Dear Dell: Thank You

Hello Client Name:

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tech Name and I will be helping Unit Name with IT needs. Secretary Name forwarded me your questions about the differences between the Toshiba and Dell. I think you raise an excellent question that is definitely worth an answer.

There are several reasons that I recommend Dell’s exclusively for my support environment. One of the biggest factors is the Dell Next Business Day Gold Warranty with Complete Care Protection. Basically it provides three things that other computer manufacturers don’t provide:

1. A quick and easy channel for me to contact Dell, because of Gold Support I rarely if ever wait on hold for hardware technical support. In addition Gold Support allows me to do my own troubleshooting and then report that to Dell instead having to wait while I go through the same troubleshooting steps that I’ve already done while a Dell tech is on the phone with me.

2. Next Business Day on-site support. Very few companies offer true Next Business Day on-site support. Dell’s NBD support is quite good. Also, I have experience with nearly all of the Dell Techs in the area and have come to know many of them by name which means I have greater confidence in their repairs. Also since a technician is dispatched for any hardware related repair it allows me to manage my time effectively, letting the trained Dell technician use their expertise, allowing me to not have to learn how to repair every model that Dell sells. Laptop repair can be especially labor intensive and tedious if you don’t do it all the time. As a quick example, It once took me 90 min to get a single key replaced on a laptop keyboard. I watched a Dell technician do it in about 90 seconds.

3. Finally the best feature of the warranty that I specified is the Complete Care option. For the length of the warranty Dell will fix any damage to your laptop regardless of how it occurred. This means that even if you accidentally drop your laptop down the stairs they will make it right. It also means that if after 2 and half years when all of the letters are worn off your keyboard from lots of use, they will send out a technician with a new, no questions asked.

This warranty explicitly costs $218.00, however its value is quickly realized especially after the first year, after other model's warranties have expired. If for example your system board were to fail after a one year warranty were expired. It would cost about $500.00 dollars to buy just the part and then an hour to an hour and a half’s worth of labor $50-100/hour. The turn around time on repairs of this nature are often longer than one business day because the troubleshooting involved, if complicated could require the replacement and return of various parts in order to weed out the real issue. With the Dell solution, if they’re not sure they just replace all of them.

In addition to the warranty, since there are several units of this laptop series within the Insert Office Name and my support purview I can offer accessory loans. (if a power adapter is left at home for example) I can also setup units of like model much faster in the event of catastrophic data loss such as the failure of a hard drive.

I believe that all of these factors combined make spending the extra money on a Dell worth it.

Finally, a personal anecdote regarding the value of Dell’s warranty;

Recently my Dell Latitude D600 died. By “died” I mean that when I hit the power button there was absolutely no response of any kind. This was true when I tried powering it up with a fresh battery or a power supply. Knowing that I had at least a little warranty left, I called Dell’s Gold Support. My tech was Tony a friendly guy based out of Idaho. He had me try the one thing I had neglected, take out the battery and try to run it just on the power supply. So, I did, or at least I attempted to… I’m sure it sounded pretty funny from his end of the phone as I plugged the unit in.

Me: “Ahh Ohhh Jeeez…Whoa!!!”

Tony: “What’s wrong sir!”

Me: “Oh Man! I just went to plug the power supply in and sparks shot out the back.”

Tony: ..audible pause…ummmm…seemingly concerned silence..”How big were the sparks?”

Me: “Pretty big. I mean it wasn’t just static electricity, they shot out the back.”

Tony: “How far? An inch…more?”

Me: “Oh no probably six inches, it was kind of scary!”

After that exchange I was place on hold for a few minutes. Tony said something clever like, “I’d rather send you a new laptop than have you standing outside your house later this week watching it burn down.” I agreed.

Typically when Dell replaces a laptop like this they send a refurbished model. However it just so happens that they were fresh out. So… I got a brand new Dell Latitude D620. It arrived yesterday, and it is cool.

Dear Dell, Thank you.