OMB: Owner-Managed Business

Over the past several years, I have purchased a number of computers from Dell. Have you noticed how poor their service is?

Dell is the brand I buy the most. Perhaps there is a reason. It seems that every year or two, the old Dell needs replacing. However, I believe Dell provides a decent product at a decent price. However, I have learned not to buy directly from Dell, but instead to purchase through Best Buy. When you buy through Dell, in my experience, even after multiple calls to multiple people, they still cannot get your name right, nor your address. This also applies to their financial services unit. My first purchase, financed through their finance company, involved bills being sent to some address where I had never lived, followed by phone calls--but not to my number, instead they called my employer, despite the fact that all the correct information including my phone number had been given to them during the initial phone call--and it never got any better.

I had bought another computer, again from Dell, and found that the operating system load was bad. I had to reinstall it, so that the screen would have a resolution greater than 800x600 with 16 colors. I hadn't bothered to contact them about it, because I'm the tech guy. I spent my time fixing their mistake after I gave them my money.

Another time, I had bought a computer as a gift. I didn't see a restore CD, so I called to get one. After a couple of hours of going through hoops, I hung up in frustration. I wiped Windows Vista from the machine and installed Linux Mint in its place. This time, I had purchased the computer at Best Buy, because I was tired of Dell's repeated missteps when you deal with them over the phone or the Web.

I want to point out that I am not dissing Dell here. Dell is a large company, and like any large company, they make more money by depersonalizing their service. Instead of having a single person handle every step and spend as much time with you as needed, they use industrial age assembly line techniques to reduce their costs relative to their sales. It is not Dell, specifically, that is the problem. It is large, out-of-area corporations (LOOACs) in general. As a tech guy that goes through computers regularly, I need to either build my own (which I do when I want a tower-style computer) or find a local vendor that will build them for me. Unfortunately, it isn't easy to find local vendors that will custom-build laptop / notebook / netbook form-factor computers, especially if you aren't looking to install the current version of Windows on it. I'm interested in laptop / notebook computers that work out-of-the-box with GNU+Linux (specifically, Debian, Ubuntu, Mepis, Mint, Fedora, or CentOS), or with FreeBSD / DragonflyBSD / NetBSD. If you're in Southern California's Inland Empire, or High Desert areas and you build these, I'd like to hear from you.

I also want to point out that I've purchased a few HP machines, all of which have turned out to be way underpowered (the last one was a lappy with a large screen, but poor resolution). I have never contacted HP, so I don't have the slightest idea whether their service is as poor as their products. Again, I'm not dissing HP. They are trying to make a profit and get their products in as many mass market outlets as possible. They have to keep their prices down, so it is no surprise that the user experience is not great. But, hey, they were featured in the "laptop hunter" ads because of their pricing. If you actually want to enjoy what you buy, find local sellers that carry locally-produced items. You will pay more, but you'll enjoy the difference in quality and service. A small, locally-owned business (SLOB) is usually going to be a better supplier than any LOOAC.

Surprisingly, I recently received a Dell catalog in the mail. They had my name wrong, and they sent it to the wrong address. Somehow, I am supposed to be motivated to give them more of my money?