After attempting to purchase from them this week, I'm not terribly surprised.
One would think that in this digital age, purchasing a PC would be as simple as buying sausages. In fact, you'd think that buying sausages would be the more difficult transaction. But, let me tell you, a recent purchase from Scottish online butcher Donald Russell fared significantly better than my attempts to purchase a computer from Dell.
This week it took me around 56 hours, one internet transaction, 5 email exchanges and 6 phone calls to buy 2 PCs. It should have taken me about a minute.
So what went wrong?
Well, with products carefully selected, my online order and payment details were submitted. Within seconds (and, I have to admit, it was so fast it was impressive) I had a call from my bank to verify two (not one) transactions from Dell. One for around £1000, the other for around 60p..... They (quite rightly) thought this was suspicious.
I verified the transactions which added up to the full amount of the order, but my bank said I would need to contact Dell to request them to process payment. And then the fun began.
Call 1: Describe situation, reassured that everything was fine, this happens every day (really?) and that payment would be processed within next 24 hours.
Wait........ 24 hours.........
Nothing.
Call 2: Describe situation. Again. Get cut off.
Call 3: Call back. Describe situation. Again. Get told that every single person who can help me in this multi-national company that employs tens of thousands of people are out to lunch. Yes, seriously. Could I call back later? It was 1pm. Requested, politely but firmly, that they call me back at 2pm once they'd finished eating. I was, after all, only trying to give them my money.
Wait ......... No call .........
Call 4: Decided to take a different approach and asked to be put through to sales to purchase a computer. Success! Secured new order, payment put through, original internet order cancelled. All done.
Or so I thought.
Call 5: About 1 hour later......Panic call from Dell. I've submitted 2 identical orders!! What should they do?
Call 6: 10 minutes after the first call .....Second panic call from Dell. They are not sure which order to process....could I please call them back.
Email from Dell: Stick an X in the box to tell us which order to process.
I could tell you where I was tempted to stick my X, but it would be rude. So I won't.
A seemingly simple purchase had turned into a saga of incompetency, incredulity (how can the entire multi-national company all be off at lunch at the same time??) and exasperation.
Donald Russell, the butcher, managed to take my online order seamlessly in under one minute. It was delivered to me within 48 hours. Magic. Simple.
So ask yourself, are you running a sales prevention business or are you trying to deliver. Because Dell certainly aren't. And that might easily explain their "unprecedented slump in sales".
