www.nico.schottelius.org/blog/support-fiascos.mdwn

[[!meta title="List of support fiascos"]]

## Introduction

Dealing with a lot of hardware (in the sense of moving/maintaining)
involves some support from vendors. Sometimes vendors are doing a
particular bad job. This blog page is dedicated to vendor screwups and
document real stories.

## The support for a Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 (2019-11-16 - IN PROGRESS)

I ordered this particular notebook on 2019-09-19 and it arrived around
2019-09-27. So far so good. However shortly after starting to use it,
I managed to get a somewhat-stuck key (the "p key"), which
more-or-less randomly hangs/does not produce a character. As some of
my passwords contain a p, this led to very frustrating login failures.

Having a stuck key like this after less than 2 months of use is really
not showing good quality, so I reported this issue with Dell on
2019-11-16. With the device I bought the so called
"Complete Care Service" and "Premium Support". In theory reachable
24x7.

In practice, after opening the support request on 2019-11-16, I did
not receive a real reply on the following Monday. So I reached out
again and got a reply on Tuesday, already being late if it was only
next business day (NBD) support.

After reporting that issue additionally the rubber below that keeps
the notebook stable on the table began to detach itself from the
notebook. Only another minor problem, but clearly nothing to expect
from a quality device.

After a long forth-and-back via Twitter DM about the device heat and
whether the p key still occasionally is stuck (yes!) there was
eventually a replacement scheduled for the 26th of November.

However - you can guess it - nobody showed up. The log at Dell says
that somebody tried to reach me, however there was no missed calls on
any of my numbers. And no email or no direct message. So even if
somebody tried to call, they did not bother sending an email.

Until I reached out again, after I got a message that the phone number
is forwarded. It continues "funny" like that: on 26th there was no
further communication from Dell. No message, no call, no email.

However when logging in to the Dell portal, Dell rescheduled the
appointment for Thursday, 28th, 0800.

Independently on how the story evolves from here, the amount of time
spent into the support, waiting, replanning locations, etc. is already
exceeding the worth of the product. So I can clearly disrecommend
buying this device/support combination, if you want to professionally
work with it.

And it continued on 2019-11-27 at around 2230 in the evening when the
Dell technician called me by accident. "I just wanted to save your
number". Then asking me on the phone where Glarus is in detail. I
guess Dell doesn't have a navigation software...
Then eventually telling me that he
might or might not come tomorrow (the 28th), but he will certainly
contact me in the morning.

2019-11-28, around 1400. No call, no message, no nothing. Reaching
out via Twitter DM. Again. My phone number is confirmed, I get as an
answer. So yet another day where Dell scheduled the support (not me),
does not appear, does not reach out nor gives any suitable answer.

2019-11-29. The technician just wrote an email that he comes Monday
1200. That is yet another week after Dell originally announced the
repair and yet another time that Dell unilaterally decides on a new
repair date without even trying to confirm the date.

But it gets worse: later in the evening I received a twitter message
that the case is closed. Without ever having seen a technician,
without having gotten it repaired. And a bit later it gets confirmed
on the "service request" page of Dell.

So in a summary:

* Waited for nothing to happen for two weeks
* Multiple support appointments scheduled without ever showing up
* Claims of trying to reach me by phone without any missed call (and
  other calls that I received the same day)
* Wasted many hours in communication
* No support executed at all
* Support cased closed without doing anything

The story continues: 2019-12-04. I got a message saying that the
techincian is coming tomorrow. Again without confirmation from my side
and with less than 24h to react.

2019-12-05: because so far nobody ever showed up, I send a message via
Twitter to @DellHilft, asking about the technician. Answer is that I
should wait. The third day. I also check the support center, which
claims to have called me at 3 am GMT. 3 am. Seriously, which company
does that?

[[!img dell-3am-call.png size="300x"]]

GMT is actually behind Swiss time, so the actual call happend around 2am.
Besides all of that, I obviously did not receive a call.

BUT things can get worse with Dell. Since the 5th, my messages in the
support center don't show up anymore. It basically looks as follows:


    Dell: we are calling you
    Me: I don't see a call, this is my number:
    Dell: we are calling you
    Me: Hello? Did you see my message?
    Dell: We will just silently drop your messages now

Since 2019-12-05 the "." key is also stuck from time to
time. Basically the notebook is falling apart within 2 months of use.


[[!tag hardware support]]