In his quest to secure a good deal on a PC for his daughter, one man butted heads with Dell Jim wrote to me about a recent purchase his daughter made at Dell Outlet. She needed a new computer fast for the start of school and “a close friend suggested she try the Dell Outlet as the prices were better and the computers ship quickly,” he explains. She placed an order and was told it would ship on Sept. 12. When it hadn’t arrived by Sept. 15, Jim suggested she track it online. “And that’s when she found that the order had been cancelled,” he says. It seems a discrepancy between the name on the order (Jim’s daughter) and the account holder’s name (Jim) caused anti-fraud mechanisms to kick in and cancel it. When his daughter contacted Dell, the computer she wanted was gone and she was told she had to start her order from the beginning. “The fault fell with Dell’s cancellation without notifying the customer,” says Jim. “Time was of the essence for my daughter. Classes had started. So I was looking for two things, either send her the computer she ordered overnight … or have Dell staff select an identical computer and ship it overnight as a courtesy.” Jim was determined to make this happen. He spent hours on the phone, spoke with 18 people, was disconnected on several occasions, and cycled countless times through the automated phone system.” Much of the time he met with “an inflexible response that basically told me, Dell doesn’t care that it made an error.” But a couple of people (in the new sales division — not Dell Outlet) at Dell made an effort to get him what he wanted. When they couldn’t manage it either, though, he went back to the outlet, chose another computer, and ordered it. But even with this computer in his shopping cart, he could get no one on the phone to expedite shipping to make up for the error and get his daughter a timely computer. With the clock running out, he placed the order and accepted his fate. But now he’s “hopping mad.” Jim sent his letter to Dell as well as to me. “I received a phone call from Dell in response to my letter,” he says. “This individual was very apologetic but powerless to assist me further.” Jim came away from this experience believing that “Dell’s home customer service is firmly scripted and inflexible” and “Dell does not give a crap about its non-business customer base.” I forwarded Jim’s letter to Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden for a response and she responded almost immediately. She had read Jim’s letter several times since he sent it. She agreed that the original order was not handled perfectly and that the outlet should have proactively reached out to Jim’s daughter about the cancellation. “I’m sorry we lost Jim’s confidence,” she said. “But shopping at the Outlet is VERY different from purchasing a system at Dell.com. The Outlet appeals to the most frugal of customers. The operations and infrastructure supporting it are ‘frugal’ as well. The systems are sold as is, not build to order. The inventory is very fluid and we close orders after 15 minutes because [stock] moves very quickly. The shipping is automated and streamlined to — again — minimize cost. There is minimal staff involvement, because we are doing everything we can to offer exactly what the customer wants and expects: The cheapest PC possible.” I feel like a marriage counselor here, but here goes… Much as I would like to, I can’t get Jim the resolution he wants. It’s too late for that. But I do very much admire a man who would go to so much effort to get his daughter a straight deal. That is one lucky girl. I hope she knows it. I’m also a lifelong fan of outlet shopping. And we outlet shoppers didn’t get into it for the high-quality customer service. I grew up shopping Filene’s Basement in Boston with my mother. Filene’s — at least in those days — had six floors. Five of them were filled with eager customer service reps, changing rooms, cosmetic counters, and a cashier at every turn. But the basement was a no-man’s land: no service, no changing rooms, and one desperate cashier — with an endless line. We went armed with heavy purses for protection and dressed for the pitched battle we knew was coming. It was war. And we got into a few rough scrapes with some feisty octogenarians. That was why we went there — to fight for the best possible deal. Sometimes we won. (My mom and I were pretty formidable.) And sometimes we lost. (See feisty octogenarian above.) But we always enjoyed the battle. When we got home, no matter how bruised we were, the question was always, “Did we get a great deal?” If the answer was yes, the thrill never diminished. So, given all that, I’m hopeful that once both Jim and Dell read this — and hear from all of you — they will be able to see a way past this misunderstanding to a fruitful relationship. Jim, was the deal good? Dell, was the customer so wrong to try and do right by his college-bound daughter? What do you think? Got gripes? E-mail me at christina_tynan-wood@infoworld.com. Technology Industry