Is Dell Turning the Tide With Customer Service?

I just saw one of Dell's latest commercials. They flew a customer from the U.K. to Texas to personally approve his new computer. Yeah I know it's a gimmick for the commercial, but I couldn't help but wonder if it meant that Dell, who's sales had suffered recently, was finally turning it's attention to improving customer service. I've always liked Dell computers, but because of my personal experience with their customer service, I have never done any business with them since I bought 2 desktops and a pocket pc a few years back.

I had a problem with one of the desktop computers near the end of my warranty. I called and emailed customer service several times, without any satisfactory results until my warranty expired. I finally fixed the computer myself, no thanks to them. While they might be flying customers to Texas to approve their computers now, at that time, I got no response at all to a letter I sent to their Texas headquarters. I'm over it now, but I was extremely angry and disappointed at the time. If you're in the business of selling computers and you have a customer who buys 3 at a time, I would think you'd want to take care of that customer. Perhaps is was just a slip up in their service department and/or mail rooms. Whatever the case, I've bought several desktop computers and laptops since then, but none from Dell.

So perhaps now that they're faced with flagging sales and poor stock performance, maybe they're finally turning their attention to customer service. I don't plan on being a customer again anytime soon, but it could signal a turnaround in their stock performance. I can't see myself ever investing in their stock or buying any more of their products, but if you're interested in Dell stock, it could be a good thing. In fairness to Dell, I want to make it clear that I am still using both desktop computers, so their products are great! My only beef was that, in my opinion, I received poor customer service after the sale.

See also: "Dell Finally Notices Its Poor Service Hurts Sales" http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060613/103246.shtml