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I debated re-opening an old thread ( http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/26633-dell-extended-warranty-they-did-things-the-right-way )…

I’m a one man IT shop (normally two man, but a good 2nd man’s hard to find currently :wink: ) and rarely get the better end of the stick from Dell. I feel like I’m always shuffled around sales, and have to fight tooth and nail to get anything out of support.

I spent half an hour this morning trying to get a hard drive replaced under warranty. Knowing they probably wouldn’t, I even have a replacement drive that I picked up from my local vendor yesterday for $79 sitting on top of the laptop right now.

Issue #1) Dell sets the start date for the warranty at the date of shipment. Done. No if’s and’s or but’s about it. There’s no weaseling around with the fact that I purchased the laptop as a reseller and the end client didn’t get it 'till later (though, to their defense, it’s still 3+ weeks past that).

Issue #2) If the issue’s not reported within the warranty period, too bad. Regardless of my documentation of the problem (have an eventlog with chkdsk results), if it wasn’t reported to Dell, they can’t do anything.

Issue #3) My “partner” status means nothing. Regardless of the main points in issues #1 and #2, you’d think that my work in selling their equipment and supporting it directly (saving them money and effort on both counts) would be worth something… It’s not. I’m worthless apparently. And my doubled time (troubleshooting the issue, then dealing with Dell) isn’t valuable…

Then the client wants to know about extended warranties. Should they have purchased extended warranties and accidental damage protection? They purchased five laptops in a three month period. One has a broken screen (user broke) and one has a bad hard drive. The one with a broken screen is still under warranty, but not accidental damage protection. The one with a bad hard drive is the one from above – warranty expired 3/27 (delivered to client on 4/4). For 2 year warranty + 2 year accidental damage on all five, it would have been $850~1000. Granted, we’re only a year in now, but hardware costs are $70 for a screen and $79 for a hard drive.

So, the client’s happy they didn’t buy the extra warranty. I can’t blame 'em.

I… I dunno. I’m just tired. I need to go eat some lunch…

9 Spice ups
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Hmmm…9 paragraphs and no pictures. I’ll spice it up, but I can’t read it.

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Heh – sorry. I couldn’t think of any non-offensive pictures to include :wink:

Short version: make sure you report all your possible hardware problems to Dell so they have record of it prior to their “we don’t think you actually re-sell our stuff” warranty expiration.

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I recommend Dell and generally pleased with support but I have never seen any advantaged in being a partner only disadvantages.

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I switched from Dell to HP because I have a local “White Box” dealer. I don’t prefer HP over Dell but having a local resource works well for me. He keeps a good selection on hand if I need something today. If he needs to order something I can usually get it in a couple of days without paying for shipping. The warranty starts when I take possession from him. And when something does go bad I don’t have to call an 800 number and explain myself or run through diagnostics with a rep. I call and say I need a new optical drive, hard drive, etc and I get it the next day. If you can find someone like that it will make life easier.

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I have to say I’ve never had a problem with Dell’s warranty support. In fact we switched from HP to Dell because their support is better.

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I’ve had issues with Dell with them calling themselves a “Global Company” when my company has people who travel all over the world but when a person goes from one region i.e. EMEA to Americas then it’s a big hassle (even though we have so called International support). I recently emailed our account manager at Dell cause our US office is getting sick of the support they get from Dell whereas in the EMEA region it’s great.

They just aren’t consistent enough and it’s a sure fire way of losing customers … my Ops guy in the US wants to change vendor.

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unevenload wrote:

I switched from Dell to HP because I have a local “White Box” dealer. I don’t prefer HP over Dell but having a local resource works well for me. He keeps a good selection on hand if I need something today. If he needs to order something I can usually get it in a couple of days without paying for shipping. The warranty starts when I take possession from him. And when something does go bad I don’t have to call an 800 number and explain myself or run through diagnostics with a rep. I call and say I need a new optical drive, hard drive, etc and I get it the next day. If you can find someone like that it will make life easier.

Oh wow – that DOES sound awesome. Can I ask what that dealer’s company name is? I’m trying to figure out how I’d even determine if such an entity exists around here.

Honestly, I wish vendors would offer a clearcut path to become that setup. If they want me to pass a couple tests or something, I’m fine with doing that. More than worth the drop in headaches.

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I will PM it to you.

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I have had a lot of issues with Dell and their warrenties. The last issue was with an i7 Dell XPS gaming system, at my house, that had the Total Care Warrenty. The system kept just shutting off and Dell decided to swap out the motherboard. The tech that swapped out the motherboard did not plug in the CPU cooling fan correctly, missed one pin, and the fan was not spinning at all. The system went up in smoke about 10 minutes later. Dell decided to replace the entire system but since they did not make the XPS gaming systems anymore, this was when they were taking over AlienWare, they offered me a Core 2 Duo system. I turned down the replacement system as it was not even close to the specs of the system that their tech burned up. When they finally shipped me out a new AlienWare system I found out that the warrenty was still counting down for the 3 months it took them to build and send out the replacement system. Then they were wondering as to why I was not interested in purchasing an extended warrenty.

I build all of my desktop systems myself now and have switched to HP for the servers at work. Way better performance and a lot cheaper.

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I’m similiar in size 2 full time and 2 part-time. I’m just a Dell reistered partner, but they have always treated me like gold. I have had a few unhappy events on basic warranty, but Pro-Supporet has been stellar to say the least. I get at least a call a week from HP wanting me to sell their equipment, then proceed to tell me I have to get a D&B number blah, blah, blah. I say no thanks. I keep all warranty equipment I sell under the company name as long as it is warranty to be the middle person between my clients and Dell. However, if the client just wants basic warranty I bill them for our labor time. And I explain that to my clients upfront to make them realize that when you get the basic support it doesn’t mean fast resolution. It takes longer as the support desk on basic has to work through a script on each problem and Pro has taken me on the average over the last 4 years no longer than 30 minutes on a call.

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We only use Dells within our organisation and I am generally happy. If something breaks and it is under warranty they are generally good in replacing the parts. Granted you have to go through all of the troubleshooting exercises with the support people, but once this is done this the part normally tips up the next day. I agree though that they are not very when things are out of warranty so you have to make sure this doesnt happen. It is probably easy to do this in the work place rather than with your average home user. Bottom line is dont let your warranty run out if you expect dell to sort it free of charge.

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Though I agree the overall bottom line is to just not let the warranty run out - my third issue is the one that “hurts” the most. If all I’m going to get out of my relationship with dell is 6% on the front end, it’s not worth it. I think it should be worth more to them that I’m doing the sales work for them and that I’m doing the support work for them.

If they know who sane people like us are, they could handle our support calls with a quarter of the current support staff. Rather than an hour re-doing all the diagnostics that I’ve already done, they could just spend 5-10 minutes getting the replacement set up.

So, I’m re-thinking even bothering with being the middle man. “sorry mr customer, it’s really not worth it to me to be in the middle of this. just buy it yourself. you should buy pro-support too, 'cause they don’t care that you already have somebody sane supporting you.”

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@mjolly1045,

Sorry to hear about issues you had with tech support. Please let me know if I can help you resolve those issues and also if I can provide you with additional information on various programs that are available for Dell Channel Partners/ Dell Certified IT services providers.

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Below is the link to Dell Hardware Maintenance Certification program ( end users) . Dell Channel Partners have access to a partner specific program on Channel Partner Portal.

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Following up in case anybody wants to know :wink:

@Ivan – thanks for contacting me!

Through him and eventually through my sales rep’s manager, I found out about Dell’s “Online Self Dispatch” program ( https://www.dosd.dell.com/portal/en/Home.aspx ). Theoretically, the “tier 1” “Self-Maintainer” option is free and will supposedly work for me. I’ve signed up, so we’ll see :wink:

My only potential issues that I’m keeping an eye out for:

  1. Technically, I think I’m supposed to fall into the “Service Provider” category, but that’d require my clients to be purchasing the systems directly, and for them to have a customer number. Since I’m doing the bulk of the purchasing for 'em, I was told to select “Self-Maintainer”. The wording on the application seems to imply that’s only for systems purchased for within the company (my company)… That’s not right either… Hm… We’ll see :wink:

  2. The terms and conditions document noted needing to keep 100 systems with NBD support on 'em (another document implied 100 systems with pro-support) and having 2 dell certified techs on staff. Right now it’s just me, so… I might line up with the first condition, but definitely not the second. Quite awesomely though, the application process allowed me to check “I do NOT agree to the terms and conditions” and provide an explanation. So, here’s to hoping :wink:

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mjolly1045

I’m not sure if I remember correctly, but I looked into self dispatch at one time and according to the fine print, you have to have “two tech’s” at your location to certify. It might be different now however…would be nice if it was… :slight_smile: