Kudos To Dell On Handling Of Axim 2003 Issue

[Ed Hansberry]

When an OEM blows it, we all get outraged, be it a customer service issue, not providing ROM updates, discontinuing support for a device, whatever. Someone from the Thoughts team puts it on the front page and we all vent for pages and pages. And sometimes even more pages. 8O

So I think it is equally fair to give credit where credit is due when a company steps up and rectifies an issue in a top notch way. On June 14, CNet News (http://http://news.com.com/2100-1041-1025531.html) reported that some users were complaining about performance issues on the X5 with the new OS on it. These were coming from Dell's Support Forums (http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/) and other enthusiast sites like this one and AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com). Dell's official response at that time? "Dell representatives said on Monday morning that the Round Rock, Texas-based company was aware of the concerns stated online by Axim users and is investigating these. However, they added it had not received any formal complaints from Axim owners through its tech support service."

Fair enough. Dell too was monitoring the situation, but hadn't found any issues yet. Apparently no one cared enough to actually call Dell on this. Dell's support forums are hosted by Dell, just like the microsoft.* usenet hierarchy is hosted by Microsoft, but that is not an official support channel. You have to call an 800 number for that. Even so, Dell was already on the case. In fact, they were looking into this last week due to the reports in the forums.

Two days later, Dell found the problem (http://news.com.com/2100-1041-1026579.html) and immediately came forward with what they knew to that point and a plan of action. Microsoft was also involved in this. Microsoft had just released a new OS and probably didn't care where the problem was, just that it be identified and fixed. It turns out the problem was in the firmware that Dell provides, which lies between the Microsoft OS and the hardware.

Dell had several options here.
• Bury their heads in the sand and see how loud the noise got. I can think of a few OEMs that have done this in the past. One denied their 16 bit color display was actually 12 bits. I don't recall if they reversed course before or after the class action suit was filed, but it never should have gotten that far. Another PDA manufacturer did this when they got reports that their cradles were frying motherboards on computers because of an electrical discharge. Again, it got to class action status before it was over.
• They could have pretended nothing was wrong, fixed internally, slipstreamed the fix and then handled complaints on an individual basis. In the end, the user gets what they paid for, but it sure is a hassle.
• Fix the problem and make the fix available for download quitely.
• Shut down the plant until the new firmware is ready to go, let the media know what is going on and assure 100% of existing owners that the problem will be rectified.

The further down that list you go, the more expensive it gets for the company but the better it is for the consumer and end user. Dell chose the latter. Few here would have complained if they just fixed it and made it available for download, but Dell didn't want anyone else to have to mess with this, so they have halted shipments temporarily.

I'll also give Dell the benefit of the doubt that their quality control testing will test for scenarios like this in the future so it doesn't happen again. I doubt a service pack at Microsoft goes by that the QC phase doesn't get a few dozen tests added to it to prevent the introduction of new bugs in the next service pack, so I hope Dell's QC department has learned how to make their process more effective from this.

Kudos to Dell on their handling of this situation!

[Andy Sjostrom]

I agree. Dell has shown once again that their service mindness is top notch.

... and kudos to you Ed for spotting this and articulating it the way only you can! 8)

[manywhere]

Well said, Ed! :clap:

The way that Dell handeled this problem should be set as a standard for every Pocket PC manufacturer! :D

[mr_Ray]

I shall say no more on this matter other than that I disagree with you for the most part, and would have to say that Dell handled this very badly with lies and deceipt. :evil:

Of course my point of view is also taintde by the fact that Dell have stolen my money and won't give it back. :D

[ricksfiona]

I have a client who was using Dell's for all their needs. They are a 25 person law firm, so their annual budget for computing needs is probably about $10,000 or so.

They have been exceptional customers of Dell. They've never needed to finance computers and ALWAYS have paid their Dell bill quickly.

One time, their was an issue with a bill that was never received and the company received a service charge of approximately $300. My client spent about 4 hours on the phone speaking with Dell and Dell Financing. Dell would not budge on the service charge. After years of working with this great customer, they would not forgive the finance charge. After all, isn't it possible that my client never received this bill? Sure. Absolutely. Now my client doesn't want anything to do with Dell. This is a customer that has supported Dell from the beginning.

This problem happened last month.

How can you turn your back on someone who helped you build your buisiness AND has been a top-notch customer? $300 is such a trivial amount compared to the ten's of thousands of dollars this customer has spent on Dell equipment. True, it's not a Fortune 500 company, but there are ALOT of smaller companies that spend $10,000+/year on their computing needs and together, they outnumber the number of computers at larger companies. No hard cold numbers on this, but it makes sense to me from my experience.

I was going to start recommending Dell equipment to all of my business customers due to my previous experience with Dell's Customer Service people and the quality of their equipment. They usually beat on price too. After this experience, I can't support Dell. The few bucks you save isn't worth this kind of service We can buy our computers from someone else.

I'll probably keep recommending Dell's desktops to some of the home users I work with because it's almost always about price for them and the service is more than good enough. And I certainly won't recommend anything from any Mom and Pop shop. My home users are outnumbered by their business counterparts 30 to 1, so we're not talking many computers.

Dell has a huge margin for the PDA's and maybe that's why they are being so attentitive to those users. According to the founder of Gateway, P.C. companies must branch out to other technologies or they will go bust, eventually. Gateway made a killing selling Plasma based t.v.'s. They are too getting into PDA's as we know. The p.c. business just doesn't have the markup is used to have.

If more and more businesses experience the kind of Customer Service my client received, this could seriously damage Dell's reputation. IBM thought it was invincible back in the early 90's and wants to conquer the world. They suffered HUGE losses and had to completely reinvent itself. It's completely possible for Dell to suffer the same fate, or worse.

[jkendrick]

I too feel Dell has handled this admirably. Reminds me of another OEM (Toshiba) and the way they issued a voluntary recall for the e740 battery charge problem. How quickly we forget.

[Ed Hansberry]

One time, their was an issue with a bill that was never received and the company received a service charge of approximately $300. My client spent about 4 hours on the phone speaking with Dell and Dell Financing. Dell would not budge on the service charge. After years of working with this great customer, they would not forgive the finance charge. After all, isn't it possible that my client never received this bill? Sure. Absolutely. Now my client doesn't want anything to do with Dell. This is a customer that has supported Dell from the beginning.
I would imagine Dell has pretty hard and fast rule about this. I too buy all of my IT equipment from Dell.

• When I order it, there is a PO in our system for it
• When it comes it, there is a packing list and a price
• A few days later, I get another statement that has the price
• A week or two later, I get an invoice.

Even if that company doesn't use POs for orders, the invoice is not the only time they get notice they owe money. It is likely someone was sitting around waiting for the real invoice to pay the bill, which is human nature. But that was going past the due date, they knew it, Dell knew it and thus the service charge.

[papo]

So what about us with the the PPC2002 Axims? Will we get a firmware update and then upgrade to ppc2003? I hope so right?

[Ed Hansberry]

So what about us with the the PPC2002 Axims? Will we get a firmware update and then upgrade to ppc2003? I hope so right?
That would be my assumption. They have stated that when the firmware is ready to go, they will offer it for download or CD to existing 2003 Axim owners, so I don't see why they wouldn't offer the firmware update along with the 2003 OS to those that are getting the 2003 upgrade.

[Cypher]

...official response at that time? "Dell representatives said on Monday morning that the Round Rock, Texas-based company was aware of the concerns stated online by Axim users and is investigating these. However, they added it had not received any formal complaints from Axim owners through its tech support service."

Fair enough. Dell too was monitoring the situation, but hadn't found any issues yet. Apparently no one cared enough to actually call Dell on this. Dell's support forums are hosted by Dell, just like the microsoft.* usenet hierarchy is hosted by Microsoft, but that is not an official support channel. You have to call an 800 number for that.

This may seem incidental to your piece but it raises an important point: Posting a diatribe on the peer-to-peer support site, no matter how detailed, only guarantees a nice catharsis. If you really want to get a response from the company, contact them directly and make sure they set up a case number for your issue.

This isn't just for Dell. I've seen a number of posts on forums for at least three PPC companies complaining that said company didn't make an official response to their posts. If you want an official response, use an official channel. If you want a quick, polite response, you really should refrain from profanity at worst and/or questioning the intelligence and lineage of the companies support people at best. :bangin:

On the other hand, it would be a good idea for companies to be painfully obvious about the official channels. Some folks have a hard time figuring out that you can send an e-mail to [email protected] and lo-and-behold, you'll get a response from an official tech support person. Often, a big part of support is belaboring the obvious. :iamwithstupid:

[peterg]

Holy Crap!

I am a Dell Axim owner and was eagerly waiting for the MM2003 update.

Many of the Axim users have "said" they reported the slowness problem to Dell Support while Dell still claimed that they had no reports from the field.

You guys need to go over to AximSite.com Forums and read some of the posts in there. Specifically, the "Microsoft Mobile 2003" forum.

From the experiences of the users there, this was handled horribly.

[Thinkingmandavid]

The bottom line is that the companies should know the forums is where users are going to hang out and are going to share good things about a company and bad things. considering that a thread will be responded to, more importantly, how many times has it been read? MOre people read the posts/threads, than those who respond to them.
While the forums are not an 'official" contact, they should be an idea of how a product is doing. I am not saying for Dell to respond to what they read in the forums, but to use them for good measure.
I know there will be those who will defend Dell, but the truth is, they can track the complaints and obviously see when there is a problem. QC is a must and is sooo important.
For the guy wiht the bill, if it was that way, I agree. 300 is crap when it comes to good customer service and a company spending 10,000 a year. That tells me someone dropped the ball, maybe a complete moron?, or policies and procedures need some flexibility.
I personally would have emailed Dell himself, told the story, told what I didnt appreciate, and the course of action I was taking, hence being another company.
I know there are going to be many different opinions on this, so just want you all to know, I respect all your opinion;)

[guinness]

I think your giving Dell too much credit; I think that if it wasn't for sites Aximsite or Dell's own Axim message boards reporting problems almost as soon as people got PPC 2003 equiped Axims, that Dell wouldn't have released a fix as quickly or if ever.

The main issue with Dell isn't with coming out with a fix after weeks of denial, but their shoddy QC testing, in their rush to get the updated Axims out the door, they cut corners. I did order the PPC 2003 upgrade and it should be here sometime next week, should include the bug fix as well.

[Jacob]

I think your giving Dell too much credit; I think that if it wasn't for sites Aximsite or Dell's own Axim message boards reporting problems almost as soon as people got PPC 2003 equiped Axims, that Dell wouldn't have released a fix as quickly or if ever.

Well, why would or should they in that case? If no one complains or shows their dissatisfaction then why should they work to find a problem that noone seems to be dissatisfied with? True, if they knew it was their problem then it would be a "nice" PR thing to release, but still.

Forums are not always good in finding out specifics about a problem. Considering the time that elapsed between the release of the upgrade and the announcement of theirs, I think they handled it pretty well.

[JonnoB]

Unfortunately, when a company does what it is supposed to do, we find the need to heap on praise. Much too often we find that these companies do nothing and as such, what should be the 'norm' becomes the unusual and to help contrast between customer service policies, we have to praise one and condemn the other. Wouldn't it just be nice if Dell's action was typical and on occasion when they act like Toshiba, we only need to shame them into corrective action?

[guinness]

I think your giving Dell too much credit; I think that if it wasn't for sites Aximsite or Dell's own Axim message boards reporting problems almost as soon as people got PPC 2003 equiped Axims, that Dell wouldn't have released a fix as quickly or if ever.

Well, why would or should they in that case? If no one complains or shows their dissatisfaction then why should they work to find a problem that noone seems to be dissatisfied with? True, if they knew it was their problem then it would be a "nice" PR thing to release, but still.

Forums are not always good in finding out specifics about a problem. Considering the time that elapsed between the release of the upgrade and the announcement of theirs, I think they handled it pretty well.

But it shouldn't of really had problems in the first place, the PPC 2003 iPaqs come out fine, HP must of done their homework on the QC testing. Even in basic things, the PPC 2003 Axims were far slower than 2002 models. MS sends the OEM's the code at least a few months before hand to do testing and update drivers, just like the desktop OS's. I'm glad they fixed it obviously, I really like my Axim, but it just tells me Dell did a bad job of testing before they started shipping units. Also, they did deny the exsistence of any problems in a few press releases, saying thay hadn't received any formal complants, even though their own Axim forums were full of angry posts of PPC 2003 slowness. I understand that software bugs happen all the time, but why release something that is noticeably slower than the previous model?

[GO-TRIBE]

DELL NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAD THIS ISSUE! :bangin:

It just goes to show how much testing they put into these products (which they didn't design or build anyway).

I'm glad that they took the right action when the problem was found, but don't give the criminal too much credit when he turns himself in. He's still a criminal, and in Dell's case they still let a very serious and obvious issue slip through their lack of testing.

Just my 2 cents.

[danmanmayer]

Dell has always been know for good support. I agree kudos are do. So dell if you read this site or any others congrats! When you release a pocket pc phone i might have to pick it up.

[GoldKey]

Given the number of people that posted about this problem, I find it hard to believe that none of them contacted Dell through an official channel before the original press release came out. Additionally, once Dell (Rollie) responded in the forums, I think that serves as an acknowledgement that the problem had been communicated to Dell.

Granted, they chose their words very carefully in the original press release, but I truly don't believe that they did not know there was a problem at that time.

That aside, in the big picture, while it was not handled well, it was handled better and more quickly than most other companies would have. These days, you don't have to be good at something, you just have to be better than everyone else. Overall, there are very few organizations that I deal with that I would say have good or excellent customer service (I can only think of two or three off the top of my head), so I am stuck with picking from the least bad of the rest.

[QYV]

Ed, I'm disappointed in your post for one reason: Dell absolutely lied about having no reports through official channels.

Numerous folks on Dell's own forums had already posted about their experiences calling Dell tech support to complain specifically about the slowdown before Dell put out that first press release. Unless all those people are liars, Dell at best was using semantics in order to dodge responsibility. That's totally dishonest and extremely disappointing to me.

Now, aside from that, I think that Dell is definitely doing the right thing by their customer, and I never believed they'd do otherwise. They've been exceptional about providing ROM updates for issues that even small numbers of people have complained about (slow startup time, IE (r) problem). But that does not excuse their PR department's dishonesty in that press release.

[Thinkingmandavid]

I think it is possible they worded it the way they did so not to make it look as if it was their own fault. We know they dont build it themselves, but many consumers may assume that they do. With that in mind I can see why they worded it carefully.
It does raise the questions of quality control. It seems to me there is way too many companies that suck at this because they are looking at stock price. DUH!!!! With good quality control you can have a good stock price. If you are going to build on something let it be you are building on consumer/customer confidence and not in cutting corners. Instead of the blame game, take responsibility and make sure every Axim owner has been treated fairly for your own or partners mistakes. Keep the people happy and they will be back for more products which means higher revenue. Isnt it strange how it seems they so easily forget or cant figure out what is so basic to the rest of us. YES! they can do that and be an effective business. go figure.

[chunkymonkey75]

I have found out from Dell today that an updated ROM will be available on 7/26, addressing the performance issues.

[Jacob]

Yes. Dell testing should have found this.

I pretty much imagine all the customer service reps figuring all the official reports to support were just factors of perception until they get as many as I've heard they have gotten and only then do they push it up the ladder.

[priesmeyer]

I was quite surprised to get a phone call from Dell yesterday informing me of the slight delay and telling me that the new ship date was July 30th (or 31st, I forget exactly).

I didn't expect that. I didn't think it was owed to me - an email would have been sufficient. But a real life human called me and I appreciate it.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Well, better late than never. :?

Dell could have done better - but came through in the end - so yes - agreed - kudos to them.

I'm looking forward to recieving the fixed 2003 upgrade. :mrgreen:

[hudsonmobile]

As a developer, I agree that Dell QC should have caught this issue way before the first Axim with Windows Mobile 2003 shipped. Have they heard of Beta tests? Just giving 20 of these Axims to the rabid early adopters that storm these forums would have revealed the issue.

However, I think Dell did just fine with the timing of their response to this issue, and I guess I still feel the following:

1) This problem wasn't that SERIOUS! I don't think anyone lost data as a result of this problem. Compare that to Microsoft Word, which routinely hangs on me just when I forget to save something. :-) The problem is a nusiance, for sure, but not that terrible.

2) This may just serve us right for wanting the latest and greatest upgrade so soon after its initial release. I needed it to ensure that what I developed was compatible with the new OS. The smart Pocket PC users I know decided to wait out the hype and move to PPC2003 in August or September when they could be sure their software is ported over.

I guess the people I feel bad for are the ones who happened to buy an Axim in early July and not realize what the OS version is, have never heard of Pocket PC Thoughts, and are just wondering why their device is slow. I sure hope Dell sent an email to them to let them know what is going on...

[xbalance]

I just got an email from Dell saying that the upgrade would not ship until September (I can't get specific date because Hotmail is down). I ordered it the first week it was available. Kind of a bummer.

[rock99rock]

Auctually, i have the early july release of basic axim w/ PPC 2003, and they never let me know what was going on, i had to find out on my own, searching forums for why my ppc was running so slow. Dell did deny, then accept that they had a problem, that is why im pissed. Hopefully the upgrade does come on the 26th so i can see how well it works then.... and i can decide if i need to send it back before my 30 day/ ful refund is over. What a shame, but i guess you get what you pay for.

[rock99rock]

The dell with PPC 2003, or just the firmware upgrade wont ship till september?

[htx]

I disagree... Dell has handled this very badly. I bought an Axim in early July (loaded with PPC 2003). I noticed it was very slow, and checked the Dell forums and found out what was going on. This was long after Dell had admited the problem in the Cnet article, and had stopped shipping new Axims. So I email Dell tech support to ask when the problem will be fixed, if it will be available as a download, etc, and they're clueless about it. I get told to do a "soft reset" :roll: Then I email them back, telling them this is a known issue, refering them to their own forums, and saying I just want to know the time frame on a fix. The email I get back still does not acknowledge the problem, and feeds me some more BS.

Many other users in the same boat as me are reporting similar problems. Either there is no communication between the people at Dell who are aware of the problem and their tech support department, or tech support has been instructed to string us along and be willfully ignorant of the problem.

Today I finally said the heck with it...I have no faith in Dell, and will not be stuck with this piece of junk until they get it figured out. I just bought an HP 2215 and I love it! It's way smaller and lighter than that brick Dell calls a pocket PC, and runs like 5x as fast! The Axim goes back to Dell tomorrow. :mrgreen:

[mr_Ray]

Today I finally said the heck with it...I have no faith in Dell, and will not be stuck with this piece of junk until they get it figured out. I just bought an HP 2215 and I love it! It's way smaller and lighter than that brick Dell calls a pocket PC, and runs like 5x as fast! The Axim goes back to Dell tomorrow. :mrgreen:

Join the club. Dell have lost loads of people to the 2210/5 over the way they handled this, including myself.

I just thought to myself "do I want to be a customer of a company that so blatantly lied to me?" No way I could answer yes to that.



Each time that I phoned tech support (asking for a refund) I also asked if/when the problems will be fixed - I was told that there was no problem. There was one slip-up by a tech though - when they were trying to fob me off with a replacement unit I was assured that the replacement "does not have the WM2003 problems". Ummmm... you just said that you'd never even heard of any problems. Your lie training for your techs isn't as good as you thought it was, Dell.

Anyone who's used one of the WM2003 Axims and has the slightest bit of experience with another PPC2002/WM2003 unit will spot problems within a minute. I know their quality testing probably isn't that hot, but there's no way on earth that these problems slipped through even the most basic of testing without being noticed.

Dell knew about this when they released it, plain and simple. If you think that that deserves kudos, good luck to you.

[xbalance]

Dell sent me an email yesterday saying they would not be shipping my 2003 software until 9/10. I ordered the software on 6/24. I feel for the people that have 2003 on their Axims since the slow performance must be a real pain in the ass. I've had my Axim since they were first shipped, so my sense of urgency is low.

[PocketExpert]

Kudos to Dell on their handling of this situation!

This "behaviour" to the customer is something, other Pocket PC manufacturers can learn from.
Surely Dell will win customers in the future.

[dennisneo]

I don't really agree with this view.

Dell can be quite dishonest about their claims too. However, they are very prompt to replace you Axim when you complain of faults on it. It does make me wonder if the set they replaced was a refurbished set.

I still think IBM has the best service, but if you count cost as a factor, Dell gives you the best deals all the time.

[zoomer777]

I have a client who was using Dell's for all their needs. They are a 25 person law firm, so their annual budget for computing needs is probably about $10,000 or so.

They have been exceptional customers of Dell. They've never needed to finance computers and ALWAYS have paid their Dell bill quickly.

One time, their was an issue with a bill that was never received and the company received a service charge of approximately $300. My client spent about 4 hours on the phone speaking with Dell and Dell Financing. Dell would not budge on the service charge. After years of working with this great customer, they would not forgive the finance charge. After all, isn't it possible that my client never received this bill? Sure. Absolutely. Now my client doesn't want anything to do with Dell. This is a customer that has supported Dell from the beginning.

This problem happened last month.

How can you turn your back on someone who helped you build your buisiness AND has been a top-notch customer? $300 is such a trivial amount compared to the ten's of thousands of dollars this customer has spent on Dell equipment. True, it's not a Fortune 500 company, but there are ALOT of smaller companies that spend $10,000+/year on their computing needs and together, they outnumber the number of computers at larger companies. No hard cold numbers on this, but it makes sense to me from my experience.

I was going to start recommending Dell equipment to all of my business customers due to my previous experience with Dell's Customer Service people and the quality of their equipment. They usually beat on price too. After this experience, I can't support Dell. The few bucks you save isn't worth this kind of service We can buy our computers from someone else.

I'll probably keep recommending Dell's desktops to some of the home users I work with because it's almost always about price for them and the service is more than good enough. And I certainly won't recommend anything from any Mom and Pop shop. My home users are outnumbered by their business counterparts 30 to 1, so we're not talking many computers.

Dell has a huge margin for the PDA's and maybe that's why they are being so attentitive to those users. According to the founder of Gateway, P.C. companies must branch out to other technologies or they will go bust, eventually. Gateway made a killing selling Plasma based t.v.'s. They are too getting into PDA's as we know. The p.c. business just doesn't have the markup is used to have.

If more and more businesses experience the kind of Customer Service my client received, this could seriously damage Dell's reputation. IBM thought it was invincible back in the early 90's and wants to conquer the world. They suffered HUGE losses and had to completely reinvent itself. It's completely possible for Dell to suffer the same fate, or worse.


So, this company, that spends 10,000 on computer stuff each year had a big problem with spending a 300 service charge because they lost the bill (moot point whether they lost it, or Dell never sent it, or maybe it got lost in the mail)? So much so that they dropped Dell as their provider? So what stellar company have they decided to go with now? HP? I would hardly call this an incident worthy of getting "up in arms" about. What company do you now reccomend over Dell to your business customers?

[Ed Hansberry]

Please note that Dell has given out updated info on the availabilty. See http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,15733 for more info. This is real info, not the rumors that have been swirling around as to when the updates and CDs would be out.

[Jason Dunn]

I missed this thread when Ed posted on it, and I have to admit I'm disappointed by the naivety displayed by some of the people posting in it. :| Products ship with bugs all the time. Screaming at the company that shipped them and saying "You SHOULD have spotted this bug!" is naïve and silly. Hindsight is always 20/20 right? This wasn't a bug that caused the device to lose data, it made things slower. I haven't seen the bug in action myself (I'm still waiting for my upgrade CD), but my hunch is that while it's something an enthusiast would notice ("My SNS emulator is 3 FPS slower now! Aughh!!") I don't think it's something an average consumer or even Dell support person would be aware of. I'm willing to give Dell the benefit of the doubt here. It might seem painfully obvious to us, but big companies move slow - I wouldn't be surprised if it took a week or more just for the bug to be pegged down and flagged.

And in regards to Dell monitoring enthusiast sites, sure it would be nice, but I seriously doubt if they do. It's very difficult for me to even get the attention of the OEMs or their PR people - the majority of their PR/media people still think "old world" and consider CNET and PC Magazine to be the pinnacle of their target audience.

And regarding tech support not knowing what the rest of the company is doing, what do you expect? Dell, like many big tech companies, is firing off their North American tech support people in droves and hiring new people in India and other lower-cost-of-operation countries. Sad but true. These people have a database of problems that they read from, and often have no knowledge beyond what's on the screen in front of them.