I've been a Dell fan for years.I worked on the Dell account at Ammirati and traveled to Round Rock every week for two years. That's why I feel so abused by my experience trying to take advantage of a one day sale And while I'm delighted that the original Dell customer advocate/antagonist Jeff Jarvis is now buddy-buddy with Dell's bloggers and management, its not helping me at all.
Share my trail of tears:
1. My wife needs a new laptop. We get an offer for an Inspiron E1505 with a $379 one-day discount and free shipping. We think -- eureka -- we can buy it fast and finance it with our Dell Preferred Account.
2. We click thru on the e-mail promotion and start shopping. The configuration process, since we bought our last Dell 8 months ago, seems longer. We are offered more stuff and more choices. We notice highlighted Dell recommendations in a green tint and continuous cross-sell and up sell options. We have a creeping sense that Dell is desperately hawking all kinds of stuff and we are conscious that there is very little help to configure a cost efficient box to suit our simple SOHO business needs.
3. We finish the process having up sold ourselves from $699 to $1167, adding 66% more cost/value to our laptop when we get anxious about Vista, our only OS choice.
4. We remember that its a memory hog, even more than EXP, is glitchy in its first iteration and is probably more complex than our needs. Then we worry that my wife, whose computer skills are less-than-expert, will be frustrated trying to use a new system. We search to see if EXP is an alternative. No easily findable info.
5. So we click the CHAT tab on the shopping cart page at 9:45am ET. We're immediately messaged that we are 44th on queue with an estimated wait time of 21minutes and 30 seconds. So much for instant gratification. We abandon the shopping cart and the brand.
6. At 10:15am ET. Rep Jodes greets and abandons a screen we've long forgotten about.
As a marketer and as a customer Dell's crimes and misdemeanors include:
- Not anticipating the response to a strong offer
- Not recognizing or prioritizing brand loyalists
- Not anticipating likely customer needs, doubts or questions
- Under staffing chat queues
And now I've got three issues. I'm pissed and disappointed at a brand I counted on. I still have to buy a laptop and use more twice the time to accomplish that task. And now I'm contributing to the misperception that marketing bloggers just exist to bash brands.
But Michael Dell must learn that the brand is all about the experience and that you cannot abuse your loyalists or cheap out on your systems if you expect to turn the company around.
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