The church bought 2 desktop computers and 1 Celeron-based Inspiron from Dell about 3 years ago. We also bought service contracts with them at the time.
The service contracts are nearly ready to expire. I’ve been getting email, snail mail, and now a phone call trying to get me to renew the service contracts, all of which I have ignored.
Except the phone call.
Maybe I was bored (late Wednesday afternoon), but when the secretary told me someone from Dell wanted to talk to me about the computers, I actually accepted the call to see what their sales pitch would be.
The girl on the other end of the phone (and she sounded like a teenager, including saying “and stuff” about 12 times during the phone conversation, such as “We have a service contract that protects against the normal wear and tear from turning the computers on and off each day, heating up and cooling down, and being exposed to dust and stuff.”)
Girl: “My records indicate that you bought 2 desktop computers and 1 notebook computer. Do you know which computers these are?”
Now I presume somewhere on her list of people to call and harass into signing up for their protection program (does that remind anyone else of the mob?) it lists the name of the businesses/people she’ll be calling. Do you suppose that when the company name includes the word “church” that it’s a safe assumption that I remember spending $2,000+ on 3 computers?
Anyway, she went on to ask me if I was aware that the extended service warrantees were about to expire.
Me: “That would explain the emails and letters that I’ve been receiving just about every day for the last month or so.”
Her: (after awkward pause, probably trying to find the next line in her script) “Oh, so you know that it’s going to expire soon, ok. Well we can extend those warrantees through 2009…”
She went on, but I wasn’t listening. I was wondering if the thought crossed her mind that if I have ignored the emails and letters, it was because I didn’t want to extend the warrantee.
Her: “So have you used the extended warrantee?”
Again, wouldn’t it be good information to have already, rather than a) trusting that I’d remember and b) drawing attention to the fact that I have (in fact) not needed the extended warrantee that I paid for already?
I told her I hadn’t, to which she expressed a sense of… relief (almost “Wow, you’re lucky”)? Whatever it was, it felt a bit strained. It was then that she told me they could extend the warrantee to cover wear and tear “and stuff.”
“In addition, with the Inspiron, you have our Gold Support, which means that you have a two-minute wait time when you call for service…”
One presumes that she meant “a maximum of two minute wait IF I need to call (not when)” but the real kicker was the rest of the sentence:
“…and that will connect you with our Tier 2 tech support which is based in North America.”
Great, now when I call I’ll probably have to listen to some lousy Canadian tell me to “bout” my computer, eh.
On second thought, it probably means “Pay for the more expensive tech support package and you’ll get to speak to someone you can actually understand.”
After about 5 minutes she finally stopped talking. She didn’t pose a question or anything for me to respond to, she just finished her sales pitch telling me all the wonderful things I’d get if I renewed.
Me: “The Inspiron has been the worst computer I’ve ever owned, and if it blew up tomorrow I’d do a dance of joy.”
Clearly her script didn’t consider this as a response, because it felt like she was winging it when she said “Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t think I…. we usually don’t hear things like that.”
She then asked me what I would do if the desktops failed.
“I’d probably replace them with different computers,” I said after brief consideration. Either that or we could go back to typewriters.
“Well, it’s actually much cheaper to replace them under warrantee than buy new ones,” she replied. Not to mention that we get paid even if your 3 year old computer somehow manages not to blow up.
Me: “Yeah, if they died I’d probably not be replacing them with new Windows machines.”
Her: “So you’re not looking to upgrade to Vista?”
Me: “God, no. Why would anyone upgrade to Vista?”
Her: “Well it has some issues…”
Me: “Some issues? They’re joking that Vista Service Pack 1 should reinstall XP!” I didn’t mention that Dell and other OEMs essentially told Microsoft that they wanted to keep selling XP after Microsoft wanted to push them to 100% Vista.
Her: “Well it’s new and like anything else it has some issues, but I bet in a year they’ll have them all worked out.”
(UPDATE 2007-09-21: I wish this story had come out a few days earlier: Microsoft giving Vista Business / Ultimate users ‘downgrade’ to XP option.)
Me: “I think I’d take that bet, but anyway, no, we aren’t interested in extending our service contracts.”
Her: “OK, well if you change your mind, you can always call us at 1-800-Give-Dell-Money.”
Ok that wasn’t the exact number, but whenever someone expects me to spell a phone number I tend not to listen.
Coda
I went into the office and happened to notice a light flashing on the front of the laptop (which is actually pretty rarely used nowadays). I checked and it was the battery light. I pulled the plug, and sure enough, off it went. So I went online to find out if the battery was covered. The tech support guy told me that my warrantee expired yesterday, but batteries are only covered in the first year anyway. I opened another tab in my browser and checked prices on their website, which ranged from $180 for a new “extended capacity” battery, or $140 for a refurbished lower capacity battery. He told me to check with Sales for prices on a new one. I told him I’d try Google first.
Coda II
UPDATE 2007-09-20: Someone else from Dell just called, asking me exactly the same questions. She asked if I was aware that the contracts were up, and I said I was, in fact I spoke to someone yesterday.
“Did you get it all cleared up?” she asked, as if clearly there had been some mistake that they were helping me rectify.
“Yes,” I said, hoping that would be the end of it.
“And did you end up renewing those contracts?”
“No”
“Can I ask why?”
“Not interested.”
“Can I ask why you aren’t interested? Because I see here you have (she listed all the various support things that we supposedly have on them) so if anything goes wrong with them we’ll fix them.”
“You know, the steady stream of emails and letters for the last month and now phone calls haven’t changed my mind, and in fact it’s been quite annoying. We aren’t interested, you’ve taken enough of my time, goodbye.”
If another Dell rep calls, she’s getting an airhorn in the phone.