The DELL saga continued

Oct 10

No call from the escalation team. So I get nervous, log in and chat with Mr. Kumar. He has no idea, so Supervisor #2 - Ramesh comes along. I go thru’ the whole story again – by now I am nearly breaking down. I try to stay calm. Ramesh promises that he will sort everything out, and send me mail with details of the keyboard dispatch and his phone number with extension in 15 minutes. Two hours pass by, and no mail. So I go on chat again. This time, I am greeted by Kajal. She quickly hands me over to Supervisor #3 – Raveendra. This person finally orders the keyboard, gives me a DHL tracking number, and assures me that a technician will come to fix it. So here I am waiting. I am so mad during all this, I send a mail off to Michael Dell [yes, you can write to michael_dell@dell.com ], and someone does read his mail.

Oct 13, I receive a call from Mamatha [Executive Support Resolver] – ugh, what a mouthful], in the afternoon. My mail to Michael has reached Bangalore! She apologizes, and assures me that the keyboard is on its way. I thank her, and then suggest that Dell ought to compensate me in some way – after all, I have paid for warranty that includes next business day support at site – and I have been waiting for nine days now, not to mention all the aggravation in between. Suddenly, she is not all that friendly. She says – compensation won’t resolve your problem. Hello – my problem is not just the keyboard, it is the hours of chatting, waiting, the emotional anger of a broken keyboard on a brand new machine, and the monumental disappointment of the entire experience. Does she not get it, I wonder. Why, oh why, are these large companies so bereft of a soul? While the work of the experience stager perishes upon its performance, the value of the experience lingers in the memory of the individual who was engaged by the event. This experience will linger for a long time in my mind.

When a service failure occurs, it makes sense to turn it around rapidly. When the turn around is flaky, it is imperative that the customer’s disappointment be dealt with by going that extra mile and doing something to please the poor soul. If you go to a good auto shop and the repair work is shabby, you are likely to receive a free wash, coupon for a free service on your next visit – something to make up for the shortfall. But no, Mamatha [by the way, this word means motherly love in Hindi], had decided that sending me a keyboard ten days later was adequate service. There was no evidence of any emotion in her dealings with me.

Dell just lost the opportunity to turn the situation around and convert an angry customer into an advocate. Because when you recover from a service failure, and go the extra mile, you build an emotional bond with your customer, and cement the relationship. To all those who work at DELL and similar soulless companies – to err is human; to recover is divine.

Well, tomorrow is another day.