzawodn at December 30, 2005 10:08 PM