Successful Conclusion to Churchill Dispute

This actually happened a few weeks back, but I've been on holiday for two weeks, so no chance to update before now.

After disputing the offer I was made by Churchill, I finally got to speak to a far more reasonable and understanding person in the Customer Complaints team. He agreed that it wasn't just about specification, but also about the brand of the product - even though this is not clear in the policy wording.

We haggled a bit over the final amount, but in the end I am pleased with the result and believe it was a good compromise that allows me to go out and buy a laptop of similar style.

It's a shame it took several complaints and emails before getting to that point - I even had to chase up after receiving a letter promising a prompt response, after I had waited two weeks.

Personally I think Churchill Insurance keeps the language on their policy deliberately vague in their policy for this sort of issue, as I doubt many people would push as hard as I did. If that is the case then I do not like that business style, as it comes across as trying to provide a minimum level of service and not caring about the quality. If you compare that with the level of service you get with a brand like Apple, it just doesn't stack up.

Anyway, a good result and yet another reminder that it pays to be persistent and stand up for your rights

If at first you don't succeed...keep going

After a couple of days of waiting and playing phone tag, I’ve just come off the phone with one of the senior team in the Claims department at Churchill Insurance. Unfortunately, their position has not changed and they are only offering a new laptop based on spec not brand.

He explained that this is their company policy, but had no real answer when I challenged this as this is not stated anywhere in the current policy wording.

The matter has now been passed to the Customer Relations team, who will apparently write to me first before contacting me.

In the meantime, after writing the original blog, I tweeted about the situation to a few consumer advice gurus and had some feedback from Paul Lewis of BBC Moneybox

His first response was “New for old should mean what it says. Challenge the claim and if no joy then go to Ombudsman.” When I explained about the age of the laptop and the specification issue, he replied “Problem of advancing technology. Decide what you think is fair, ask for it, and if no then complain, if no again go to ombudsm”

I agree with him and think it is fair to have my old Sony laptop replaced by another Sony Laptop, not a bulky plasticky feeling Samsung. I will wait to hear what response I get from Customer relations.

In a related matter, they have agreed, in principle, to replace the software on the laptop – the major cost being Microsoft Office Professional – have submitted estimates to replace this and am waiting again to see what they offer.

Do you believe your Insurance company?

I can feel another dispute coming on, this time with Churchill insurance, a dispute over a home insurance claim.

Specifically, this dispute is arising from the definition of “as new” also known as “new for old”.

In this case an old laptop was accidentally damaged and has been assessed as uneconomic for repair – so far so good.  The laptop was a Sony Vaio, a premium brand, which when bought for over £1200, was described as a “desktop replacement entertainment machine” and in independent reviews, it was described as "Extremely elegant and time proof design” and  T3 magazine said “It looks hotter than a bikini-clad Caprice, has a great screen and uses the latest tech. All in all, it's hard to beat.”

The insurance company has offered, as a replacement, a Samsung laptop reviewed by PC Advisor as: “Build quality is also fairly solid, if a bit chunky and plasticky feeling. It’s a well-rounded package and certainly worth short-listing if you’re shopping for a no-frills laptop under £500”

On the face of it, hardly a good comparison.

So how can the insurance think this is a good replacement?  Well they say it is because it is a much better technical specification than the original laptop – which it is.  Not surprisingly of course with Moore’s Law driving tech specs higher and higher every 18 months – it’s impossible to buy a brand new laptop with the old specification.

So why am I unhappy?  Well, although, I would get a new laptop with a much better specification than I had – I am a bit of a brand junkie and Sony have been my brand of choice for a lot of my high tech kit for a long time (excepting my Apple iPhone)

Personally I don’t think replacing a high end (in  its day) well designed premium brand laptop with a chunky, plasticky no-frills laptop is what “as new” means.  Choosing a new laptop isn’t just about processor speed, RAM and Gigabytes, it’s also about the emotional Brand choice.

 However, this is where the problem comes in - there is no actual definition in the policy of “As new”, certainly no mention of “equivalent or better specification”.

For curiosity, I checked the policy documents for a few other major insurance companies and they are all just as vague.  The only one that is different is a mention on a review site I found about how Sainsbury’s Bank interprets “New for Old”.  It says:

“Sainsbury's Bank offers you peace of mind at affordable rates and with superb customer service. Policy holder's claims are handled promptly allowing the policy holder to rebuild or replace that which is most important. With the “New For Old” feature, the policy holder who paid £125 for a brand new television in the 90s will be able to get the same quality of television today even if that television costs £300. Why? Because Sainsbury's Bank sees you as a person not just as another account or policy holder; because Sainsbury's Banks understands if you are comfortable and believe in their service, you will continue to be a client year after year.”

I think this type of clear and unambiguous language is exactly what consumers need and I applaud it, although I couldn't actually find this on the current Sainsbury's bank website.

I then telephoned the Association of British Insurers and asked if there was an Industry best practice about the interpretation of “new for Old” – surprisingly there isn’t.

This is main reason, why I have decided to pursue this a bit further – I wonder how many people just accept this type of replacement, glad to have their kit replaced. 

But I don’t think it should be this way, Insurance companies looking for every opportunity to minimise their payout.  Policy documents need to be explicit about what “New for Old” actually means so when consumers are shopping around for the right policy for them, it is clear what they are getting.

If you know of any case studies in this area, please do comment and let me know, or you can reach me via Twitter

123-Reg - Problem resolved, but core issues remain

As of this morning, I now have 4 working websites, with 4 separate webhosting packages - effectively back to where I started over two weeks ago - except the packages I now have are better and allow the use of Wordpress.

So, overall I am better off, but I would have preferred not to have had the inconvenience and hassle of this whole experience.

In the end, 123-reg did the right thing, sorted it out and apologised.  However, looking at some of the comments I have received after writing this blog and describing my experiences on Twitter, I think 123-reg still have some significant issues with their products and services. 

123-reg - The end maybe in sight

10.15 this morning I get a phone call from the Senior Technical Consultant at 123-reg, he mentions specifically he is calling because of my email to Thomas Vollrath and the catalogue of errors over the past two weeks.

He apologised profusely for the experience I have had and has offered to give me 4 seperate hosting packages - one for each domain - at no cost, to resolve this experience.  It's clear that the Shared web hosting and domain sharing package at 123-reg has some significant issues, so I agreed with him that this was probably the most reliable solution.

He was also apologetic about the way the customer service and support teams have dealt with my issues and reassured me that this is not how they want to deal with customers.

So, top marks to 123-reg for a prompt response to my blog and email, but the fact remains that it should not have had to go that far.

What was also interesting, was that he had clearly read my blog in detail and tried to respond to some specific comments that I made, for example, using a customer complaint as an opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

So, I hope the end is in sight, I've had this call - he has followed up with an email telling me what he will do, now let's wait and see if they actually follow through quickly

I hope 123-reg learn from this experience, rolling out new products and services is always difficult, but a core part of this process is not just testing that things work, but effectively preparing other parts of the business, namely technical support and customer service, to be able to deal with issues or avoid them completely.  The guy who called me freely admitted, that I should never have been offered the shared hosting package with the intended use I had outlined - if that is the case - why didn't Customer Services know this?

123-reg webhosting - Named and Shamed as providing poor customer service

It’s been quite a while since I have written on this blog – I really should get out of the habit of writing only when I am complaining about something – but I tend to use Twitter for my day to day comments.

So this post is about another example of poor customer service and my struggle to get a decent response from a big business when something goes wrong.

In every case when I have a complaint like this, I always try to go through the internal customer service and complaints process and only resort to this type of activity when my patience is exhausted.

So this time it’s about webhosting.

I’ve used 123-reg.co.uk for many years as both to purchase domains, manage my email domains and host my websites.

I have 4 separate domains hosted with 123-reg.co.uk:

• mutton.co.uk – a personal page really only bought for the email domain
• Thirdaspect.co.uk – a corporate site for my consultancy business
• Brosena.co.uk – a corporate site for an Irish Dancing business
• Elitesecretarialservices.co.uk – a corporate site for my partner’s virtual PA business

For each domain I had purchased just the basic hosting package as none of the sites have high traffic.  The original package did not allow installation of any software such as Wordpress or Drupal, just basic HTML

I recently decided to move some of the sites over to use a CMS system and chose Wordpress for the broad range of Themes available as well as the ease of use.  I logged into the 123-reg.co.uk website to look at upgrading my webhosting to allow the installation and I noticed that all the packages had been updated to now offer Wordpress as a free app for all webhosting packages.  I also noticed that they were now offering shared hosting for multiple domains in just one webhosting package.

So instead of having 4 separate webhosting packages with 4 separate domains – it looked like I would be able to have just 1 hosting package with 4 domains hosted within it.

(Technically this was the first mistake made by 123-reg by not offering existing customers the benefits of their new packages, or being ready to offer them to old customers who notice the change – why do businesses alienate their best customers like this – customers who actually already paying good money for their services)

So I called 123-reg on Wednesday 8 June and talked to their customer service teams – I explained what I wanted to do and they told me that as an existing customer the new packages were not yet available for me – only to new customers, but it was suggested if I upgraded 1 of the hosting packages to the next level – business hosting – I would get all the new services and then I could cancel the other 3 hosting packages and get a pro-rata refund on the unused portions (they were annual packages)

This sounded good to me, so I agreed – I paid for a new annual package (about £75) and was told to copy my websites into the new webhosting, then use domain mapping to point my domains at the new versions.  I was also advised that the DNS change could take up to 48 hours  but should happen very quickly as it was all within the 123-reg shared hosting.

I copied the files across and then tried to use the domain mapping to point the domains to the right place.

Mistake 1

Unfortunately the 123-reg control panel can be a bit temperamental – I could see exactly what I should be doing, choosing a domain, then choosing where to map it to – but every time I tried, in multiple browsers, the form never populated with data so I couldn’t actually do it.  So I raised the first support ticket on Thursday 9^th June.

I got a very fast response to my ticket – within 6 minutes – telling me the domain mapping had been put in place but that I should wait up to 48 hours for the DNS change.

Content with this, I got on with installing Wordpress into the one domain that was already within the webhosting and started to build a new website.

48 hours passed and I could see no change to the hosting listed for my domains in the 123-reg control panel.  To see if anything had happened, I logged into my webhosting via FTP and made a small change to one of the site homepages and then refreshed the site – no change was reflected, so I could tell the domain was still loading the old version of the website.

I posted an update to the ticket stating that the domain mapping had not taken affect and it had been over 48 hours.

Mistake 2

This time it took 2 days to get answer (Saturday to Monday) – telling me that the Domain mapping wouldn’t work until the old webhosting had been deleted and could I call their Customer Services to resolve matter.  Why should I have to call them, costing me money, when what they had told me to do didn’t work?

Hoping to resolve this matter quickly, I did call and spoke to a customer service team member, who frankly, did not know what they were talking about.  First they claimed that the person I had spoken to the previous week had done the wrong thing, pointed the domains to the original webhosting and said what I actually needed to do was web forwarding and he transferred me to a technical helpline.

The second person I spoke to disagreed and said no it was definitely Domain Forwarding and said I needed to speak to another team – again I was transferred.  This time I sat on hold for 20 minutes until giving up in disgust.

I raised another ticket and asked for somebody to call me back.  Nobody did.

If it is clear that a customer has an unresolved problem and the company admits it was their fault, surely best practice would be for someone in the customer service team to take ownership of the problem and try to resolve it, not keep passing the customer from team to team?

12 hours go by and get an answer to my ticket saying, the three old webhosting packages need to be deleted before any Domain Mapping will work, only the Customer Relationship team can do this so please call them.

Mistake 3

I telephoned and tried to resolve the matter over the phone.  The person I spoke to again didn’t seem to know what was going on and what was the best thing to do or who was the best person to speak to.  I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told nobody was available.  I asked for a supervisor to call me and was told we don’t call customers.  I insisted that somebody call me back otherwise I would take the complaint further and I was reassured someone would call me.

Nobody called back and my original ticket with the history of the issue was closed as resolved.

Companies who do not have an effective complaint escalation procedure are missing an opportunity to turn a negative experience in to a positive experience through good service. 

I recently had occasion to use an Apple Genius Bar repair service in an Apple store in London and the end result far exceeded my expectations, leaving me with a very positive feeling about the business – one which I proceeded to share to my professional network via Social Media

Mistakes 4 & 5

On 15 June, I opened a new ticket, referenced the old ticket and asked for a call back

Within three hours I had a reply asking me for more information – obviously the agent replying had not bothered to read the original ticket.

I did however then receive a call back from a supervisor.  I explained all the problems I had been having. She was quite brusque with me and stated:

• I should not have been told I would get a refund on the old packages, they don’t do that
• I really need to talk to a technical person who could resolve this for m
• As a gesture of goodwill, she would extend my new webhosting package by 1 year 

I accepted the year extension and asked her to put it in an email to confirm what she had done.

I was then put through to the person the supervisor said could solve all the problems and was immediately told, actually no, I still need to speak to the webhosting team and she was about to transfer me. 

I told her that I had no confidence in that team and had been assured she could help.  So in the end, she proceeded to delete the original hosting and set up the domain mapping I originally had tried to do a week ago – it took less than 5 minutes.

I was told (again) it might take 48 hours to resolve the DNS changes and in that time all three of my other domains would be unavailable.

Unhappy with this, but content that I seemed to have found someone who actually knew what they were talking about, I resolved to wait for the domains to reappear.  I also reminded her that I had not received any email from her colleague about the extension to my webhosting.

If a company chooses to offer a service such as multiple domain hosting in a shared web hosting environment, then they have a duty of care to existing customers to deliver a high quality service that minimises disruption to a customer’s business.  In addition, if a customer service rep promises to do something, they must follow through.

Mistakes 6

17 June came around and none of my domains had reappeared – in fact, if anybody tried to access any one of the three domains, they were immediately redirected to the 4^th domain that was sitting in the root of the web hosting – a totally unconnected brand – very confusing for the visitor.

I called the helpful customer service agent back asking for help and she said I needed to now speak to webhosting team – but she promised to talk to them first and explain the situation.  I waited on hold and then she came back and told me that the failure of the Domain Mapping was a “known issue” and had been escalated in their engineering team – but no idea when it would be resolved, so I just had to wait.

If a company experiences a major technical issue that requires escalation, surely they should notify affected customers ASAP, especially customers who have already raised this issue independently?

Mistake 7

I added a comment to the ticket on Saturday 18 June, complaining about the lack of contact, the outstanding issue and the fact that as it was the weekend, no doubt nobody would respond to me before Monday

If a company delivers a service in a 24/7 environment such as webhosting, then a 24/7 customer response should also be available

Mistakes 8 & 9

Monday 20 June, still no response (as expected) and now I notice no email being received on one of my domains.  I update the original ticket and add a new one for the email issue

I receive an answer within 10 minutes, stating that it looks like what I want to do and have always wanted to do – namely, have multiple domains in one webhosting all using Wordpress is actually not possible.  It actually says:

“However, this is an oversight I believe in the way 123-Apps and the new "mapping" features work together and will need to be properly investigated and debugged by our development team"

The reply then goes on to suggest a possible temporary solution and asks if I want to proceed.

I give my permission to proceed and immediately my three other websites are suddenly available, but now the 4^th - Wordpress site – is now not loading correctly.

When a company discovers that one of its services is flawed and is not delivering what has been promised, they have an obligation to resolve the issue ASAP and discuss the resolution with affected customers – I would suggest this should not be done by technical staff but should have been raised to a more senior level

Mistakes 10 & 11

Over the next two days, I have regular dialogue with the technical support agent trying to resolve this issue and get all 4 sites available.  The agent tells me at one point:

“So basically, by trying to fix things with workarounds, we are clouding the original issue and making things worse for elitesecretarialservices.co.uk”

So he freely admits this is a workaround and the core underlying system IS FLAWED.  I try several times to talk on the phone with him, but repeatedly told “we don’t do call-backs” so we continue using the ticketing system.

Finally by re-installing the 4^th website from a back-up earlier in the week, we manage to get the site back up and all 4 of my sites are available.

I ask if there is any reason why I should NOT install Wordpress into any of the other domains and I am told:

"No, I can think of no reason why you would not be able to install Wordpress as either a 123-App or directly from Wordpress for any of those mapped domains"

So I attempt to install Wordpress into one of my other domains but although it says it installed, when I try to access the Wordpress Admin control panel, I get a failed page.  So I uninstall, thinking I will try again.

I don’t know why, but I decided to check on the status of my other domains and discover, that my 1^st Wordpress site has disappeared – I login to the webhosting by FTP and I can see the whole site has been deleted and I realise what has happened.  My attempted installation in one of the mapped domains resulted in Wordpress being re-installed into the root of the webhosting and it overwrote my other site – when I deleted it – the website was deleted too.

I update the ticket and call the entire webhosting system from 123-reg a pile of shit – obviously a personal opinion.

I state my disgust as the level of service, poor quality of the product and the catalogue of errors over the past two weeks – I ask for a call back by a supervisor.

The immediate response is sorry we don’t do call backs, but here is our address if you want to write to us.

Enough is enough – I put my blogging hat on and tweet about the crap service.

I used to work in a business that had a simple strategy for dealing with problems – if you discovered a problem, you own it until you can pass it on to somebody who can resolve it.

How can a company like 123-reg owned by Web Fusion Ltd., claim on its own website to deliver outstanding customer care when its customer service agents openly admit their own products are flawed, fail to resolve the core problem and then hide behind a customer service doctrine of not actually calling customers when they have made a complaint.

I have sent a link to this blog via LinkedIn to Thomas Vollrath, MD of Web Fusion – I have also tweeted him, but I will not be able to read what he might say as he has protected his Twitter profile and I can’t follow him, without his permission.

 I’ll let you know his response (if I get one)

My Dell Hell – It’s Over and I won :)

I’ve just come out of court from the hearing to decide my claim for compensation against Dell Computers.

If you have read my blog, you will know that I chose to take Dell to court at the end of a long dispute regarding two Inspiron 1545 laptops I ordered pre Christmas.

My decision to take this to court was twofold:

• First, to receive recognition and some compensation for the appalling customer service that I experienced that resulted in my 12 year old son Daniel not receiving his Christmas present in time
• Second, to demonstrate to Dell that they can’t expect to treat customers like this without consequences. I want to show that they need to treat their customers with respect and be responsive to complaints more effectively than in this case.

The hard thing in this case was how to value my time and set an appropriate level of compensation. I did this by calculating how much time I had spent and valuing this at an hourly rate that I regularly charge for my consultancy business.

I was also claiming for loss of use of the laptop by my son and the value of missing software that was in the original order but did not make it into the replacement

In court today, attending on behalf of Dell was a barrister and a solicitor, whilst I chose to represent myself. I’ve had some experience of courts through my divorce, but I was surprised to see a barrister in attendance
My approach to the case was to claim that Dell were in breach of their own terms and conditions for not providing confirmed order documentation and not communicating with me in the manner or the timescales outlined in the conditions.

Dell’s approach was to focus on the minutiae of the law regarding : legal liability for an order; at what point was the order confirmed; what was a reasonable time to deliver it and what was a reasonable time to resolve a dispute

Interesting to note, Dell reserves the right in their T&Cs to change the specification of a system so long as the changes offer at least equivalent functionality

In my case, the original laptop included Napster software and a 12 month subscription to the online streaming service – this was not in the replacement laptop and dell offered me Office Home and Student as an alternative

Both I and the barrister had opportunity to put forward our case, answer questions from the judge and clarify and question each other on the evidence given

The judge then made a quick decision and in summary he found:

• Dell were in breach of contract to deliver the laptop in a reasonable time frame, although from a legal perspective “Time was not of the essence”
• There was a period of 2-3 weeks when there was a loss of use
• The missing software should have been replaced or an appropriate alternative
• I did not prove my case to receive compensation either for the amount of time or at the rate quoted
• I also received partial costs paid and did not have to pay Dell’s costs

Why did I not get all my costs? Well last week, Dell made me an offer to settle in advance of court. However this offer was conditional on not publicising the settlement, so I refused.

The judge found that as I could have accepted that offer, worth more than I received today, I could have avoided the court listing fee for today.

Consequently, whilst I won, it is a pyrrhic victory and I am slightly out of pocket.

Despite this, I have no regrets for the action I have taken. I strongly believe that if consumers do not stand up to big business occasionally we will all suffer. I took on a multi-billion dollar company and won!

It is National Complaints Day tomorrow, Friday 13th and I support this wholeheartedly and have started to participate in the forum at Complaint Community which is a very interesting approach to resolving these emotionally charged and frustrating issues

Actually I do have one regret: if I had received larger compensation then I would have gone out and bought myself a new Apple iPad – sorry Dell not interested in the Streak

Off on holiday soon, but if you would like to contact me regarding this situation, email me

My Dell Hell - Dell vs Dave Mutton - In court this Thursday 12 August, 2010

It’s been quite a while since I updated this Blog for lots of different reasons, but the main factor was that court proceedings in the UK can take a long time to process


In the last few months several important things have happened:

• I had contact from a solicitor working at Geoffrey Leaver solicitors, on behalf for Dell. He had two objectives, one was to re-arrange collection of the extra laptop which finally happened in mid April and the second was to discuss my claim
• We had several conversations based around the fact that I was looking to achieve two core objectives:
• Primarily to have Dell publicly acknowledge and apologise for their poor Customer Service
• Receive appropriate compensation for the time and effort I have gone to and for my son for the upset and inconvenience of not receiving his Christmas present on time
• Despite several calls, I think the main focus from the solicitor was retrieving the laptop and he never really gave serious consideration to my case
• Consequently, time passed, various deadlines for the court elapsed and I continued the process
• On Monday 2nd August, I had to pay a final listing fee to the court for the case to proceed. I received a letter from the solicitor on Saturday 31 July with a Without Prejudice offer from Dell. This offer of several hundred pounds would just about cover my costs incurred so far, but I feel still did not give me any compensation for the all the hassle I have gone through. Furthermore, the offer was conditional on not publicising the offer and payment in any format, such as this blog.
• I replied to the solicitor, making these points and stating that not only was the cash on offer unacceptable, but also the fact that I would not be allowed to mention the settlement was totally against one of the primary purposes of me taking this case to court in the first place
• I suggested that an improved offer, accompanied by a public letter of apology from Dell would be acceptable.
• This was formally rejected by Dell, their solicitor stated: “My clients do not consider this proposal to be reasonable and it is rejected.”

Consequently, this Thursday at 2pm I will be attending the High Wycombe County Court and defending my case for compensation from Dell Computers for terrible Customer Service

What is most interesting is a story that I saw on BBC TV news this week – which is also available on the BBC News website – here

This story was about a 59-year-old man from Rotherham who has successfully billed British Gas for his time after two years of ongoing disputes with the energy supplier.

Barry Payling said he was paid more than £2,000 by the company after he threatened to take them to court for a "horrendous catalogue of errors".

British Gas said it had paid the money as "a gesture of goodwill, an apology" - not for Mr Payling's time.

BBC TV News interviewed Sarah Pennels, a well-known personal finance journalist and broadcaster, who runs Savvywoman.co.uk

This is perfect timing for me, setting a great precedent and I will contact Ms Pennels to see if she is interested in my case

I will try to update this blog over the next few days as and if things develop, watch this space

Dell Computers - bunch of useless incompetents

It's 7pm and what a surprise, no courier has turned up to collect the spare Inspiron 1545 laptop.

This collection was arranged one month ago, but I remembered and I would expect a multi $billion business with sophisticated customer service systems to remember too.

I'll just add it to the ever growing list of reasons why I will never buy from Dell Computers again and also raise it in court if I get the chance.

Dell Computers vs Dave Mutton Update

Nothing much has happened in the past few weeks since Dell formally acknowledged my claim. They have 28 days from the date of service to formally respond, then it's up to the court to decide what happens next. This notice expires in two weeks on Monday 22 March.

I now have the details of the solicitors acting on behalf of Dell Computers, namely, Geoffrey Leaver Solicitors based in Milton Keynes. I Wonder if they will make any effort to contact me and check the facts of the matter before making their response. I don't hold any hope that Dell Customer services in India have detailed records of my complaint as they are so inefficient.

The only other thing happening today is the extra Inspiron 1545 laptop that I have had unopened since late December, should be collected by Dell. I say should, I had confirmation on a an email on 15th February that it would be collected today, but so far had no other communication. So presumably, Dell expect me to wait in all day for their courier - I think not.

I will not go out of my way to be away from home, but neither will I wait in to ensure collection. I give it a 50% chance that a) The courier from Dell Computers actually turns up and b) I'm actually here to hand over the Inspiron 1545 laptop.

by the way, if you are reading this and you work at Dell, I had occasion to buy a new Netbook recently and guess what? I didn't buy Dell - so there is the first sale you've lost as a direct result of your incompetent customer service.

I bought a stylish Samsung N220 netbook and so far I am very happy with it.

Dell Computers vs Dave Mutton

Checked in on my court claim for compensation against Dell Computers last night and they have formally acknowledged the claim. This means they now have 28 days to prepare and file a defence.

I'm not surprised that Dell Computers legal team are more efficient than their terrible Customer Service team based in India. So it will be interesting now to see what they do next - will they try to contact me and make an offer or will they take it all the way and I'll see them in court.

Looking at my Google Analytics data, I am still getting a lot of traffic from Dell servers, so somebody over there is watching this blog - interestingly I haven't had any further traffic recently from the Radian6 service. I wonder if they changed the way they use it - getting a lot of traffic direct using my name as a search word. Maybe someone in their Social Media team realised that the when they click in the Radian6 report it shows up as a referring site to whichever blog or site they are looking at??

Finally, although my emails to Michael_Dell@dell.com didn't get a direct response, I did get my missing Inspiron laptop eventually - it's just symbolic of the inefficiency of Dell that they offered me compensation worth less than the missing software and making no allowance for the unbelievable hassle I have had dealing with their incompetent customer service team.

To anybody who is struggling with your own Dell Hell, it might be a late order for a Dell laptop or Dell desktop, a problem with Dell technical support, or any other type of Dell after sales support, my advice to keep on persevering and I recommend you do this:

• Keep a note of when and how long it takes you to do anything - this could be how long you stay on hold when you call Dell Customer Services, how long it takes you to write an email to Dell technical Support, or even how long it takes to write a blog post or Tweet about how poor Dell Computers customer service is
  
• Always ask for a name and email address for who you are talking to - they will not always give it - so make a note of that too
  
• when you send any emails always set your options to ask for a read receipt and copy everybody you have been dealing with on the same email
  
• Don't lose your temper on the phone - be polite, but don't let them get what they want which is for you to go away. If you have a legitimate problem, be persistent
  
• If it is clear that the person you are dealing with has no way to help you, then ask to speak to their supervisor - ask for their name and contact details before they transfer you (or put you on hold)
  
• If somebody says they will call you back, make sure you get:
  
  • Their name
    
  • Their contact details, name and email
    
  • A specific time when they will call back, or the latest time. Then repeat this back to them as some CS calls are recorded, e.g. "To confirm, you "their name" will call me back by 2pm on "day and date" regarding my complaint about "your problem"
    
  • ask them to email you and confirm what actions they are taking and when they will get back to you
    
  
  
• Above all else - Don't Give Up
  

I hope that helps you with your Dell Hell. I've been dealing with my complaint now since the middle of December 2009...

No News from Dell - I'm not surprised

It's been almost a week since I issued my claim in the county court for compensation from Dell Computers for terrible customer service. They have 14 days to respond and I'm hoping that they are such a disorganised company that they will not even bother to defend and I will win my claim.

Of course if they do actually choose to defend that will also be interesting as it will mean that there legal team are far more efficient than their customer service team - nice choice of priorities.

Thanks to the people who have sent me messages of support either on the blog or via Twitter - I am keeping both updated (#dellsucks on Twitter) with any news and who knows maybe I will start a trend...

Legal Process started against Dell Computers

I have today submitted a claim in the County Court for compensation against Dell Computers for their appalling customer service and arrogant attitude. Full details of this process have already been posted on this blog in my most recent posts.

To bring the record fully up to date I have been exchanging emails with a customer service rep at Dell who offered his apologies; confirmed the c£50 compensation; stated that the missing software was now no longer available (no offer of anything to replace it - was worth £60); confirmed that they will collect the extra laptop on 8th March (this is about how long I had to wait to get the order). Finally, he also confirmed that Dell would defend any court action, so I look forward to the next steps in this process.

Finally, I have also decided to seek publicity for my dispute and will be contacting several consumer affairs programmes on both TV and Radio.

Big corporations have to accept that they cannot behave this way to customers who are paying them money for goods and services.

I got Dell's attention at last

Less than 24 hours after emailing Michael Dell and notifying him that that I intend to make a claim in court against Dell Computers, I had a phone call from the "Dell Customer Service Escalation team".

Unfortunately, it still isn't good news, he offered me a free copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 - worth about £60, or a 10% discount on the order worth about £48. He obviously hasn't done his homework as I rejected that offer weeks ago. So I told him that his offer was totally unacceptable and I would see them in court. Dell Computers has until Friday to make a better offer, otherwise I will make my claim.

At least one thing is good - my advice to anybody who is in dispute with Dell Computers is to threaten to take them to court and send your email to michael_dell@dell.com.

More news when it happens

My Dell Hell - time to take Legal Action

My Dell hell saga continues - below is the text of my third open email to Michael Dell, Chairman of Dell Computers

---

Dear Michael Dell

This is the third time I have emailed you to complain about the terrible customer service I have been experiencing from Dell Computers.

A further 10 days have passed and I am shocked that your company has continued to ignore me. I have had no further contact from Dell Customer Services or from any senior executive at Dell Computers UK in Bracknell, nor from Dell Computers Corporate offices in Round Rock Texas

I have email read receipts from 5 different people who received an email from me on Friday 29 January, 2010, including one from your email address Michael_dell@dell.com so I know that people in your organisation are reading my messages. I can also see from Google Analytics that visitors have arrived at my blog from your Social Media Monitoring service Radian6.

For whatever reason people at your company, Dell Computers, have chosen to virtually ignore me with regard to my complaint over the supply of several Dell Inspiron 1545 laptops. I will not go into the details as I have done that before on numerous occasions to numerous people, including yourself in my first email, sent on Tuesday, January 19, 2010.

I have now taken advice from Consumer Direct, part of the Office of Fair Trading in the UK and your company is clearly in breach of contract. Furthermore, as I am an independent consultant, I know exactly what my time is worth (expensive) and I have kept a detailed log of the time I have spent attempting to resolve this matter.

Consequently this email notifies you, Michael Dell, Chairman and founder of Dell that I now intend to take this matter to the County Court in the UK and will make a claim against Dell for compensation for breach of contract and loss of earnings for the time spent dealing with your company.

The clock is ticking and the amount I will be seeking is already in the thousands of pounds.

As stated in previous email I am happy to be contacted by a senior executive of your company to discuss my complaint and see if we can reach an agreement on appropriate compensation. If this has not happened by 5pm on Friday, 12 February, 2010 I will start the legal process.

Finally, I will also now be seeking to publicise this situation with consumer affairs programmes in the UK to ensure that potential customers of Dell Computers know what they are letting themselves in for if they choose to trade with your company.

As with my previous emails, this will be posted on my blog, http://muttonsworld.blogspot.com

Regards

Dave Mutton

2nd Open email - complainingg to Michael Dell about terrible customer service from Dell Computers

Dear Michael Dell (and assorted senior colleagues)

Congratulations, your company has now become (in my opinion) the most inefficient and rude online business that I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.
For most of the last two months I have struggles to complete a simple order for two Dell Inspiron 1545 laptops and finally received the second one this week. The process has been long and tortuous, made far worse by your customer service team in India continually failing to deal with me in good faith and follow through.

I have tried and failed to escalate the problem within Dell customer services and found the senior CS people as inefficient and rude as the junior ones.

I tried to escalate the issue to the management team at Dell UK in Bracknell and was told that there was nobody to talk to in the UK who could help and that I needed to continue to talk to Customer Services in India

I tried to escalate the matter direct to you, Michael Dell, Chairman and founder of Dell computers, not expecting answer direct from you, but at least to have the email passed on by a PA or intern to someone who could help.

I have tried to engage with Dell Computers via social media by writing on my blog (http://muttonsworld.blogspot.com), posting on Facebook and Twitter (@dbmutton). Despite seeing traffic to my blog from your Social Media monitoring service provider Radian6, nobody has attempted to contact me.

Despite 10 phone calls, 9 emails, 2 faxes, 1 online chat, 6 blog posts (including this one) and 10 tweets (all with the hash tag #dellsucks), I still have not been offered any significant compensation for all the hassle that I have endured in this process.

I now have an additional problem: the laptop that finally arrived has a slightly different software configuration than what I ordered. I have emailed the rep that placed the order about how to resolve this and have not received any response after nearly 5 days – I am getting very tired of this.

So I now have a simple question for you and your colleagues: How does an angry customer who feels he has been virtually ignored by Dell Customer Services resolve this situation when it appears that your business has no interest in taking my complaint seriously?

One last thing I will add – I still have an Inspiron 1545 laptop, ordered in error (wrong colour) by your customer services. According to your own customer services, it was supposed to be picked up and returned to Dell Computers this week. Unfortunately the courier turned up a day earlier than notified and I was not there. So I still have this laptop and have decided that I will retain it in protest. I will gladly discuss the return of this laptop and compensation for the unbelievable hassle I have experienced by Dell customer services. However, I will no longer deal with Customer Services in India as they have been given every opportunity to resolve this problem and have failed miserably.

I will now only deal with a senior executive of Dell Computers in the UK or the USA. If I don’t hear from anybody within 3 working days, then I will take the matter further and complain to the Office of Fair Trading in the UK

I await your reply

Dave Mutton

P.S. As with my previous email – I have posted this email on my blog http://muttonsworld.blogspot.com

My Dell Hell saga continues

So today there is both good news and bad news in my continuing efforts to get Dell Computers and especially the terrible Dell Customer Services in India and Dell corporate offices in Texas.

First the good news - despite saying the replacement Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop would arrive on 3 February, I just checked the order status and it has actually shipped from the Dell manufacturing facility in China and is due to be delivered in the next 4 days - fantastic.

Then the bad news:

• I received an order confirmation twice this time (none the first time) and I thought I would go through line by line to check the same configuration had been ordered. What a surprise, it's slightly different - the original order included a 12 month Napster offer - 60 free songs streaming and 1 free download per month. the replacement Dell Inspiron 154 laptop doesn't have this - I've emailed customer service again to ask them to resolve it. I wonder how long that will take.
• 2 hours after I sent my original email to Michael Dell, Chairman of Dell Computers (michael_dell@dell.com), I received a phone call from the Dell Customer services supervisor in India that had failed to call me for several days. he told me the order had been placed but when asked about what form of compensation Dell were going to offer me, he had no answer. He did say that he wanted to focus on dealing with my problem and that could we "park" this issue and he would get back to me.
• in one of my later posts, I predicted that if I did not follow up on this, he would not follow up with me - no surprises there - despite being given an assurance from a dell Customer services supervisor that he would get back to me - I still have not received any email or phone call four days later. Personally I am getting a bit tired of continually having to chase up Dell Customer Services it really is now becoming the worst customer experience I have ever had.
• Finally, I am now getting very cross with Dell Corporate Headquarters in Texas. Did I really expect to get an answer from their Chairman, Michael Dell, when I emailed him - no not really - but I did expect to get something back from his office. I expect that some office junior or intern actually reads the emails sent to michael@dell.com, or to michael_dell@dell.com and their job is to pass it onto somebody more relevant - well it looks like my personal email has gone unnoticed and unreplied to. Even though I know that some people in Dell are reading my blog - I can see the traffic to my blog from the Radian6 Social Media Monitoring service which claims dell Computers as a customer - nobody from the Social Media team has actually responded to my blog post, or my Twitter posts with the hash tag #dellsucks

So what do I do?

Do I accept that my replacement laptop is arriving over a month after Christmas and get on with other matters or do I continue my efforts to secure adequate compensation for the trouble I have gone to to try and resolve this?

Personally I think it unacceptable for major corporations to ignore their customers who are trying to complain - especially when I have offered constructive advice about how they should resolve matters. So if you are reading this Michael Dell, I don't give up that easy.

Watch this space...

Some progress on My Dell Hell

Wonder of wonders. Less than 24 hours after emailing and blog posting my open letter to the Chairman of Dell Computers, Mr Michael Dell, I have actually received an order confirmation for the replacement Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop.

Unfortunately the expected delivery date is shown as 3rd February, so my 12 year old son will have to wait two more weeks for his Christmas present. It's not clear if this prompt action has been in response to any actual communication internally at Dell or just because it was a kick up the backside of the incompetent Dell Customer service reps now running scared for their jobs and being shown up as bloody useless.

Of course, the matter of compensation has still to be discussed and I will await with interest to see what they come back to me with and how long it takes. What is the betting that if I do not chase the useless Dell Customer Service department then I will not hear anything from them for at least a couple of days - at least 50:50 I think.

So Mr Dell, if by any chance you are following this angry rant via your Radian6 social media monitoring service, what do you think I should be given? Maybe you should call your own customer service line and wait for 45 minutes to talk to one of your Indian customer service reps and see what they are going to do.

In fact I think that is a great idea for you - at Amazon we used to all go and work in the Amazon warehouse every Christmas - partly to help with the volume of orders but also to ensure the head office team understand the pressures of the people at the sharp end of the business. Do you do that? Have you spent time with your CS teams recently? Or have you or one of your senior team tried recently to interact with your business as a customer - probably not.

Well maybe you should and experience the pain your paying customers are going through to buy your products - it can't last, you know. Good will and past experience can be stretched only too far until it snaps...

Open email to Michael Dell generating traffic

My open email yesterday to Michael Dell has generated a ten fold increase in traffic to this blog. I can see from the stats that about 20% of the traffic came from Dell itself in both India (Dell customer services) and the US, presumably Dell Corporate. Several visitors from a interesting site Radian6 which is some form of Social Media monitoring service - so I think my message got through to someone at Dell - but will it get to the man at the top, Michael Dell himself.

I also had an anonymous comment posted to the blog: "I work at Dell and I couldn't agree with you more"

I've not had any further contact yet from Dell Customer Services, so still waiting...

My Dell Hell

Open email to Michael Dell, Chairman and founder of Dell Computers inc., from an angry and disgusted Dell Customer



Dear Michael Dell

I have been a fan of Dell computers ever since I bought my first computer from you, more years ago than I care to remember (it was a Pentium 90)

Over the years I have bought from you:

• 4 desktop machines
  
• 5 Laptops
  
• 2 Printers
  

All of them, apart from one printer are still in use, somewhere in my family, a testament to the quality.

I have always recommended your products to my friends and family as reliable and great value for money. Not only that, but if something goes wrong with your machine, your after sales support, in my experience, has been excellent.

However, something has now gone wrong.

I placed an order for the most recent two laptops as Christmas presents - one for my son and another for my step-daughter. One of the things we liked about Dell was the choice of colours for the laptops, so we naturally chose one pink and one blue.

I placed the order on 1st December to ensure delivery in time for the big day and since that point it has been an ongoing nightmare.

• First I had problems actually completing the order – your customer service team seemed unable to receive a fax or read it when it was received.
  
• Then when the order was finally processed – on the last day that would ensure pre Christmas delivery, I received no confirmation so I could not check status other than by calling your customer services phone number.
  
• Worrying that they wouldn’t arrive in time, I wanted to check status. So after several lengthy phone calls and one online chat with one of your sales people, I managed to discover what my order number was.
  
• Unfortunately when I was able to check order status online, I then discovered that the order was wrong I was going to receive two pink laptops.
  
• I called the customer service rep and her response was –oh sorry about that – I can send you a blue carry case if you choose to keep the extra pink laptop. My reply was that I didn’t think my 12 year old son would be happy with that
  
• So at that point I knew that my son would not be getting his main present for Christmas.
  
• I also got the strong impression that she didn’t really care that my son would not have his present on time
  
• I asked when the replacement laptop could be delivered and was promised it would be early January
  
• Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, this has turned out to be untrue. I have made numerous emails and phone calls and I STILL do not know when I will receive the laptop I ordered.
  

As I write this today it has been:

• Seven weeks since I placed the initial order
  
• 26 days since my son didn’t get his present on Christmas day
  
• 11 days since the original customer service rep finally called me, and told me she was resolving this
  
• Four working days since I asked for a senior customer service rep to call me. I’m still waiting
  
• 24 hours since this supervisor emailed me and said that he was really busy but give him 2-3 hours to investigate
  
• 1 hour since I lost my patience and called your office in Bracknell UK but was told that:
  
  • They do not disclose any information about senior management in the UK
    
  • They could email customer service for me
    
• I have made:
  
  • Ten phone calls to Dell Customer service
    
  • Sent two faxes to Dell Financial services
    
  • Sent eight emails to Dell Customer Services
    
  • Chatted online once with Dell Sales Support
    

I should add that making a phone call to dell Customer services goes something like this:

• Welcome to Dell, please choose from one of these options
  
• Select an option
  
• Welcome to Dell, please choose from one of these options (different options)
  
• Select an option
  
• Stay on hold for at least 15 minutes, straining to listen to hold music that is so low, that I actually called back twice because I had thought I was cut off.
  
• An operator answers, asks a couple of questions then “transfers you”
  
• Welcome to Dell, quiet hold music again – couldn’t tell you what was playing it was too low.
  
• Wait at least another 15 minutes – the longest I waited was 42 minutes.
  

As part of this painful process I have searched around on the internet about how best to deal with complaints from Dell and I discovered that I was not alone.

If you search in Google for “How to Complain to Dell”, the response is over 1 million results! In your own community forum there was no easy way to complain – just a referral to Customer support. I also found comments about posts being removed or edited that were critical of your customer service.

I also discovered numerous blog posts with titles such as “My Dell Nightmare”; “Dell Customer Service Sucks”; "I Hate Dell” and “Want to Complain to Dell, Forget It”. There are 179 Facebook groups with names like “I Hate Dell”. #dellsucks on Twitter is always busy with complaints

The most relevant site I found was from Jeff Jarvis at Buzzamchine and his Open Letter to you posted several years ago.

In one of my last emails to the customer service supervisor I told him that I would not stop until I received satisfaction and work my way up the chain of management to you if necessary. My phone call to the Dell Head Office in the UK made it clear that messing around any more at the lower levels was a waste of time – hence I have chosen to emulate Jeff Jarvis and send this email direct to you.

I have been working in the internet industry for over fifteen years including five years at Amazon.com and several years at Yahoo. Everything I have learned shows me that how critical customer service is to building and maintaining a brand and how easy it is to lose customers through poor service.

I am not saying it is easy to do this, but I remember reading an interview once with Warren Buffett when he said:

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.
If you think about that, you'll do things differently."

Based on my experience in the past seven weeks you need to do things differently.

I would suggest you need to do the following:

• Carry out a high level review of the customer service experience concentrating on:
  
  • Improving your telephone systems especially response times
    
  • Improved email response times
    
  • Review or develop effective complaint escalation procedures
    
  • Improve training in how to deal with complaints, stressing the importance of keeping contact with the customer – they should not have to chase you
    
  • English language lessons for your Indian call centres – I understand the logic of outsourcing, but consistently the standard of English is below average and this adds frustration by the customer when they have to repeat themselves
    
• Review your policy of not disclosing information regarding your senior management – it is just annoying and makes people think you have something to hide.
  
• On your customer forums, provide an area dedicated to people who want to complain about how their complaint is being dealt with – trust me - this will be the most popular area until you resolve the fundamental issues
  
• Perhaps review your extensive marketing budget – your customers I am sure would prefer to receive high quality customer service and not listen to catchy songs about lollipops
  
• Whilst I am emailing you – the other thing I do hate about Dell is your lack of effective CRM. I speak publicly on occasions and have used this as a poor example of online marketing.
  

If I have just bought a PC from you, receiving an email every week with lots of offers to buy another PC is probably not going to be effective – if I am anything to go by, my average time between purchases is at least one year – that makes at least 52 ineffective but annoying emails to me

Overall I am disgusted at the response of your business and you should be ashamed that the business you have built is now so widely regarded as delivering terrible customer service.

I am sure this email will go through several layers of screening and there is not much chance of it actually reaching you, so I am also going to post it on my blog – perhaps you will pick this up if you have a Google news alert for phrases like: “Does Michael Dell care about his customers”; “What has gone wrong at Dell, is Michael Dell still in control?”; “Dell Customer service – the worst on the Internet?”

I will also post references to this in various social media sites as I know Dell has spent time and effort engaging with their customers through these new channels.

The last reason is that I hope my blog will appear highly in Google for lots of these interesting phrases – see my previous experiences dealing with Talk Talk Broadband and Sky Customer Services

Finally, if it’s not too much trouble, I would like to actually receive the laptop I ordered and give my 12 year old son the present he has asked me about almost every day since Christmas – is that too much to ask? If you want the order details email me

Dave Mutton
A former Dell customer who will now look elsewhere to buy my next computer and who will even consider buying an Apple Mac.