Brian Clair bought his Dell laptop computer in November, but it has been in the shop getting fixed longer than it has actually been in his possession.
Clair is among consumers who say Dell Computer Corp.’s service is deteriorating.
The Austin, Texas, company has credited its recent growth to a rise in consumer sales and has received many awards for its service record.
But Dell’s once-solid reputation for taking care of customers is showing some dents, said Clair, publisher of Adrenaline Vault, a video game review site based in Glenville, N.Y. After he published a commentary about his problems, Clair said he was flooded with responses from sympathetic Dell customers.
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Any increase in the number of complaints on customer service is simply due to the huge growth in consumer sales, said Mike Jackson, director of consumer customer support for Dell.
Just last month, Dell said it would earn more than it originally expected in the fourth quarter because consumers were buying 50 percent more PCs than in the third quarter.
An increase in consumers is likely to lead to an increase in individual complaints, Jackson said. But the overall percentage of complaints per consumer hasn’t changed, he said.
Dell’s service is a victim of the company’s success, said Rob Enderle, of Giga Information Group. Though the company is a master of meeting a spike in demand in time to satisfy customers, it simply wasn’t ready for the sales it received, he said.