Dell’s (Official) Spyware Response (1)

Geoffrey Knox with Dell was kind enough to take the time and respond to my previous entries discussing the concerns that customers such as I have had with Dell’s pre-installation of My Way Search Assistant. Below is the conversation exchange that he and I recently shared.

From: Geoffrey Knox - Dell.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 7:03 PM
To: Michael Amor Righi
Subject: Blog Posting from May 19th

Michael,
I wanted to touch base with you regarding the most recent post you made to your blog. I appreciate your candor with regard to the responses to your post, and I would like to offer my email and phone contact information to you if you would like to further discuss the issue at hand. I also posted a followup to your blog concerning the My Way Search Assistant, but I would like to take advantage of your offer to supply the information from the posting made by “Jack” as well as try to answer any further questions you may have. I appreciate your time, and look forward to your response.

Respectfully,
Geoff Knox

From: Michael Amor Righi
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 9:45 AM
To: Geoffrey Knox - Dell.com
Subject: RE: Blog Posting from May 19th

Geoff,

Thanks for getting in touch with me. You must have a difficult job these days as a Dell Customer Advocate. It seems there are a lot of people unhappy with Dell lately, which is a shame, because I remember when Dell was the preferred PC manufacturer by people “in the know.” Your computers were affordable, easy to upgrade and the few times I had problems your customer service was really great. I once had a battery die on a laptop and you guys overnighted a new one to me the next day. It was at that point that I started going out of my way to recommend Dell to friends and family.

In the last few years your company appears to have changed directions and stopped putting customers first. I’ve spoken with a number of people regarding Dell’s downfall and their two biggest complaints are:

1.) Poor customer service. I think this is mostly due to the fact that most of your tech support appears to have been outsourced to India. Although I have no moral objections to outsourcing, I think some jobs are better suited for outsourcing than others. Phone jobs are the worst. It’s frustrating enough for many people to explain their technical problems over the phone and that frustration is only exacerbated when a language barrier is added to the mix.

2.) Bloatware. Whether or not My Way is officially spyware, it’s one of many programs pre-installed that people don’t want on their machines. You can’t honestly think people want this junk on their computer when one of your customers comes out with a “Dell Decrapifier” to remove it. If clean installs aren’t the default then there should at least be a checkbox on your order form that allows a customer to request a clean install with nothing more than the OS. Is it true that recovery disks aren’t included unless specifically requested? These should always be provided free of charge.

When a company makes a decision to change the way they do business, they are typically motivated by the desire to make more money and there’s nothing wrong with that. The smartest ways of making more money are to 1.) Lower costs and sell your products at the same price 2.) Lower costs and sell for less hoping to increase the number of products sold 3.) Increase quality with the hopes of increasing the number of products sold.

So the question becomes, was Dell hoping to lower costs or increase quality when they outsourced customer service to India? Was Dell hoping to lower costs or increase quality when they accepted payment in exchange for installing junk on their computers? It’s obvious that Dell was lowering costs at the sacrifice of quality and I can’t imagine the money saved is greater than the lost revenue from customer discontent.

Companies like Apple have shown that people are willing to pay a little more for a higher quality product. If you raised the price of every computer by $50 to bring customer support back to Austin nobody would mind the price increase. If you raised the price of every computer by $10 and stopped installing junk on your machines, people would be thrilled. Please stop trying to be the Wal-Mart of the PC world.

I’d like to ask you a few more things, and I’ll post your response to this email as a follow-up on my web site.

- Was My Way Search Assistant specifically designed to be difficult to remove, or was that a bug?

- Does Dell have any plans to stop installing My Way Search Assistant on all of its computers?

- Does Dell have any plans to “insource” their customer service?

- What types of customer service issues are handled over the phone free of charge? When does a customer need to pay $49 for assistance?

Also, I’ve thought a little more about Jack’s posting on my blog, and I’ve decided to keep his information private. In the end I think it’s more important to respect the privacy of my web site’s visitors than it is to see Jack reprimanded. I don’t want to set a precedent of giving out visitor information. (Especially since I don’t have a privacy policy on my web site and therefore I think privacy should be the default assumption.) I made a note on the article explaining that Dell offered to follow-up on the matter but I decided against it in the end.

Thanks again for getting in touch. I’m looking forward to hearing back and sharing your response with my readers.

Take care,
Michael

From: Geoffrey Knox - Dell.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2006 2:41 PM
To: Michael Amor Righi
Subject: RE: Blog Posting from May 19th

Michael,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It is feedback from people like you and your readers that helps us identify areas where we can improve our business practices and provide a better experience for our customers.

Let me address some of your points below:

- Was My Way Search Assistant specifically designed to be difficult to remove, or was that a bug?

This was a bug in the uninstall program for the My Way Search assistant. It was fixed in all systems shipping at the end of August 2005. For those having difficulty removing the program, the link below to our Dell Community Forum has instructions for its removal.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/…

- Does Dell have any plans to stop installing My Way Search Assistant on all of its computers?

Dell stopped shipping computers with the My Way Search Assistant in late December 2005 in the United States and has a plan in place to remove it from all systems worldwide in the near future.

- Regarding your concerns about outsourcing support:

Dell is a global company, and as such we are committed to hiring the most qualified support representatives that we can find anywhere in the world. We have call centers all over the world, including multiple locations in the U.S. and Canada, and calls are routed to call centers based on several factors like time of day, call volumes, etc. Dell is dedicated to providing the best customer experience possible, and we hold each of our representatives to a high standard regardless of their location. It is customer feedback, both good and bad, that helps us know where we are strong as well as identify where we can improve.

- What types of customer service issues are handled over the phone free of charge? When does a customer need to pay $49 for assistance?

The representative you spoke with that directed you to our Dell On Call service to remove the My Way Search Assistant was in error. Unfortunately, this error not only led to a poor experience for you but confusion as to the nature and scope of the Dell On Call service. Break/fix issues pertaining to the operating system and for Dell-installed applications is included with your computer’s warranty and is therefore free of charge. The Dell On Call service is intended for how-to questions regarding all software, including the operating system. This includes but is not limited to e-mail set up, assisting with virus removal, and installation of software and peripherals not pre-installed on your computer.

I appreciate the opportunity get feedback from you and your readers, as well as the offer to have this response included in a follow up post on your blog. If you have any further questions or comments, I would be happy to address each as best I can.

Respectfully,

Geoff Knox