Dell Hell - By the Numbers 14

Well this is cheap and nasty doing another "By the Numbers" so soon after the last, but then again the whole topic is about cheap and nasty, so why not?

I was showing a friend the anti-dell video "My PC is on Fire" on youtube and that led to wondering about the total views since I began this blog... that led to playing on google and the new microsoft search engine bing using various key words involving dell.. so here we go, and we will kick it off with my favourite!

227,706 - Views of "My PC is on Fire" from May 21, 2007

440,781 - Views of "My PC is on Fire" as of August 23, 2009

213,075 - Views of "My PC is on Fire" since I began this blog (NOTE: I did NOT create the video, I have far too little talent for that masterpiece!).

213 - Number of people who viewed that video if I was responsible for driving .001% of the traffic to it.

2 - Number of lifetime customers lost by Dell if 1% of those .001% choose not to buy dell products.

4407 - Number of lifetime customers lost by dell if 1% of ALL viewers of that video choose not to buy a dell product.

1,950,000 - Number of hits on Google using the keywords "Dell" and "Lawsuit".

12,200,000 - Number of hits on Bing using the keywords "Dell" and "Lawsuit".

52,800,000 - Number of hits on Google using the keywords "Dell" and "Problem".

69,000,600 - Number of hits on Bing using the keywords "Dell" and "Problem".

1,420,000 - Number of hits on Google using the keywords "Dell" and "Hell".

7,790,000 - Number of hits on Bing using the keywords "Dell" and "Hell".

33,600 - Number of hits on Google using the keyword "Dellhell".

107,000,000 - Number of hits on Bing using the keyword "Dellhell".

551,000 - Number of hits on Google using the keywords "Angry", "Dell" and "Customer".

594,000 - Number of hits on Bing using the keywords "Angry", "Dell" and "Customer".

So what did we learn from all this? Three things...

Don't buy Dell products least you too wind up in Dell Hell.

If you are going to try out Bing be prepared for a lot of sifting to get what you need.

Social Media is a powerful tool for striking back at corporations who try to run roughshod over their customers.

So, to all three of my readers I say "well done", together we will bring Texas Justice to Round Rock, just like the guy in the white hat used to do in the movies.



dell hell
dellhell
dell

More from Dell Hell, will they never learn?

One would think that after four years of promises from Dell to fix the sorry state of affairs in the Customer service department that something would have happened... and it did!

Things got worse! Hard to believe? Then consider this... after hundreds of millions of dollars, endless promises from Mr Dell himself and customers are still getting the same old B.S.

Here is yet another Classic story of Dells' customer service, you can decide for yourself if you really want to follow this poor guy down the road to DellHell...

Pete had purchased a three-year, extended replacement warranty from Dell, so on Thursday morning he called technical support. "Between Thursday and Saturday," he says, "I must have spent over 20 hours on hold. While being transferred from technical support to customer service and back again, I began to think the call center was being paid by the number of call transfers. Not until late Saturday afternoon was I connected to anyone who could provide technical support. He diagnosed my problem as a burned out motherboard."

The technician shipped a replacement motherboard to an authorized repair agent in the city where Pete's daughter was attending college and made an appointment for Monday morning to meet Pete and make the fix. "This was getting close to the beginning of my daughter's classes and my plans to depart to make the 800 mile drive home on Tuesday," says Pete.

Pete waited at the appointed location with his cell phone in his pocket. "No one showed," he says. "And no one called." After two hours, he called and fell right back into the technical support vs. customer service loop he'd endured on Saturday. He spent several frustrating hours on the phone looking for someone who could help.

"Finally, with no logical end in sight," he says. "I gave up. I went to a local retailer and purchased another laptop for my daughter to use at school and began the long drive back home with the broken Dell in my car."

Two days after he got home, the repair technician called Pete. Now he was ready to repair the laptop. "He didn't find it particularly funny that I was several states away," says Pete. "And he had no intention of shipping the motherboard to me or a repair technician near my home. He said he would return the motherboard to Dell and that I should start over again in that endless customer service vs. technical support loop again. No thanks! It will be a cold day in you know where before I subject myself to that experience again."



dell hell
dellhell
dell

Brothers in Arms

Americans like catchy phrases, and if it is a catchy phrase with a military ring to it, so much the better... and seeing as how dellhell revisited is all about firing shots across the bow of the other lumbering dreadnought from texas that is Dell, Brothers in Arms seemed as good a choice as any for a title today.

If we are going to talk about Brothers in Arms in regards to the fight being waged in the trenches of dell hell, we must make mention of the first Colonel of the Regiment, Jeff Jarvis, who unfortunately went over to the enemy after a fierce series of skirmishes in the early part of this century.

After the changing of the guard, Dell Hell wandered about the internet, thousands of angry voices without center. Good news is I've learned just the past few days that Dell Hell has opened another front in the war, the fight being carried to Europe from some unpronounceable place in Sweden. I guess they are making up for sitting out the big one in WWII.

So what do I know about the dell hell team in Sweden? Not a damn thing, the entire website is in swedish (makes sense, I guess), and all I know of sweden is it is skitkallt and the girls are skitsnygg...

Anyway, if you can read swedish you can check it out yourself at www.dellhell.se and if you want to see a skitsnygg swedish girl check out tiger woods wife.

So for you poor souls cast in to dell hell, be comforted to know that our side is winning.

Do you hear that in Round Rock? CAN you hear that in Round Rock? WE are winning... cash your checks man, light your fancy cuban cigars, but be sure to take a moment and kiss my ass.



dell hell
dellhell
dell

Dell Hell - By the Numbers 13

Well, it's time again for that bit of fun known here in dell hell as a "By the Numbers" blog, and they are among my favorites to write. Numbers are easy, as long as they aren't too big...

1 - shareholder who had the cajones to get up and ask why they were paying bonuses to Dell executives who have been presiding over what can best be described as a mess. Here is a quote to get you going... "Shareholders who held stock for 12 months lost half their money. Stock was down 50 percent, thousands of employees were laid off. Yet I see in most cases, executive compensation is up, in some cases significantly. I'm just trying to understand how something like that can be justified, given that shareholders and employees have suffered so much."

1.1 - million dollars, which is the annual cost for security for Michael Dell (security from shareholders??)

1.05 - dollars, which is the amount dell shares fell after the recent analyst meeting at Dell HQ

8.1 - the percentage fall in share price 1.05 represents

2 - Number of stars dell was awarded by the Motley Fool investment community (that ain't good folks) and here is a quote from one of them... "Dell is a pretender and their best days will always be in their rear view mirrors."

2 - Number of times in little more than a week that dell offered deals too good to be true online in Taiwan, much to the displeasure of Taiwanese officials and thousands of citizens who tried to take advantage of the offers.

-18.7 - percentage growth for dell in the last quarter compared to 08

1.2 - percentage growth for HP in the same quarterly comparison

So there it is, small numbers tell a big story...




dell hell
dellhell
dell

Dell Hell - Semi European Edition Pt 2

Wow, investors and consumers in the UK have long marvelled at the unique ways Americans have of doing business, but might be left a bit worried by the latest news from the gang who won't shoot straight.

Dell has been found in contempt of court in the State of Louisiana in a case involving alleged misdeeds in regards security apparatus for the city of New Orleans.

In a case involving security cameras, dell, when ordered to turn over relevant emails from within the company did not even use the word "camera" in the search of dell computers... the Louisiana judge overseeing the case was furious. A new search is ongoing using court ordered search words.

At a time when quite a few American name brands (and Americans for that matter, hello Bernie Madoff, how is the new cell?) are a pariah for less than honest business dealings, Dell seems at risk of joining them.

Dell is sitting on about $11 Billion in cash and there is much speculation on what they might spend it on... bail bonds might be in order.



dell hell
dellhell
dell

OvertheCliff@dell.com

Sorry if you didn't get the title first time around... here is an explanation of sorts.

First quarter results have just been released and it's shaping up to be a worse season for Dell than the 1976 Tampa Bay NFL team had...

ChannelWeb led off with "Q1 PC Shipments Plummet 8.1 Percent As Dell Leads Plunge" which although reflective of Dells' Q1 it isn't entirely true... only Dell and Lenovo failed to post positive growth among the giants HP, Acer and Toshiba, Dell and Lenovo. Worldwide shipments were down, but it is only Dell and Lenovo who are taking the plunge over the cliff, the others are growing marketshare even in these most difficult of times.

I would judge this to be a small victory for consumers. Social networking means that when large corporations treat customers in such a cavalier manner, it quickly becomes common knowledge among the customer base, sales and reputation decline. At the end of the story that discontent becomes evident in the share price and the market share. I'm no stock analyst but I do have a bit of common sense and Round Rock seems to have pockets of town where common sense is AWOL, the fact these problems happened in the first place is shocking enough, that it is still going on four years after they first surfaced is an indictment.



dell hell
dellhell
dell

Dell Hell - Semi European Edition

Recent figures out of the UK point to a serious setback for Dell in Europe and the UK with computer shipments dropping a whopping %22.1 which is not only a shock to Dell pundits but a shame as well... Acer shipments were up %31.6 in the same period, market leader HP up %1.2, Toshiba and Asus reporting %20.3 and %43.4 respectively.

Yikes.

For a company whose core talent was (and I say was) selling good, cheap computers to the masses they don't seem to be doing so well.

One of the UK's most widely read papers The Telegraph recently published a scathing blog that starts off "Poor, schizophrenic Dell..." and then goes on to relate the familiar story of dell hell and the patronizing nightmare of "DELLA" which is apparently some dell website for women. If it's put up by the same talking heads from direct2dell I can well imagine...

Double Yikes.

In another article outlining the mess@dell.com along with the usual description of said mess there are suggestions on potential fixes. The FIRST on the list of things to fix is... you guessed it CUSTOMER SERVICE... hello Talking Heads? This is a sad state of affairs 4 yrs PJJ (post Jeff Jarvis)

Triple Yikes.

And the New York Times reports on a customer service study that shows Dell with a 58% rating which qualifies as Very Poor... no surprise there. Apple got top billing with 80%... no surprise there either.

Quadruple Yikes

I don't know the word for the 5th yikes (fifthuple???) and I am too busy shaking my head over the sad state of affairs in Round Rock to go on so I will leave it there.



dell hell
dellhell
dell

The Cost of Doing Business@Dell.com

I was torn over what to call this particular post and what style it should appear in, like Dell itself, we have multiple choices here at Dell Hell Revisited... should I go with a traditional "By the Numbers" or should I go for the more obscure style of "...@dell.com"

Well, it's best served warm so here it is without further debate on style or content... a small example of the cost of doing business with Dell.

North Carolina offered Dell somewhere in the area of $280 million in incentives to set up a plant there. Part of the deal was 1700 jobs by 2010. After two recent rounds of layoffs, the plant now employs about 1140 and Dell isn't saying when or if it will ever employ the 1700 required to justify the incentive. Do the math folks, even if Dell filled the 1700 jobs that is still a VERY generous incentive. Let me save you the trouble of pulling out the calculator, it is $164,705.00 PER JOB. At the current 1140 it is a staggering $245,614.00 per job...

Hands up who COULDN'T create a job for yourself if the Government gave you $245,000.00 to start up... or to buy yourself some job related education... or maybe you are a local farmer who wants to transition from tobacco to edible crops?

If I lived in North Carolina I would be pissed at Dell and just as pissed at my local Government.



dell hell
dellhell
dell

Happy 25th to DellHell

Thats right folks, 25 yrs of dellhell as of this month... One can only presume that Micheal learned much about computers in those years, and indeed things have come a long way since the days of PC's LTD, the legendary company Dell founded in his college dorm.

Sadly, he seems to have learned nothing in those same years, in regards to customer service. The long line at the gates of DellHell will attest to that.

"...Fortunately, the XT is still under warranty, so all I had to do was call Dell and have them replace the digitizer. That took several phone calls, running diagnostics over the phone, etc. I had one support rep tell me that my Latitude XT was not a real PC. I had another rep tell me that the diagnostics was taking too long to run, so I needed to call them back when it was finished..."

Well, not so bad you think... wait, there is more... dell sends it back untouched and unrepaired, he sends it back to dell a second time, they fix it but keep 2 of the 3 GB of ram he had in the machine... and now he has had enough...

"...Dell, your technical support and repair facility has been an utter fail and has left me being one very disappointed Dell customer. This latest mishap, coupled with my overall experience with the Latitude XT, has me looking at anything but Dell when it comes to buying new systems for myself and my small business clients."

In other news...

Dell gets sued yet again...
"Dell sued by city of New Orleans over crime cameras"

The company tanks in the first quarter of the year...
"Why the Big Dip at Dell in the First Quarter?"

Dell is not getting messages on their mobile phone
“...a non-compelling product with a roadmap that lags competition.”

Dell gets a failing grade...
"Dell basically flunked with a “poor” 58% rating overall and a “very poor” 47% in enjoyability."

And that's just a taste of what it's been like in dell hell lately....enjoy!



dell
dellhell
dell hell

Dell Hell - By the Numbers 12

419,455 - views of the popular youtube video "My PC is on Fire"

31,000 - views since September, 30/2008 of "My PC is on Fire"

190 - views per day of "My PC is on Fire"

2 - number of people per day who will never buy a dell computer again (estimate 1 in 100 who watch the video will be so negatively affected that they will not buy a dell product again)

19,200 - dollars lost over the lifetime of one former or potential loyal customer of dell

38,400 - potential lifetime dollars lost per day by Dell from two unhappy non-returning customers. EVERYDAY.

23 - approximate dollar price per share of dell when Micheal Dell was reinstated as CEO

8.98 - today's share price

-11 - today's temperature in Celsius and the reason for this entry!


dell
dellhell
dell hell

Dell Hell Gets Its Day in Court

After a good deal of anticipated judicial delay the Class Action suit in Canada against Dell Computers has finally been approved and will proceed in an Ontario court room.

The suit alleges Dell was at fault for shoddy construction of Dell Inspiron models 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150 and 5160. If you own one and live in Canada contact the lawyers for the class action at their offices in Toronto

The issue with all these models was overheating caused by shoddy wiring apparently... seems that overheating was also an issue with my own entry into DellHell.

Dells' position was that each individual with a problem would have to go through resolution with Dell... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Darn that has to be the best joke I've heard in ages....

In other news Dell continues a downward spiral that confirms what I have long maintained, Micheal Dell is not the saviour people set him up to be, in fact his narrow vision of PC manufacturing and marketing set them up for the fall. He has totally missed the boat in terms of customer service overhaul and corporate overhaul.

Yikes, glad I don't own stock and sad that I still have a $3000 paperweight in my junk somewhere in that closet where my personal Dell Hell resides.

dell
dellhell
dell hell

New Year but Same Old...

Dell Hell continues to haunt the rarified heights of Round Rock, Texas.. Marketing Week in the UK ran an article this week on the phenomenon of Dell Hell and reaffirms the problems outlined in this blog over the last two years.

Dell has not only failed to turn around an abysmal history of poor customer service, they are failing to connect to the market place.

Dell takes a stance with shareholders which is very similar to what they did with my own computer problems (in reality, my daughters problems) which launched me into dell hell. That stance is simply "not our fault, go away...".

With shares hovering at $10 and sales in freefall, Dell continues to ignore legitimate complaints like mine, thus loosing millions of dollars (see an earlier blog on the cost of doing business with an unhappy customer) and further alienating valuable customers. What was the original solution to my problem? Simple, replace the faulty computer with a comparable model.

Instead Dell chose to hide behind lies, stonewalling and denial. GREAT plan Michael! You could have BOUGHT me a computer out of your own pocket at a cost to you personally of about 2 minutes of your work day... instead you passed the grief on to your shareholders and they are stuck with about $3 million in lost customer sales. Way to go Michael Dell.

You promised to turn it around, instead you are plowing it into the ground. Don't you think it is time to get real, get honest? I suggest you start with me, send me a computer and I will change my mind about the real path you have chosen and will begin to support you again.

Continue to ignore your customers and you will get more of the same, falling share price, falling market share and unsustainable pressure from the shareholders. You can choose to ignore me but you can't ignore them.

Which way will you play it Michael?

Oh, yeah... here is a quote for those too lazy to click on the link above to Marketing Week.

"Dell Hell

Senior executives, including chief marketing officer Erin Nelson, must tackle Dell’s fading reputation after a series of fiascos, particularly in the US. Earlier this month, US consumers sued Dell for false advertising and, after much legal wrangling, it agreed to pay $3.35m (£2.25m) to settle claims by 34 state attorneys general that it used deceptive financing and warranty practices in its US ads."


dell
dellhell
dell hell