Kudos, Dell!

Wow. Last Tuesday the 21st I shipped my Dell laptop off to be repaired under the three-year extended warranty plan I’d previously purchased for it. Note that the Inspiron 700m is no longer manufactured, and that my warranty was less than six months away from expiring. The primary motivation for the warranty service was a failing keyboard the week prior, but almost two years ago several other issues had manifested:

• the speaker wiring located in the right bezel hinge had worn through due to friction, silencing the system (unless, of course, I attached headphones, since the headphone jack still worked fine), and
• a small spring-loaded plastic rod that depresses when the bezel closes, thereby extinguishing the LCD backlight and otherwise alerting the system to the lid-closure event, had disintegrated.

Dell had one-day shipped me the packing materials at no incremental charge to me beyond the warranty I’d already paid for. The company also covered one-day shipping to the Dell-authorized repair facility at Solectron in Memphis, TN. And the repaired system just showed up at my front door, once again one-day shipped via DHL on Dell’s tab. The keyboard’s replaced. The plastic rod’s replaced (the official part name is the ‘LCD hinge-up assembly’). The speakers work again. But that’s not why I’m writing. Check this out:

• Dell replaced the entire bezel, including the LCD
• Dell replaced the entire palmrest assembly, which had become stained from 2.5+ years’ worth of my hands resting on it but aside from this cosmetic blight, was fully functional.
• And to top it all off, Dell updated my system BIOS for me

That, folks, is outstanding customer service. I’d been very careful to ensure that the warranty and repair folks didn’t know of my EDN affiliation (the system’s registered in my name with no company listing), so I can’t even dismiss the care I received as special treatment provided to a tech journalist.

I daresay I haven’t bought my last Dell system. And I also have no hesitation in recommending Dell to friends, family and all of you.