But exactly how much is that %1 going to cost Dell in the end?
I tried this once before and didn't get too far... but if I stick to a simple scenario we can get a fair idea. Simple means if we don't know the figure we can just make a fair estimate...
Lets' start with how many people I actually tell our story to, and then figure out what the average person might purchase in their lifetime.
I am going to use a nice round figure of 10,000 people who will have heard our story before we are done. One percent of 10,000 is 100.
So we now have 100 people who will not buy a Dell product because of our efforts.
Now, if the average person replaces a computer every 3 years and assigning a average age of 30 to each person, then they would buy 3 products per decade for the next 4 decades which is 12 products. Lets throw in one peripheral product per decade too, Dell is big on selling you other things besides a computer.
So we have 16 products per person x 100 persons = 1600 products
So lets assign an average of $1200 per product and now we are getting somewhere...
Total cost to Dell for ripping off my daughter is about $1,900,000.00
BUT for each of those persons who don't buy a Dell, let's be fair and figure that they too will divert at least one other customer from Dell... so now the figure doubles itself...
Total cost to Dell for ripping of my daughter is now $3,800,000.00
Makes me feel better now that I have an idea of what my efforts here are worth!!
Dell have behaved atrociously in their dealings with my daughter and it was all so simple to begin with... Do the right thing, replace the faulty computer and win your customer over... or, lie, stonewall, and give them the run around and it will cost you... Now we know how much!
10,000 - Number of people I will reach with my efforts to alert the public to Dells' business practices.
1 - Percent of people we reach who will not buy Dell products.
1600 - Number of product sales lost by Dell as a result of our efforts as described above
1200 - Average cost of individual product sales lost.
1,900,000 - Approximate Dollars lost by Dell as a direct result of our efforts.
3,800,000 - Dollars it cost Dell if you accept that each of the 100 lost customers also tells a friend.
dell
dellhell
dell hell
1 comment:
I have been a loyal customer for years (purchased 6 Dell systems over the last decade), but after a recent fiasco with your outsourced support team, I doubt that I will ever again buy a system from Dell.
My ordeal began on May 12. My XP computer, which is still under a two-year, in-house warranty, crashed on Sunday (5/11), but I did not call tech support until the following day. At that time, a tech had me do several things, and after roughly 60 minutes of trial and error, he said that my system would need to be restored to Day 1 (factory settings).
Not wanting to lose my personal files, I attempted to see if I could solve the problem myself. This entailed me trying to install the latest Windows updates, the latest McAfee updates, and restoring my computer to a recent restore point. All these efforts ended with the operating system halting and giving me an 0x0000007E error (the same error that I had been getting all along).
At this point, I re-tried tech support. A tech named Jai worked with me for several days. He had me run hardware and system tests -- all of which passed. After the tests, Jai said that a system restore to Day 1 was the only solution. I relented (didn't want to lose my personal data) and restored the system. I did this on 5/18. Soon after Jai hung up the phone, the system crashed again (7E error, again). I tried to call back, but eventually gave up after being put on hold for at least 30 minutes.
I called back the following day. I was disconnected three times and put on hold for countless minutes before I reached tech support. At that point, I advised a tech (not Jai) of the situation, and he then told me that the next step was to remove the video card. I refused to touch the hardware, fearing that I would cause more problems and feeling that I should not be asked to do such a thing on computer that was still under warranty. A heated debate with the tech support manager ensued and culminated with the manager hanging up on me.
Later that same day, I reported the problem to customer support, after waiting on hold for nearly 30 minutes. The customer service rep seemed very disinterested and didn't give me any indication that my problem would be resolved.
On May 20, I called sales and spoke to Kristy Redwine. She referred me to the Sales Resolution Team, who, in turn, referred me back to tech support. A new tech worked with me for several hours. He had me wipe the entire system and install XP from scratch. We got to the point of installing drivers, several of which installed successfully. Then, when attempting to install the Linksys network adapter, the system failed (7E error, again). At that point, this particular tech said that he would call me back in 45 minutes, but he never did, leaving me with an inoperable system, minus my personal files.
Via email, I then contacted Kristy, who had promised to help me resolve this problem, but I never heard from her.
I then tried the Dell message boards, and someone suggested that I contact Dell’s Unresolved Issues. I did that and was told that someone would get back to me in 24 hours, which was more than 24 DAYS AGO!
Eventually, I found a solution to the problem on my own. That’s right, I had to figure it out myself, even though the computer was still under a Dell in-house warranty. However, I did learn a valuable lesson: DO NOT COUNT on help from Dell and their outsourced friends in India if something goes wrong with your machine.
And one more thing, my first Apple system arrived today.
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