In a recent fit of frustration I tweeted something. Now, I’m a believer in the GAP Method and generally I don’t tweet negative things except as humor items, but this time I was really frustrated and I vented.
This venting tweet had nothing to do with politics, by the way. Just wanted to clarify that.
This is a story about @DellCares and I want to share the story that indeed, they do.
You’re gonna laugh, but we have a bunch of computers in our home. One new ThinkPad for my work, an HP Laptop, a couple of MacBook Pros, and lastly, we have two older Dell desktops both running Windows XP. This story is about those two Dells which I’ll affectionately call, Machine 1 and Machine 2.
- Machine 1 (M1) is a Dimension 5100 bought back in July, 2005 (so yeah, it’s ancient).
- M1 was intended to be the Parent’s PC and is loaded with more RAM, larger HD, bigger monitor, and runs all the periphery equipment, etc.
- System CD’s are around the house, somewhere, but I’ve no idea where.
- The other is Machine 2 (M2), a Dimension E310 bought in early 2007 on a promotional special from Dell for about $400 or so.
- M2 is the Kid’s PC, smaller everything and, since it was bought as a promo item we decided to not upgrade anything at the time and just go with what came with the offer.
- M2 can be restored to Factory Settings right from the Hard Drive. No misplaced CD’s to go looking for.
It so happens that M1 became inoperable a couple years ago. Happily I do have an external backup for M1 as it isn’t very functional after booting up. I can log into it, but it can’t do much else. The kids ended up using both machines (you knew this even before I typed it, right?) and I dunno what happened. I’ve been unable to download any files from the web, install anything or even get a file copied from a USB drive to M1. Thinking it might be a system security issue I went into the Control Panel to see if the security settings were the issue. Guess what? No User Profiles are there. It’s blank. Something serious is going on. M1 has essentially been a backed up brick.
M2 in the meantime was running fast as can be, until the HD filled up. Now it’s S-L-O-W and takes 30 minutes to boot up and maybe longer.
A short time ago I decided to take one more look at M1 and it booted right up. I found a Microsoft Support Article regarding Installation issues and it had an .EXE file to try to fix the problem. I tried downloading the file to my Mac, but Microsoft wouldn’t let me…so I booted up M2 to try and get the file.
While waiting for M2 to boot up I started watching Oceans 11. About 30 minutes into M2’s booting process I got agitated, ticked, and impatient. I sighed a lot and then tweeted something like:
“It’s amazing how much of Oceans 11 I’m able to watch on my MacBook Pro while waiting for my Dell desktop to just boot up.”
I broke my own GAP Rule. I vented publicly. I “took it to the streets,” as it were. All I wanted was to download and try running a little, tiny trouble-shooting .EXE file. In that moment of crazed, social media rage I cracked.
Let me say now that I’m glad I tweeted something and, more importantly, how happy I am that @DellCares listened and R-E-S-P-O-N-D-E-D.
I tweeted on a Saturday and the following Monday @DellCares reached out me. To shorten this a bit, Dell took my Service Tag number and they are shipping me new system CD’s, by FedEx no less, to help me get up and running. Mind you, this machine is long outside warranty at 7 years old!
This is beyond customer service. This is customer excellence. Their primary concern is my happiness with their product and they want to make sure I’m up and running. Their follow-up with me is flawless. In fact, I’m astounded at Dell’s responsiveness.
If customer service is a differentiator for brands like Starbucks, Nordstrom, and Amazon then Dell sets a new standard for the electronics industry.
Dell, I’ve been a customer numerous times and now I’m a raving fan. Thank you!
I’ll let you know how this plays out once this non-systems guy tries to rebuild things…
Oh, and since I wrote the above sentence I received the CD’s then tweeted Dell that I received them. I also let them know I was nervous in starting the project. Guess what? The tweeted me a link to a guide to walk me through the process.
Dell #FTW