There is a new low in customer service.

What I am about to share is, to me, the clearest sign I have ever seen that customer service is in decline from its already abysmal state.

Last week I was at an IT conference when a member of my audience tipped me off to the following abomination. I have since called the perpetrator to get confirmation, as well as more detail. Here is what I learned:

When you order a product from Dell, you have three options for service on that product. The Economy plan allows you to ship it back to them for repair for one year. This level of service is included in the price (so it’s kind of “free.” Kind of.)

The Mobility plan gives you all sorts of extra protection, which they call “Complete Care.” (I guess that implies that Economy service is for cheapos who will take incomplete care to save a buck.) With Mobility, if you drop your laptop out of the helicopter over Lake Michigan, for instance, they’ll fix it for you – assuming you find it, I suppose. This one costs $103 for one year, at least for the laptop I was calling about.

So far, so good. That’s not to say that I’m crazy about paying for any type of a product warrantee, but such is business these days: we pay extra to insure the stuff we buy, in case it was made poorly. Weird if you think about it, but I can’t go tilting at every windmill that comes along. I have to choose my windmills.

Dell has a third level of service. This one is $265 for two years (there is no one-year option, I gather). They call this Standard service, which seems like a compliance enticement: this is “regular;” it’s a minimum. “Come on, everybody else is doing it… It isn’t fancy or frivolous; it’s standard!” they seem to be saying.

With Standard service, you get Complete Care plus Gold tech support. This is what my phone-pal at Dell told me you are buying with this Gold level of support:

1. A North American techie.
2. Techies have two years of experience or more.
3. Techies have advanced training.
4. Reduced wait time.
5. Techies aren’t compelled to lead you through the standard line of questioning at the start of every call (for instance, “Is your computer on? Please turn it off, then turn it back on.”)
6. While remote log in (Dell Connect) is now standard, you get additional bells and whistles at the Gold level.

Let me tell you what you can infer from this list of Gold features.

1. If you don’t pay $265, the techie you reach will be in India, and you won’t be able to understand him. When you ask him to repeat himself for the fifth time, he will shout, “Don’t you understand English!?!”
2. If you fail to shell out an additional $265 for the laptop you buy, the techie you reach will not have the experience he needs to help you.
3. He will also lack sufficient training.
4. Most Dell customers are forced to wait a long time for help. Therefore, it behooves you to pay $265 to get out of “on hold” limbo.
5. Dell is keenly aware that its customers are frustrated when forced to go through a whole series of tests each time they call. However, even if the customer knows what the problem is, Dell still forces them to go through these hoops. That way, customers will choose to pay $265 to get around this. Dell has created a disincentive for itself to improve its basic level of service. To Dell, basic (“free”) customer service doesn’t pay.
6. I don’t know what this means. My pal didn’t clarify what “extra stuff” means. I just know that, if you pay an additional $265 for your computer, then Dell trouble-shoots extra-well. If you don’t, then their remote help may fail, I assume through lack of effort on their part.

Shouldn’t minimum standards for tech support include techies who speak English and who have the know-how to help you? And do we really deserve to pay extra to have a shorter wait time, or to avoid the same old diagnostics that didn’t help the last time? Shouldn’t you be able to opt out of that sort of thing?

Dell knows its customers are frustrated with its service, so it decided to charge to stop frustrating them. Wow.

“At least Dell offers an opportunity to buy acceptable customer service,” you might argue. “Most companies don’t even give you that option.” Okay. But I’ve never heard of a company so cynical that it offers zero- or one-star customer service, then charges for something better. This is a new low, as I said earlier, and it shocks me. If it doesn’t shock you, too, then that’s saying something powerfully dismal right there, I’d argue right back.

My lawyer wants to make sure I stress that this is my opinion on what you can infer about Dell. I’m not saying it’s all true; only that I’m pretty sure it is. 99.8% sure.

I have inferred something else about Dell. Michael Dell has figured out how to build an empire, and save people a whole ton of money while doing it. For that I commend him. However, his name is also on the company that makes its customers pay extra – lots extra – for what is, to me, a basic level of customer service. I’d be ashamed to put my name to that.


(Note: my phone pal, the sales guy at Dell, was terrific. He couldn’t have been more helpful, knowledgeable, or polite. I can infer from that that Dell recognizes the value of great customer service in the sales process; it’s once we’re locked in that they abuse us.)