Every time I use Dell Technical support I write up my experience both good and bad. Hopefully this will help potential customers of Dell’s equipment get a feeling for the aftercare that is on offer.

You can read other reviews here

In this case I had a client with a Dell Optiplex GX280 about 3.5 years old that had 5 years on-site warranty.

The user turned on the PC and within a few moments detected a strong burning smell followed by a visible cloud of smoke.

The user quickly turned off the machine and contacted me.

I manage the Dell Technical support process for my clients so they don’t have to.

Once again my support call was miss directed to Inspiron support when I clearly gave them an Optiplex Service Tag.

It took me a while to get to Optiplex support.

The quality of the phone line to India wasn’t great so the support agent had to call me back.

I described the case as above, he then gave me two choices:

1) If I wanted to elect a part to be replaced like a power supply he would send an engineer. The onus was placed on me to identify the faulty part.

or

2) Replace the entire machine.

After discussing the options with my client they chose to get the new machine.

The only problem is they have to wait approximately two weeks for it to be ordered and delivered.

I then sorted the on-site logistics with my client of getting the user setup on a spare PC.

***Update 11th June 2008***

Dell contacted me to discuss this issue. Apparently they have a Safety Capture Procedure that supercedes any Next Business Day warranty.

In the event of a “Safety” based problem they want to replace and recover not repair the machine.

In this case I should have not been given the option of an on-site repair.

Dell originally offered to replace the faulty machine with a Dell Optiplex 330 but have now upgraded that to a Dell Optiplex GX755 instead.

I appreciate the time taken by Dell to explain in detail how “Safety Capture” works.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 12:05 am and is filed under Blog Entries, Dell Technical Support Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.