Dell India — Non-responsive customer service

The reason for buying a Dell laptop was purely its 'so-called' customer service. However, both the laptop and the service have been disappointing to say the least and unable to live up to the hype surrounding them.

More than a week back, the LCD screen of my Dell 7548 suddenly stopped functioning. After innumerable calls to the customer service (the IVR takes almost 20 min before one can speak to a technician and there is no call back mechanism if the call gets disconnected at their end) I was informed of the customer service centre (there is only 1 in the “Metropolitan” city of Kolkata) and its contact numbers, one of which was out of service and the other always busy. As I am a student, a day without my laptop renders me completely useless and I am unable to get any work/studying done without the laptop and hence I had no option but to take it to the service centre 20km from where I am situated. On reaching there I was asked to take it back for data back up because apparently laptops these days need to be reset even for purely hardware issues. It was completely nonsensical on all levels. They then suggested I take my hard drive back with me, come back and give it to them and then come to the centre once again to receive my laptop. On requesting them to keep my hard drive with them, they refused failing to understand my problem and the inconvenience I would have to face. Nevertheless, I took my laptop, un-repaired and useless, back with me.

Monday, 9 Am I promptly called the service centre to register my complaint once again and after an hour and 3-4 call transfers I was told that I would receive a mail stating the amount I would have to pay for the technician to visit. After 3 hours and 2 more reminder calls to the service centre did I receive a mail with the terms and conditions being different from what was promised to me on the phone. I was told that since my laptop was under warranty I would not have to pay for the replacement of any part but only the technician’s service charges. However, the terms and conditions in the mail stated that I may have to pay for the replacement of the part as well. I still replied to the mail and waited for the sales call which was the next step. I received a call the next day, however being in a lecture I was unable to answer the same. I received a mail asking for my alternate number which was already provided to them earlier. On promptly replying to the mail I received no response from the team and got a call only the next day. The next day the same thing happened and I dropped a mail asking them to call at 4PM. However, as has been the trend, responding to calls and mails doesn't seem to be dell's strong suit. In fact, I'm not really sure what really is Dell's strong suit. The next day which was a Thursday I am finally able to get in touch with a representative only to be told that on payment it will take 3-4 working days for the technician to visit me. Now, understand my frustration. It's been almost 6 days and the company refuses to help a customer in need because of what I can only conclude is extreme tardiness.

It's been 10 days now and I still have no clue as to whether the technician would be making the visit to repair my laptop. This is the most disappointing service I have ever received and it's frankly quite surprising that a global firm takes a day to respond to emails, needs continuous reminders for actually doing their job and has no debit card payment mechanism. In fact, after making the payment (Friday) and still receiving no response from the team at Dell I had to drop another email today and it's only then that I received a call only to realize that they had just woken up and would go about booking a sales technician which would take another 1-2 days.

All in all, I would have suffered a total loss of 12 days, which I am certainly not getting back. Not just that it has also caused me extreme mental distress that too when my laptop is under warranty. I would not want to imagine the kind of duress I would have been put under had my laptop not been under warranty. I was forced to dedicate precious hours from my schedule and feel helpless and distressed only because Dell has been unable to live up to the standards.