Problems at Dell

Reading about this stuff at one of my favorite blogs makes me remember the time when I was employed in Dell about early 2005. Admittedly, I left after only three months.

Why ?

1. I didn't like the job.
2. I was not performing and I felt like I was letting my team down.
3. I wasn't happy. ( Refer to 1 and 2 )

When I had the oportunity to join Dell, I jumped at the chance. Their success and stories like this influenced my decision. When I was at Dell, I have to admit, the stories were true ... Dell was going places and everyone there was going places ...

However, I saw a few things that I feared could lead to Dell's problems. As noted in my comments, Dell's customer service was deteriorating. I can tell you during my own experience, we were constantly told to spend only about 7 minutes with a customer over the phone. I found this rule a bit vexing as you tend to rush the customer and that doesn't work with most customers. The main reason given, was due to a lot of incoming calls that was waiting, etc. In my mind, this was a self fulfilling prophecy .. you answered more calls and get more dissatisfied customers. Customer satisfaction could be affected in the long run.

My recommendation is this ...

1. Ensure that support staff are really committed people who are a people's person.
2. Get only people who are committed to work and succeed with Dell.
3. Innovate Dell's products, focus on Dell's products that are selling well. Buying Alienware was an interesting choice ( Dell should learn a thing or two from Alienware about PC design )
4. What about Dell kiosks ? Or Central Dell Support Centres ?

If anyone from Dell is reading this, email me and I can further explain no. 4 :-)