Having trouble with Dell customer service? You are not alone. I had a problem last month, and when Dell customer care failed miserably over the course of three hours, I turned to the company’s employee blogs. After an exasperating few days, I remained cordial despite being treated in an outrageous manner. In the end, I was rewarded with a $75 gift credit from an employee in the states who cared about keeping my business with Dell Online. The company just settled a lawsuit over customer complaints. Here’s how to get Dell’s attention without a lawyer.
1) Visit Dell’s employee blogs. AND COMMENT ON THEM. A LOT.
Like a lot of tech-ish companies, Dell’s employees blog. A lot. Now these aren’t the customer care folks at far flung places around the globe you’ll get when you dial the customer care number that comes with your order. Rather Dell’s bloggers are professionals with titles like, “Blog Editor” and “Customer Care Specialist.”
2) Make a list of the bloggers’ e-mails.
Now, Dell doesn’t make it so easy as to offer up e-mails of their bloggers. But a quick glance at the contacts listed on the company’s news releases indicates that Dell’s e-mail convention is firstname_lastname@dell.com. That means you can read bios of employees, say of blog editor John Pope, and then plug his name into the convention, john_pope@dell.com. (I contacted several of these employees during the holidays, which resulted in out-of-office replies containing their company cell-phone numbers. Don’t bother these folks at home. They likely have no idea how incompetent their overseas call centers really are. Wait ’til they get back to work to deal with you.)
3) Compose a friendly message. Keep it cordial. Remember, the objective is to resolve your issue. The more you thank these people and let them know how much you appreciate their time, the more successful you will be. Dell’s not a company in good shape. Its stock is falling. Its service is so awful it lost a class action suit. Let these people try to keep your business and maybe avoid being laid off.
4) Send your message to as many Dell employees as possible. And just maybe somebody’ll get back to ya’.
In the meantime, Dell also has what they comically refer to as a Global Escalation Management Team. Be warned. These are just the same overseas call centers, only the escalation team is staffed by people with better English skills. Here’s a couple contacts for it, but these people can only provide form letters and read from scripts:
Divya Pradyumnan: 1-800-624-9897, Ext. 7283898, divya_pradyumnan@dell.com; Kapil Gupta, kapil_gupta@dell.com.
Stay friendly, and Dell might just give you a free $75. It’s the least they can do for your trouble.
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Zack Barnett 
Great post. People go for Dell because it’s cheap and they have coupons online. The harsh reality is that their product is just poor often times. I actually bookmarked that Consumer Affairs link. And your suggestions are right on point if you have to go Dell. Nice work.
sir,dell laptop complints they dont just care i have recently purchased a dell laptop its cd drive when we eject its just not comeout smoothly instead its stuck up inside just 1/4 portion come out remaing portion stuckup inside, and its bateries when we charge getting hrated up , when we complaint no body is taking care ,they just dont check it while delivering
i hope one day they will come and attend , not an intenational standard at all , very pooractions on their part. n.suresh.
will someone out there give me a usable telephone number for an english speaking person in america who will help me with a customer service problem – i have tried every number available on the net – and end up with sales pitches, stupid music, run arounds and nothing.pleeze…………..
i have entered two comments – is this site a farce too?
Frances, I am sorry you’re having trouble with Dell. I’d encourage you to embrace cultural differences and to be sensitive to people who might not speak English as their first language. I detailed my success in reaching Dell in the blog post above. Best of luck.
–Zack
Just spent 2 weeks enjoying the same abysmal level of Dell customer care in UK.Does anyone have a named Dell person actually responsible for sorting out problems in UK
Tony,
Try contacting Ellen_Murphy@dell.com. I believe she is based in Europe and might be able to help. Last year, she did follow up on my behalf when I e-mailed her my frustrations.
I cannot believe the customer service of Dell. It is terrible. I have been trying for an entire day to secure a return UPS LABEL in order to ship back a notebook and printer that has been weak and broke from day 1. I kid you not, I called Dell from 9 am EST to 7 pm EST on Monday, December 14th and every time I submitted the case # to them, shortly after that I was disconnected. All I want to do is return the notebook and printer for an exchange. This has been communicated to them a number of times over the last couple of weeks and I cannot get anywhere. It is ridiculous.