One fine Monday I tasked myself with purchasing a software package called Adobe Acrobat Professional to increase the productivity of our small business. This simple task ended up taking over an hour of my time on a busy Monday, has yet to be resolved over 48 hours later and left me flummoxed at the level of service provided by all parties involved.

I called Adobe and learned that a 30 day free trial for their “Professional” product was being offered, and I could participate by simply downloading the software. This I did only to receive a notice that downloading this software was not possible and that SERVICE PACK 2 was required in order to proceed. Along with the notice that Service Pack 2 was required, was a warning that loading Service Pack 2 on an computer that was not capable of accepting the software could result in extensive damages to my personal files and computer. I called Adobe back to better understand Service Pack 2, and was informed by the Adobe customer service folks that this was a Microsoft issue and I needed to contact Microsoft. I was annoyed, but only 20 minutes into the process so continued on.

Next I called Microsoft Customer Service, and reached a phone tree that required great focus to say the least. After many attempts to get to the right place I finally reached a Microsoft representative. I learned from the Microsoft representative that I needed to contact Dell Computer because the Microsoft software on my computer was pre-loaded by Dell and that Dell would be responsible for letting me know more about Service Pack 2. At this point I am more than annoyed, but decided to continue in the process and call Dell computer.

Now, I am a 4 time owner of Dell computers. I am a veteran at using Dell customer service. I must say that my blood pressure rises every time I even THINK about calling Dell. This time, was no exception to the rule of my past “poor” experiences and I do believe that Dell’s service has even gotten worse.

I called Dell, and of course reached their customer service department in India. The Customer Service rep at Dell was intent on getting ALL of my information before he would even listen to my problem. With the Dell folks this is particularly annoying because it takes them SO long to get MY information correctly - the spelling of my name, et al is prolonged due to the language barrier. So at this time I am annoyed to no end. Finally I got to explain my issue, and of course the Dell did not know the answer and asked me to hold on while he contacted technical folks that could provide me an answer. He came back a couple times in the course of 10 minutes letting me know he was trying to track down the answer. Each he returned to the line I am sure I was more impolite as I saw my Monday morning slipping away and emails and work piling up as I waited.

What finally pushed me over the edge was while waiting for the customer service representative to come back on the line I received an email from Dell logging my customer inquiry and giving me a reference number for my “case”. At this point, over 20 minutes of waiting, I hung up and sent an email back to the person who emailed me my case number about my dissatisfaction. A day later I got a note from Dell stating that my issue was still under investigation and that I “should” get an answer soon.

I give up! Who’s on first, and who really cares about my requirement? Microsoft’s customer is Dell. Adobe can’t sell their product to me unless I have the correct Microsoft software… Dell could care less about my Adobe upgrade.

If anyone had the fortitude to read through this note, congratulations! I wish I had a happy ending to the story, but can bet that I never hear back from Dell. That is simply par for the course with Dell.

KT

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Nightmare Service, Outsourcing Service, Accountability in Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.