My experience with DELL

Some months ago I needed to buy a laptop /notebook. I’m not a very hardware savvy or tech-savvy person. I was not very sure what brand I should buy. I was not even sure how to compare prices and configurations to know if I’m getting my money’s worth. So I spent a lot of time surfing the net, visiting the local stores trying to figure out what would suit me best. Then one of my friends suggested I buy a DELL he suggested I look for prices online. Then I came across another friend who said that if I bought a DELL then I may have problems getting technical support as there was no local tech-support office in the city where I live and that I would have to pretty much do things on my own with the Dell Tech support personnel giving me instructions online. (That was scary.) The rest of the brands such as HP, Toshiba, SONY VIAO and COMPAQ among others that were available off the counter, had places where I could take my notebook for any kind of repairs if needed. Additionally, they said that DELL would only give me VISTA and that there were many bugs in it still being ironed out. So I had two schools of thought and was totally confused as to what I should do.

I spoke to other people who owned laptops and the ones who owned DELLS vouched for them, the ones who had the SONY VIAOs cursed them and the others were happy with what they had, but were not sure they would really recommend what they had as the best. Back and forth I went, driving myself and my friends crazy.

Then at one friend’s suggestion I called the DELL toll free number and spoke to their sales executive. I found him really helpful. When he asked me what configuration I was looking for- I was stumped, he gathered that, and helpfully asked me what programs I work with and the kind of work I do. When I told him that I mostly worked with multimedia and programs such as PHOTOSHOP and SOUNDFORGE besides the usual office software, he recommended a STUDIO and a configuration that I did not really understand, but he assured me that was what I needed. So I went ahead and ordered my laptop.

I chose a lovely spring green color, it arrived before the date that they had said it would. That was good! So far it worked fine, and so did VISTA. ( I have yet to find what version of soundforge is compatible with VISTA, I have soundforge7 and Vista does not support soundforge 7 if anyone knows, please let me know.)

Then came a day when my DVD or optical drive as it is technically called just would not allow me to insert a CD or DVD or any kind of disc into it. I went into panic mode for bit. I did not know where the service center was, so I had no one who would look at it, to top that it had to be the weekend so I had no choice but to wait for Monday morning to arrive. The second stroke of luck was that it was still in the warranty period. On Monday I tried their toll free numbers, and could not get through, then I looked through my emails when I had ordered my DELL, and there in one of those I found their regular numbers that required me to make an STD call. I got through and within fifteen minutes I was able to log my complaint. You need to have your service tag handy, it is at the bottom of the notebook on a sticker. By that afternoon I already had a call from their local service center fixing an appointment for Tuesday, the very next day, when someone would come to replace my optical drive.

The person arrived at the scheduled time and I watched in awe as he took my notebook apart – screw by screw and panel by panel; replaced the drive and then proceeded to put it all back together. He also patiently answered all the questions that I asked him and enlightened me about how the orders are placed in Gurgaon, the processing is done in Banglore/Malaysia, the parts are procured from Malaysia or China, it seemed to me getting one computer together was a global process. The bonus was that I found out they had a technical service center very close to where I live. I still have to log any requests through their call center to be routed to them, but still it is reassuring to know that my DELL has someone to set it right if ever anything should go wrong.

All in all I was really very happy with the experience so far. The compliant was attended to so promptly and efficiently that can’t believe I ever had a problem with my optical drive.

So here’s saying I would recommend DELL to anyone who asks me for a reference!

Thank you DELL for the pleasant experience, and thank you to all my friends who gave me all the advice right from the one who suggested a DELL and guided me through the process, to the person who took my order and processed it, and the technical service personnel!

Here's to you all!