Things I've Learned about Dell Online Tech Support
Introduction:
On December 24th, 2007 I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop which I immediately set up to dual-boot XP and Linux. During that install I noticed a disturbing click coming from the harddrive. It occurred about once every minute and a half to three minutes, and was accompanied by a sound of the harddrive spinning up and down rapidly.
With some command-line wizardry I was able to make it go away in Linux, at least while I was using the computer (it still clicked once on boot and once on shutdown). I assumed that the cause of this was an overzealous harddrive controller, specifically a problem with its power management settings. This problem has been well documented for Ubuntu Linux.
The issue did not return until I started spending a little more time on the Windows XP side of my laptop. One night while playing a rousing game of Oblivion I heard the click again. It came in spurts, usually about every three minutes. Since I am not as well-versed in Windows wizardry, I decided the best course of action was to call Dell Tech Support, who after all are supposed to officially support XP. Here is what happened.
- Incident 1: Seemed simple enough.
- Incident 2: Pending? What does that mean?
- Incident 3: Order? What order?
- Incident 4: Trying a different tactic
- Incident 5: Canceled?
- Incident 6: Three tickets now, all three canceled.
- Arrival and Testing
- Incident 7: New harddrive, same problem.
- Arrival and Testing, Round Two
- Resolution
Incident 1: Seemed simple enough.
Rather than spending hours on hold (like I did when I asked for my OS restore CD) I decided this time around to try the Dell Online Chat. Wait times were considerably faster, and in theory the people would be as knowledgeable or more so than the phone operators. I have posted the entire conversation here (minus some personal information from me). Everything else is verbatim.
For those of you not willing to read the conversation, basically the operator told me "No problem, we'll send you another. Expect it Tuesday." I had this conversation on Friday, January 18th. I went home that day with a fairly positive outlook on Dell's Online Customer Service.
The following Monday (Martin Luther King Day), I received an automated call from Dell. After hilariously mispronouncing my last name, it informed me that my order had been delayed due to inclement weather. It did not say when I could expect it, but I had no issue at this point. I just figured a couple of days delay.
On Tuesday (the day I was originally supposed to have received it), I got a call from Dell. This one was from a real person who asked me (quite cheerily) if everything was okay with the harddrive I had received today. Having not received any packages I was naturally confused. She took a moment to look at my order and apologized. "I see it's been delayed. You should expect it no later than Thursday." I thanked her. She told me she would call back on Friday and check again. (She never called me back, by the way.)
Incident 2: Pending? What does that mean?
Thursday came, and I still had no harddrive. I logged onto the site again. The fellow I got basically told me "It's pending. It will ship when it's not." I wish I had thought to copy the conversation but unfortunately I didn't. I tried again, and here was the result.
I wasn't sure what she meant by "the part has been issued." I found out the next day. It's worth noting that I'm able to quote these conversations verbatim because Dell's site lets you print them out, and sometimes the operator will email you a chat log as well. Throughout the entireity of this situation I have receieved 2 emails, both of them chat logs. I have received no other communications from Dell.
Incident 3: Order? What order?
Friday came and went, and I still had no harddrive. I logged in again, and this is what happened. The name of the fellow I talked to was "Elvis." Okay, let's recap: first I spoke with Paris, then Chris, then Yolanda and now Elvis. It was at this point that I began to suspect that the company who does this web support must designate their employees with some random name and an ID number rather than letting them use their real names. If anyone in the last 20 to 30 years has actually named their child Elvis, feel free to email me, and rest assured you will be ridiculed.
In case you didn't read the log, I was basically told that the first operator I spoke to (Paris) had not entered an order for my part at all, and when I expressed confusion with this Elvis told me that apparently the operator *had* placed an order but for the wrong part. I then was told the same thing I heard the first time I logged in: "Expect it Tuesday." This was beginning to sound like a scene from The Money Pit with Tom Hanks. When will the house be done? "Two weeks."
I asked for a number I could call, meaning something OTHER than the default Dell Customer Support Line that I could have found posted all over the Dell website. Unfortunately, the number I received was just that. Lovely.
Periodically throughout the next few days I checked the status of my service call on Dell's support website. The status stayed the same: "No Information Available". I also received no notification of any package shipments. I can't say I was surprised at this point. Tuesday the 29th came and went with no package.
Incident 4: Trying a different tactic
Having had no luck with web support, I decided to try the phone. I called 1-800-981-3355. I entered my express service code. While on hold they told me I could get "fast and easy" service on the website. Yeah, sure. I got an operator (Carlo, ID#167403), who asked for the service code again (what's the point of entering it into the automated system if I still have to tell it to them later?). I then told him the whole story so far, that I'd been jerked around 4 times over the past two weeks and no one knew anything about my harddrive.
He said there was no return number for it yet. What that means is anyone's guess. He put me on hold to find out more. He couldn't get a hold of the operations center, but confirmed that it had been 11 days since I entered the issue (apparently Paris *did* enter something in the records on the 18th). He got my callback number and email and said he would continue to try and contact me as soon as he was able to get through to them. This was 2:21pmCST on Tuesday the 29th.
I received an email with my case number (the same one I received from Yolanda). I also received a few new things: an actual phone number other than the one on the website and an extension for the very person I just talked to. Finally! Now, it was anyone's guess whether or not it would amount to anything, but at least it was more than "It's pending. It'll ship when it's not."
Incident 5: Canceled?
On Wednesday, the 30th, I logged into the Dell Support site and checked the status of my service call. The status had changed from "Pending" to "Canceled". This worried me. I called Carlo to see what was the matter. Another fellow (also named Carlo, ID#1134298) answered and looked into it. He spoke with me at more length to determine what exactly happened with the drive, looked through various sites he could find and confirmed that my original call had been canceled.
I was then asked if I'd like a blank harddrive sent overnight or a re-imaged XP drive on Friday. Not wishing to wait any longer at this point I opted for the blank option. It's not that hard to reinstall an OS or two. I made sure he had the proper speed and size harddrive on the order. He put me on hold while he re-issued the request. As hold music goes, Dell's isn't the worst I've heard. At least it wasn't interrupted every few seconds with static.
Carlo #2 was very clear in stating that the part was ordered and would be sent to me via DHL overnight, and I would receive it Thursday. He also confirmed my callback number several times, apologized several times for the delay, and asked me if it was all right if he called me back Thursday morning around this same time (9amCST) to make sure everything went through. I assured him that was absolutely fine, and looked forward to getting a call, a harddrive, or both.
Here is where I note that the most helpful Dell employee I've talked to so far seems to be Carlo #2 (ID#01134298). If his supervisor is reading this (hey, I can dream), give him a pat on the back. It took me 12 days to get to him. All the operators I talked to (with perhaps the exception of Chris) were very pleasant to me, but apologizing while you punch me in the face doesn't help me heal any faster. I applaud those who actually follow up with their offers of help.
If Carlo #2 pulls through, I'll consider this issue resolved. However the reason I posted this rant in the first place was to document just how many hoops I had to jump through for what I consider to be a simple swap and replace job. I suppose you could say the conversations I had have been documented for quality assurance or training purposes.
Incident 6: Three Tickets now, all three Canceled
On Thursday morning I checked the status of my ticket and found 3 tickets attached to my computer. The first one was my original canceled ticket. The second was the one Carlo #2 created. It said "Escalated - Internal Caller" but the status was also "Canceled". The third was identical to my first complaint but also showed "Canceled." I called again.
This time I got Jose (ID#183768). He reviewed the case notes and put me on hold. Jose told me that the ticket had been escalated to their managers, gave me a DHL shipping number and told me something that was new to me: apparently the original hard drive that came with my laptop was no longer being sold by Dell.
I remember hearing that the original operator had "ordered the wrong part". This made me wonder if Paris had ordered the same hard drive I had initially and since it was no longer being doled out, that caused something to go wonky in their ticket processing center. Jose told me I was actually going to receive a similarly-equipped hard drive of a different brand. I wonder if I'm not the only one with this clicking problem. If anyone reading this has had similar trouble, please drop me a line. I'd be curious to know if I'm not alone.
I verified that the DHL number was correct and saw that it had arrived at the Houston facility earlier that morning. At this point I think I should point out that rather than canceling my service request, management could have sent me the tracking number or posted it on their support site along with the ticket and saved themselves another angry service call. Just a suggestion.
While I was waiting for DHL I did a little research. The model number of the hard drive I got with my laptop was ST9120823ASG, which tells me it's a Seagate Momentus. I did some Googling for that exact model and found no one selling it, save one guy on the French version of eBay. I couldn't find any pages that talked about problems with this drive specifically, but the fact that no one else seemed to sell it anymore was pretty telling by itself.
Arrival and Testing
At roughly 1:30pmCST January 31st the new harddrive arrived, and it was indeed a different brand. I received a 160GB refurbished Fujitsu 7200rpm harddrive. I followed the Dell Service Manual instructions to the letter, installed and booted the "new" drive. I then reinstalled XP using the OS Restore disc. I noticed no noise coming from the drive while installing. That was promising.
I went through the process of installing all the Dell drivers for various things and noticed no strange noises from the drive. My next test was to see if Ubuntu had issues with it. In my previous install of Ubuntu, the clicking problem was much more frequent in Linux. This would tell me pretty definitively whether the problem still existed.
I installed the same version of Ubuntu (7.10 64-bit) as last time. I noticed no clicking problems with it, and the smartctl utility confirmed that there were no load cycling issues whatsoever. Cue big sigh of relief.
I have packed up the old drive in the box provided and added the return sticker. Provided I don't notice any clicking in the next few days, I will drop it off at the closest DHL place I can find. Thus ends this chapter on Dell Technical Support. I sincerely hope that I never have need of their services again, or if I do, they've improved their methods significantly.
Incident 7: New Harddrive, same problems.
Two days with the new harddrive and I started hearing noises again. This time they were louder, and it wasn't a click. The sound can best be described as "the sound a marble makes when you drop it on your desk from about an inch in the air." That is an unmistakable "I'm going to die" sound to anyone who has messed with computer hardware before.
While on hold I was told my call had been marked as a priority. Interesting. This time I talked to Jabez (ID#01168628). Where *do* they get these names? He had me take out the optical drive and boot without it. Strangely enough, I didn't hear the knock. I put the drive back in and for a while I couldn't hear the knock either, but as soon as I hung up with him, the knock returned.
Before I called back, I took out the drive again and used the computer for a bit to see if I could hear the knock. I did. You know the drill from here. I spoke with James (ID#01168623). He read through and verified all the steps I had gone through. He was just as confused as I was why a new (or at least factory refurbished) harddrive would have this knocking noise. He put me on mute and asked around. He said they would go ahead and send me a third drive.
He verified all my information and muted me again. He came back with a new dispatch number for the support site and assured me that they would send me another harddrive that I should receive "as early as tomorrow." I hoped this time that it wouldn't take 12 days and six incidents to get there. James said that this drive would be an imaged one, with all the relevant things installed. That was fine with me, it just meant less time to figure out if there was another problem.
The next morning (Feb. 6th) I logged into Dell's Support site with my fingers crossed, half expecting my ticket to be canceled again. This time it was still open, but there was no shipping information available. I wasn't too worried about this because none of the other three tickets I have on this site had shipping numbers either, including the one for the drive I actually received.
This time (for the first time) I received an email saying that my parts order had been processed. It said I would receive a separate email once the package shipped. This deflated me a bit because if the package had not shipped overnight it wouldn't be getting here that day. Looks like another day of waiting on Dell. Just out of curiosity, I called support again to see if perhaps they had shipped it and just not updated their email system. It happened to me last time, so it was worth a shot.
I spoke with a young lady whose name I didn't understand. She assured me that she would send a followup email (which is where I usually recover that information) but I did not receive one. Unintelligible name aside, she did sound like she lived somewhere other than Dubai. If she was Indian, her American accent was excellent. She told me that the usual turnaround time for preloaded harddrives was 3 to 5 business days. It would have been nice if James had told me that yesterday.
She said she would call me back when she tracked down where specifically my order was, because her screen simply said "Pending." I'm beginning to hate that word. I did not expect to hear from her again, since in my recent experience when a Dell representative says they will call you back or "take personal responsibility" for a case it means you'll never hear from them again.
I checked the support website later that day and found that the order had shipped, although there was no shipping information available at the time. Perhaps this is what was supposed to have happened the first time I asked for a replacement. I waited to see if I would receive an email with a tracking number. At this point, I figured there was no chance of getting it until the next business day.
I checked the site again later in the day and found shipping information for it. There was an airbill number, but apparently that doesn't translate into a DHL tracking number, because I tried pasting it into the DHL tracker and it came up invalid. Oh Dell, how you tease me so. The good news was that the order apparently shipped at midnight on Feb. 6th, which meant it actually had a chance of showing up when James told me it would.
Arrival and Testing, Round Two
Thursday (Feb. 7th) I checked the DHL site again using the "airbill number" from Dell and this time it showed up. Apparently it takes a while for the shipments to show up in the system. It also apparently takes a full 24 hours for "Next Day" delivery because the harddrive did not arrive on Wednesday. It was at my local distribution center Thursday morning.
A helpful user at LinuxForums found this article that discusses the exact problems I've been having, and even includes a reference to my first harddrive, the Seagate Momentus 7200.1. They apparently went through the same issues and steps I did. It's at least comforting to know I'm not alone.
I think it's worth mentioning that the last time I ran the Linux smartctl utility against my "new" replacement drive it reported a Load_Cycle_Count of over 400,000. This is not normal for a drive that I've only been using a few days. To the best of my knowledge, most harddrives are only designed to last through about 600,000 load cycles over their entire product life.
I received a phone call from Marge (still didn't get her ID#) asking if I had received my harddrive. At that point in the day I had not, but she agreed to call me back later in the day to find out if all was well. I sincerely hoped this was the last time I had to deal with all this. I'm not sure if "Marge" was the name of the previous Dell rep I talked to who said she would call me back, but if so, I'm pleasantly surprised that she actually followed through.
The harddrive arrived mid-day Thursday. It was another 160GB Fujitsu. Install and first boot showed me the Dell EULA and displayed my service tag and express service code numbers. I then saw a black screen with my cursor in it for a minute or so. The next 30-45 minutes was spent letting the system install various things and reboot itself.
I then went through and removed the various applications I didn't need and installed the ones I did. It's been a day now since I installed everything and I haven't noticed any strange noises yet. If they're present, they're quiet enough that I just don't catch them. I've looked at my Load_Cycle_Count and it seems sane. *Hopefully* this will be my last update.
Resolution
So far hard drive number 3 is working quietly, so until I notice an issue I'm calling this finally resolved. Let me again say that I posted this story not to berate or defame Dell, but to point out to whoever may be listening that there are problems that need to be fixed. I have reproduced all the interactions as accurately as possible and given numbers for verification purposes.
Aside from the hard drives, I am actually quite satisfied with my Inspiron 1520 machine. It does what I want it to do and the price was good. Had I been able to get a quicker resolution to this warranty issue I would not have even bothered to make note of it. If anyone from Dell wants more information on this story (such as the case numbers, call numbers, etc. that I have removed from the article for privacy reasons) I am more than happy to supply them. No customer should have to deal with the amount of problems I did.