Secret Formula For Getting Fast Repair Service From Dell

I have discovered the formula! My last support call to Dell started as a nightmare but they did redeem themselves in the end. My experience prior to that had been quite unpleasant as well, because in that case they had to wait about three weeks for a part before they could repair my laptop, which I had shipped to them. Today, however, I got my laptop back after having shipped it to them for another round of repairs just three days ago.

The laptop had a lot of problems. The root of the problem was that the case was falling apart. There was a crack in the back right corner, and the right-hand hinge for the screen had detached. The CD-ROM drive kept popping out of its bay all by itself. Also, two keys were missing from the keyboard after they fell off and wouldn't re-seat. I had been living with the keyboard that way for several months, and with the CD-ROM problem for a few weeks, figuring that with the warranty expiration coming up at the end of the year and with the long turn-around time the last time I had sent it in, the best plan was buy a new laptop in late November and then ship this one back to Dell for warranty repairs in December so that I could either sell it or find a non-critical use for it here. But with the screen hanging on only by one hinge, I couldn't wait for November to take action. It had to go in now, and since I have a trip in a couple of weeks I'd have to either know I was going to get it back from Dell very soon, or I'd have to purchase a new laptop.

So, yesterday I went to the Dell support web site, logged into my account, entered my service tag number, and checked for status information on my repair. There was no info there at all. "Uh, oh!" I said to myself. "They haven't even checked it in yet. That's bad." So I went to the sales side of Dell's web site and started pricing new laptops. I also went to a few other vendors' sites, and a few retail chain sites. I'll be looking for a high-end machine, upgradeability to 2GB RAM is the primary requirement that I want it to meet so that I can run several Virtual PC systems or maybe even do some work with Lotus Workplace. I figure that anything in that category is going to have a fast enough processor, and can be equipped with anything else I'm going to need. I don't want one of those 17" wide screen behemoths. The Dell Inspiron 5160 looked good, although the current one is an Inspiron and it's been a little fragile, so a Lattitude model might be preferable. But the trouble was that the ship date listed on the Dell site for orders submitted yesterday would not get it here in time for my trip. I concluded that I would probably have to buy in a local retail store.

So, this morning I went out to CompUSA, BestBuy, Circuit City, and a local mom-and-pop computer store. Circuit City had a very helpful salesman who located an HP machine that met my specs, and the price was more or less the same as Dell's would be after including the service contract and a $100 rebate. The mom-and-pop store, however, had custom-build laptops for a much better price. The reason: they don't make you buy the stock RAM and then replace it with bigger sticks the way the retail chains stores do and Dell effectively does too (because they won't sell it to you without RAM and they overcharge for RAM upgrades, so you end up better off buying with their minimal configuration and getting the upgrade from a third party), and because they'll sell it to you without an operating system! I'm covered for the operating system already through the Microsoft Action Pack and Empower programs. Now, I don't know how good these machines are, but the savings are significant enough that it was definitely worth researching them a bit, so I drove home with the info about the laptop manufacturer figuring I'd check them out on the web.

When I got home, I found my Dell waiting for me. The moral of the story: it's just like when you're at a restaurant. If you want your food to arrive, the one thing you can do to assure that it will be delivered quickly is get up and go to the bathroom. It's guaranteed to be there when you get back, already cooled off. And if you want your laptop repaired fast, go out shopping for another laptop from a different vendor. Worked for me, anyhow :-)