How Premiere is Dell Premiere Support?

Recently one old cluster node failed – after being evicted from the cluster, luckily. A Dell PowerEdge.



Went to Dell’s Premiere Support web site to get the phone numbers and the Service Tag of the server – having all Service Tag info stored on Dell’s personalized Premiere Support site is a great help – you’re not scrambling to find the Service Tag from a rack-mounted server, or scrambling to find a spreadsheet somewhere.

Called Dell. The usual drill, and really LONG hold times. While being put on hold, I opened a ticket on the Premiere Support web site explaining the issue in detail, the fact that it was a “critical production server” and needed to be put back into production ASAP. Also provided contact numbers of 4 colleagues to contact if I’m not available on-site the next day.



After about 99 minutes (that’s more than 1.5 hours), I got disconnected.



[I work for a company that’s recognized as a market leader in speech recoginition and call-center automation software. Dell would benefit greatly from using our products – reduced wait times for customers, increased call completion rates = better customer service.]

The web ticket went through – promptly got emails back saying tickets were now open, and I actually expected someone to show up the next morning – the servers have 4-hour on-site support.

How naive was that! When no tech showed up till noon, I called them back. Little shorter wait time today – about 20 minutes.

Explained to the rep that I’d opened a web ticket and nobody showed up. She politely informed me that the web requests are guaranteed a 48-hour response time and that I should’ve called them if it was urgent. I said I did, but didn’t get anyone yesterday and I was on hold for more than 99 minutes (after which my phone’s timer reverts back to 00 – so I know!). She says “Well, you got someone today!”. (Implying I should thank my lucky stars… ?)



Someone should explain to Dell reps what a “critical production server” is and why a company invests in 4-hour On-site support in the first place – it’s definitely not to get a 48-hour response time on web tickets, a more than 99-minute hold time on day 1, and only be able to reach someone the next day!



To be fair to Dell, the spare(s) did arrive shortly after the call – and the tech called me within minutes informing me of his arrival time. The way they manage the complicated logistics is in fact impressive.



Now only if Dell would build some way to open actual critical support tickets over the web.. we’d have a great support system.