Dell - Pro Support for IT - Are you Kidding?

As some of you know, we are a truly cross-platform business with a 70:30 ratio of PCs to Macs. Historically we have purchased all of our windows hardware from Dell. Having spent several hundred thousand dollars with Dell you can imagine I've had my share of moments. Tech support and parts delivery gone wrong, deceptive bait and switch tactics, and overall ordering chaos have contributed to lots of confusion over the years. Overall though our experiences have been pretty positive and we are pretty happy with the goods and services we have received from Dell. Our current account rep is great and is doing a good job to put a humble but proactive face to our interactions with Dell.

As we do every year, we are ordering a new batch of laptops for upgrades, replacements, and new hires. We always order extended support on our equipment with speedy turnaround on parts and labor. Dell now has some new offerings in the realm of support. One of these offerings is 'Pro-Support for IT'. The idea is that through this support tier IT Professionals are granted speedier response and are able to push through tickets faster because they can do most of the troubleshooting and diagnostics before they even get on the phone with Dell. For me, an IT professional, this sounds great. But, there's a catch. Because of my expertise and my ability to offload some of the troubleshooting from Dell onto my plate, we get to pay extra for this level of service. Ok, so because of my expertise, and my ability to save Dell time, we have the option of paying more for support. Seriously?!? If that's not a sucker move, I don't know what is. Typically when I get the Dell tech on the phone, I just tell them I've completed all of their troubleshooting steps, please just send me a new part, and they do. Now I have the option of paying for that level of service. Not so much.

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