August 30, 2005 16:31 | Confession / Technology

Doing right

Well, Dell, I must say: wow. Wow.

So I ordered this 2005FPW 20" TFT monitor from you over three weeks ago. I complained a bit about the fact that the website was essentially useless for tracking the status of my order, but when I called I was told all was well and that unfortunately there was a back order. Fair enough.

After that, the monitor showed up at my door yesterday morning, a full week earlier than I was told it would. Wonderful!

However, unfortunately, the one I got had a defective DVI port. I spent the better part of my afternoon figuring that out, a process which included a very helpful and knowledgeable support call to you and a trip downtown to a friend's office where he had just unpacked his (he ordered it the same day as me after I sent him the URL to the special you were running) to see if it was the DVI on my Powerbook or a faulty cable. Turns out IS the DVI port on the monitor itself.

I then spent the rest of the afternoon in the maddening maze that is your customer support phone experience. I believe I placed a half dozen phone calls, at one point, being so close to service only to be told your systems were oddly enough down. Roar. Considering I was playing phone tag with two other customer support departments (web hosting.. don't ask), my day was pretty much scrapped.

So I called one last time yesterday evening. The call took all of 4 minutes and it was settled. A replacement would be dispatched within 5 to 7 business days and we'll deal with the return of the defective unit after that. I barely believed my ears then.

I barely believed my ears when I received a call from you just 10 minutes ago. The monitor had shipped, Purolator Express, I should get it latest 2 days from now. Oh and it is a brand new one and not a refurbished one (I had be warned about that by one of the support folks N calls ago...;)

"What about the defective unit?"

"Oh just call us once you've set the new one up. We'll send Fed Ex around then."

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Oh and by the way; the monitor is awesome. I am using it with a VGA adapter at the moment and although that makes the image fuzzy, the brightness and clarity is awesome and I am so loving the rotation feature.

Thnx!