I bought my Dell Studio 1435 laptop(3 GB RAM and 320 hard disk) in February 2009 from Kannur in Kerala. It’s been a great laptop with its good features. However the DVD slot, which has no tray(though it looks nice and sleek has been giving problems). The disc gets stuck quite often and the laptop has to be restarted.
However, this November, the laptop had a display problem. Luckily for me, I happened to be in Bangalore at the time and so I could take the laptop personally to the Dell service centre in Domlur, Bangalore. I had taken my laptop to the service centre on 5th December 09. The engineer checked the laptop and informed me that the LCD needed to be replaced. Luckily again, this would be covered under warranty. He didnt give me any specific reason as to why the LCD had been damaged. They said it would take three working days to get the laptop in working condition and I agreed to collect my laptop on 10 December(Dell service centre is working on Sunday and has a holiday on Monday).
They had told me they would call me and inform if the laptop was repaired prior to the set date. However, even past the scheduled date, I did not receive any communication from them. On calling them, they tell me that the parts are not available in Delhi and have to be shipped in from Malaysia. They were unable to even give me an approximate date as to when they could have the laptop ready. After five days of repeatedly calling them to get status updates on my laptop, the receptionist finally calls me back on15 December to tell me that my laptop is a commercial laptop which is not supported in the service centre. And hence they wouldnt be able to set it right. She was unable to provide anymore logical info on where I could get my laptop serviced.
I then called the Dell Technical Support Centre where the technician was courteous enough to listen to my problem and get in touch with the Service Centre to ensure that my laptop would be serviced there.
Inspite of his assurance and having called up the service centre an umpteen number of times, they havent yet gotten back to me on WHAT they are doing with my laptop. For a company as prestigious as Dell, I as a customer should say I am shocked at this sort of irresponsible and indifferent attitude on part of the company staff. They didnt have the courtesy to call me and inform me about the delays or other issues and instead were asking me to go and collect my unrepaired laptop. Horrible customer service- Dell. If anyone concerned at Dell is seeing this, please improve your customer service or it’ll irrepairably tarnish your brand image. I, for one, will never recommend your product to another person for this horrible experience that I ve just had.