Dell shuts down support forums to quell mountain o

By Cloud Geek
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Cloud Geek

Posted
Posted (edited)

From TheRegister

Want to complain on Dell's website about its customer service? Too late - the Customer Support Forums, operational until last Friday, have been shut down, apparently to try to quell bad publicity there about Dell products and especially after-care service.

While all the other equipment forums are still working - last time we looked - the areas where you could vent your anger or delight about Mikey Boy's company were shut with a peremptory notice saying that "The Customer Service boards on the Dell Community Forum will be retiring at 3:30pm this Friday, July 8th. ... Customer Service FAQs will still be available to help answer your questions. If you need further assistance, you may contact our customer service team via Chat for any non-technical issue you may have." (The UK site appears not to have such a forum.)

Why? Could it be anything to do with the unbelievably corrosive effect on Dell's reputation that has followed its insistent refusal to deal with problems with the Dell Dimension 4600 power supply ?

Noted Windows expert Ed Bott, who has been tying together some of the threads of the tale, comments: "Dell continues its race to the bottom with the new management strategy: If your customers continue to ask annoying questions, stop listening."

Dell didn't have a response to our query about why it had shut the forums, although in a chat with Christoper Carfi one Dell service bod said: "We are closing the Customer Service boards on the Dell Community Forum for the time being as there certain updates which needs to be taken care of."

Dell is not the first company to find its customers revolting online; Apple has taken similar measures in the past, though not gone quite as far as deleting an entire category of discussion.

Part of the problem seems to have stemmed from Jeff Jarvis, a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner, who summed up his anger in a letter to a Dell VP, saying: "This machine is a lemon. Your at-home and complete care service is a fraud. Your customer service is appalling. Your product is dreadful. Your brand is mud."

That has snowballed into growing pressure on Dell to improve its customer service, at precisely the time it has been driving ever-harder to improve margins. Unfortunately, the two conflict: excellent customer service can't be measured by standard accounting metrics because it doesn't show up until people renew purchases or service contracts - which is a future, uncertain, event. However, you can cut costs in customer service today and it shows up in the bottom line.

Jarvis's travails sparked a little civil war in Blogistan, where some thought he deserved special treatment from Dell as an "A-lister" and "influential", while Bott pointed out that "Google Dell customer service problems and you get 2,950,000 hits, which seems like a lot by any standards. (Just to check, we did "Britney Spears" customer service problems.

In fact Dell's growth has clearly been putting increasing on its customer service operations. In 2000 it won high marks in a PC World survey of subscribers. But fast forward to 2004 and it was slipping badly.

Meanwhile, Jarvis found his own solution to his problems. He bought an Apple Powerbook. Doubtless Apple's moderators are already readying their "delete" keys.

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=94967

http://www.theregister.com/2005/07/11/dell_customer_support/

Edited by MvT Cracker
Grand Master

guru

Posted
Posted

funny, Dell forums are still working fine.

check out this thread: dell is cr4p - http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/bo...ssage.id=117223

It would seem the only thing "not" made in China these days and sold to us in the good old USA is the lack of common sense and children. All our manufacturer's have abandoned, or will abandon, American production workers to avoid fair wages, the EPA, the ACLU, water pollution control, the Clean Air Act, EOE Act, and numerous other enviromental laws designed and initiated to protect all Americans from Air, Water, and Soil pollution. China will eventually realize the seriousness of the pollution inflicted on their people and are constantly monitored by the World Health Organization as the next potential source for a major pathogenic disease outbreak.

    After all the rhetoric, the bottom line is the extremely cheap labor and the extremely high profits made by the price gouging companies that utilize this "Communist Slave Labor" work force to seperate your money from your wallet for an entry level system that "most likely" cost a total of $50 to build from the parts made overseas. The CEO's of America are rolling around on the floors of their offices throwing cash into the air and laughing at all us uninformed fools that support their way of life and look down on us as Royalty looked down on the peasants of the past.

  It took a few years longer than George Orwell's "1984" predicted, but the "New World Order" of the few controlling the many is slowly unfolding upon the generations that are coming of age now. I'm glad to have had my fun in the "Golden Years" of the 60's, 70's and early 80's . Good luck to the kids growing up today when it comes to finding a decent paying job. At least the "draft" isn't active at this time.

Grand Master

blackice912 Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
funny, Dell forums are still working fine.

check out this thread: dell is cr4p - http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/bo...ssage.id=117223

586212462[/snapback]

"The Message you are trying to access has been deleted. Please update your bookmarks."

  • 8 months later...
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Mafia: The Old Country expansion Man of Honor announced, brings back Salieri from original

      By leonsk29 · Posted

      Most boring game ever. Repetitive, empty, predictable, and full of cliches. Total waste of time and money, IMO.
    • Mafia: The Old Country expansion Man of Honor announced, brings back Salieri from original

      By LoneWolfSL · Posted

      Mafia: The Old Country expansion Man of Honor announced, brings back Salieri from original by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe During Summer Game Fest, 2K and Hanger 13 brought out a new Mafia: The Old Country trailer, revealing the game's first expansion. Named Man of Honor, this is slated to add two new chapters to the Enzo storyline that the game follows. There is an iconic character returning to the series with this expansion, with players set to run into Ennio Salieri, the future Don of the Salieri crime family. Fans of the original Mafia, or its Definitive Edition remake, may remember that name as one of the biggest characters in the storyline. This expansion is set prior to his rise to being the kingpin in the City of Lost Heaven. "Set in Sicily during the winter of 1905, Enzo Favara has proven himself a reliable soldier of the Torrisi crime family in the months since his initiation," says the studio about the new chapters. "Now, the Don entrusts him and Cesare with a delicate assignment of assisting Ennio Salieri, a man of honor recently released from prison and intent on reclaiming what is his." Working at Salieri's side, players will be heading into fresh environments as they return to the role of Enzo as a high-ranking soldato. The studio also promises brand-new weapons, fresh vehicles, and charms to collect in this expansion. Moreover, the expansion will add new content to the updated Free Ride mode. Alongside new collectibles and locations, this will add more challenges to beat alongside Salieri, which are described as runs that will "test the skills of even the most elite mafiosi." The Mafia: The Old Country Man of Honor story expansion will release on August 14, 2026, across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. It will cost $10 for owners of the base game to jump into.
    • Nearly 70% of Steam users now run Windows 11

      By moog19 · Posted

      Try installing Logitech Options
    • Telltale returns with The Wolf Among Us, re-revealing the sequel and a new remaster

      By LoneWolfSL · Posted

      Telltale returns with The Wolf Among Us, re-revealing the sequel and a new remaster by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Telltale Games, the studio known for its episodic games from the 2000s, had a surprise appearance at the Summer Game Fest showcase today. The studio has gone through a collapse, an acquisition, and a revival but has largely gone silent in recent years. Today's sudden announcement was for the popular The Wolf Among Us series, with news about the sequel and a remaster dropping. Set after the events of the 2013-released title, the sequel will bring back Biby Wolf for a new adventure in Fabletown. This town of fairy tale characters is becoming unstable, with Snow White not being able to keep order as before. "When a brutal series of crimes threatens to fracture the fragile balance holding Fabletown together, Bigby Wolf, sheriff of Fabletown, finds himself drawn into a dangerous conspiracy that reaches deep into the city’s criminal underworld," says the studio. "As suspicion spreads across the city and powerful forces work against him, Bigby must uncover the truth and decide what kind of sheriff - and what kind of wolf - he is willing to become." At the same time, Telltale also announced The Wolf Among Us Remastered, bringing back the classic with a fresh coat of paint. This will include all five episodes from the original game plus over an hour of extra content that will offer behind-the-scenes videos, cast interviews, image galleries, and deleted scenes. The remaster will also have updated visuals and improved UI elements and accessibility features, alongside upgrades to the animations, audio, and frame rates. Telltale has been working on this project for almost a decade now, but if the new release schedule holds, fans will be able to jump into The Wolf Among Us 2 sometime in 2027. As for The Wolf Among Us Remastered, this is slated to release during this holiday season.
    • Nearly 70% of Steam users now run Windows 11

      By Snake Doc · Posted

      I use a Linux laptop every day. I have tried to switch to Linux on my gaming PC which has a 5070 ti. It was not a great experience

  • Recent Achievements

    • Rookie
      moog19 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Mentor
      grik went up a rank
      Mentor
    • Dedicated
      JKR earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • One Year In
      CHUNWEI earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Conversation Starter
      FBSPL earned a badge
      Conversation Starter

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      488
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      270
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      77
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      68
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      63
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!