Dell: Now THAT'S Customer Service!

Wow. As you may have seen in a blog posting last week, I used the 15 minutes or so that I spent on hold with Dell's customer service line to jot down a few tips to keep customers like me happy while we are on hold. A few people took notice, ITBusiness.ca picked up the posting in their "Readers Weigh In On..." web page, and within a day, Dell sent me a personal email asking how they could be of further assistance.

The email came from Marty Schwartz from Dell's Executive Support Office, and here a couple of excerpts:


"It would be an overstatement to say that Dell can make every single one of its customers happy, even when they are not contacting us directly with their concerns."

"I wanted to thank you for your feedback on our automated phone system; we are always trying to improve every facet of our customers' experience, and we don't get a tremendous amount of direct, written commentary on our automated system. I will be sure these suggestions are passed along to the people in that department."

"I also wanted to inquire as to your computer system… did we get you technically resolved? Has your issue been seen through to a final fix? Please let me know, as I'd like to make sure that your issues have been handled correctly by our team. "


Needless to say, I was nothing short of (pleasantly) astonished to hear from Marty's office, particularly so soon after I blogged about the on-hold experience. In part because of this, and in part out of fairness, I should reiterate what I said last week that my issues with being on hold aren't limited to Dell; to my mind today, and perhaps there's a better standard to aim for, being on hold for customer service is as much an unpleasant reality as having to pay invoices when they arrive on my desk. I should note too that I did end up getting a quick answer (and the one I was hoping for) when I got through to a Dell representative last week.

For those of you already thinking I'm selling out by flip flopping on my original posting, I'm not. I'm not absolving Dell of its responsibility to continuously improve on its customer service capabilities, nor am I suggesting we should all acquiesce to endless hours of elevator music. But in all reality, and relative to virtually anyone else I've dealt with in this respect, Dell hit this one out of the park for me.