Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Dell support

At work we deploy, on the PC side, mainly Dell computers. Word on the street (I don’t handle purchasing) is Dell is a fantastic vendor to work with, and the discount we get is hefty. As well it should be, with the amount of hardware we buy.

Obviously, on the Mac side it’s just Apple.

As personnel on the support side, I can say Dell computers can do with better quality control from the factory. Every batch we buy, there seems to be always a few computers that need immediate servicing. During the pandemic, we bought hundreds of Dell laptops, of which dozens had to be serviced because of poor fit and finish (a trackpad should click). I get it, pandemic times were uniquely funky, but the batch of Mac laptops we bought from Apple had zero such issues.

Good news for Dell is that the servicing is solid. Though that’s a back-handed compliment, isn’t it? I reckon companies would want to put out a product so reliably good that the end-user never has to know about after-purchase servicing. Nevertheless, if Dell isn’t capable of ratcheting up its quality control, at least it’s super easy to get items fixed.

So long as the product is under basic servicing warranty (we prepay for four years for everything we buy), Dell can dispatch third-party technicians to your location within business days. Or, if the customer is not in a hurry, an overnight prepaid mail-in option is also available (the Dell repair facility is in Houston). All of this can be initiated on the Dell support website via chat, which is great for people like me who avoids using the telephone as much as possible.

It still won’t pry the MacBook Pro out of my hands. But, if I ever need to run a Windows PC, A Dell-branded unit is a fine option. Even if it malfunctions within the first week of use, Dell support will get it fixed with haste.

Nemo nemo.

Invert and look

Customer service jobs tend to follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your problems are raised by 20 percent of your customers. That’s certainly true in my field of IT support at a college campus, though thankfully the ratio is more like 80/10.

Sometimes the 10 percent that causes the headaches can be so overwhelming that you lose sight of the fact that the other 90 percent are perfectly nice people, and aren’t troublesome. Thank god for that! We should be grateful for that majority. Imagine if the numbers are skewed the other way: it would make the job downright intolerable.

The rule to invert your perspective and thinking of a situation can be so powerful. I’m fine with dealing with same few problem customers day after day: that’s the job, after all. So long as the work isn’t overwhelming in volume, who cares if I’m seeing the same person for the third time, troubleshooting the same issue after many weeks. Or so what if someone has two computers that need support instead of the standard one.

Instead of railing against whatever perceived unfairness, remember that they represent a small percentage of the supported population. It’s not worth the time and energy to force them onto some procrustean standard. Better to deal with them directly and idiosyncratically.

Because truly, if all customers were competent and never run into issues, there would be no need for people like me working in IT support. Therefore, at the very least, I am grateful that I can keep employment! That will quickly erases any stress or bad feelings towards any particular customer.

The school of my people.