1

I’m having a heck of a time getting a dedicated Dell account rep these days. I can’t customize on their website anymore (for the most part), and anytime I call Business Sales I’m on hold for a minimum 15-20 minutes. Does Dell even want business anymore? Sales 101 people, you gotta make it easy for people to buy your product.

At previous employers, we had a Premier account that worked ok, but I think my company is still too small for that (26 employees and growing fast). When I switch companies, I try to bring reps with me at various resellers because good ones are so darned hard to find!! What is wrong with these companies??

So I need quotes on more OptiPlexes. I always need at least a Dell quote, since our CTO fancies them (and his brother is some C-level bigshot at Dell in South Africa), and they usually have better prices than HP, for example. I don’t have time to build my own these days.

So what does it take? Do they even offer account reps for SMB customers anymore? Our technology needs approach Enterprise, and are solidly Enterprise in several areas, even if our hardware purchases aren’t quite there yet.

Every time I call Business Sales, I have had to wait a minimum of 15-20 minutes, and I just won’t do it anymore, I don’t have the time. I don’t even have time to think.

Any ideas what’s going on over there? Suicide maybe? I’d really like a dedicated rep I can call whenever I need to. It’s too bad CDW doesn’t have a good reseller relationship, I have a good guy over there who’s on it whenever I need him.

Thanks

Rhiannon

@Dell_Technologies

9 Spice ups
2

message Ivan @ Dell . I spoke with him when I was looking for a rep and they hooked me up with one.

4 Spice ups
3

Get the e-mail address of the C-Level exec, and tell him that the rep situation here is, well, rough. We have a premier account, and we’ve had more than a dozen reps in six years; we stopped trying to learn their names because, frankly, they won’t be around long.

@Dell_Technologies

3 Spice ups
4

Thanks David, I will try that.

Rhiannon

1 Spice up
5

I might have to try that, if I can convince my CTO that it would actually help. He still thinks Dell is the Dell of years past.

Rhiannon

1 Spice up
6

Aaaaaand, apparently Dell does not sell business-class machines with Windows 8. WTF?? As much as I would prefer 7, our Software Engineers require 8.1 for development, and I don’t have time to sit around upgrading 3 brand-new machines.

I still need a rep, but it looks like Dell is out of the running for new PCs until they change a few things, and offer 8. I can’t even get an SSD + 7200 rpm hard drive installed.

Rhiannon

7

Where were you told that? We have multiple latitude and optiplex machines that were shipped from Dell with Windows8. All of which have SSDs…

1 Spice up
8

Also, here is a link for a dell rep to contact you.

https://marketing.dell.com/social-media/contact-dell

1 Spice up
9

Dell reps have been abandoning ship in droves. Some account managers had their accounts doubled or tripled due to this.

3 Spice ups
10

I work for a small Police Department in Northern NYS and we are in the same boat. We haven’t had a reliable Dell rep in over a year.

1 Spice up
11

have you tried talking to Ivan yet? he can normally get you in touch with someone there or maybe you should try and find a local DELL partner to help you out.

2 Spice ups
12

Agreed, we were ordering business class 7010’s last fall and they had 8.0 by default. Had to have the Dell rep make it 7.

3 Spice ups
13

Dear Rhiannon97206,

Unfortunately, this is Dell and I do have the same issue. I do sallow my pride when I try to reach to my Dell sales rep because their Dell Optiplex can come with heavily discounted Acrobat standard. The Dell rep are non responsive and discard my emails. If wasn’t the discounted Acrobat then I would divorce them long time ago.

1 Spice up
14

As you rightly allude to, Dell is not the Dell of years past. This same may hold true even after you (hopefully) manage to get your desired Dedicated Account Rep. We have one, and certainly it is better than not having one, but things usually go like this:

Call the Rep. and get voicemail something like: “it’s best to send me email, but leave a msg if u like and I may get back to you”. Leave a msg. and only get a “prompt” return call (by the next day) 25% of the time. Lucky if you get a return at all. If you do actually get to speak with the Rep. things usually (70%) go OK.

Instead write up an email and send to the Rep. Again, only get a “prompt” return email (by the next day) 25% of the time. Lucky if you get a return at all without having to send repeated “reminder” emails advising that you are still awaiting a response. If if you get a response, often it will be like your original email was not fully read and thus your questions only half answered.

Worst case is if you Rep. chooses to refer your question or quote request off to some other Dell group (Backups, Servers, Accounting, etc.). Good luck ever hearing back from them direct. If you pester your Rep. enough they may get the other Group to finally answer the Rep., him who in turn may answer you.

Sometimes we play these games for weeks.

That said, I more or less really like our main Rep. and don’t completely fault him. Some of may be on him, but much of it seems to be due to having too many accounts assigned to keep up with, needing to rely on other Dell Groups and overall disorganization within Dell itself.

1 Spice up
15

They are going through the re-org to a private company. My theory is they’re dealing with a little turn-over/restructuring. I hope it gets fixed soon!

16

Do like I did and drop going to Dell directly. I use Zones for my Dell computers and they get me better pricing then my Dell rep could.

3 Spice ups
17

I have had problems as well… I’ve been with my company a little over a year and we’ve had 4 Dell rep changes. We are a complete Dell shop and are on a leasing progran as well. So we also deal with Dell Financial.I have had 3 DFS reps in a year. They do not broadcast the change and I usually find out after I have emailed my rep and have had no response for several days.

Its quite ridiculous… Maybe Dell has gotten too big for their britches.

I have heard that they do a lot of internal promoting and changing of jobs, but I feel when you have over 200 machines on a leasing program, you would hope to get a little dedication and attention. When you are replacing upwards of 14 machines a month on some occasions, the support is 100% needed.

18

I have heard that as well, but I’ve been hearing that for almost a year!! I wonder how long it takes?

I have worked with Dell for over 10 years and their support and responses have never ever been as poor as it is now.

It so bad now that my boss is ready to pull our lease agreements and go to some other company. I really don’t want that because it would make my job suck… LOL

1 Spice up
19

We have had 4 reps in a year. As soon as you get used to one, they switch it up…

20

We had the same problems before the re-org to a private company. That’s just the excuse they are using now, IMHO.