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IMHO Dell looses sales every day due to an over-complicated order process (at least in the small business area). In the small business section you get an offer directly from Dell by phone and have "special" contact person who you should call directly. After you get the offer by email, you can't just order the offered configuration on the web but you have to call your contact person and confirm the order.
The problem is that your contact person may be not available (vacations, calls with other customers), business sales is not available 24/7 and you can not order by calling other Dell call center agents. At least this is the current situation in Germany.
A recent experience should illustrate the issue:
I administer some networks for small businesses (up to 20 employees) which do not employ a dedicated network admin. In December a client needed a new notebook so I asked Dell for a quote on a Latitude laptop (Friday, 28.12.) and got a quite interesting offer. I needed to check back with my client to talk about some minor equipment details. So I could not order on Friday, I called Dell again on Monday (31.12.) but my contact person was not available (vacation). The mailbox named another agent as temporary delegation. This one was not available too any more - at 12am on a normal work day.
I called the phone central but the agent told me - even after I insisted, that I just want to order and already have an offer from Dell - that no agent can accept the offer now and that I have to call again on Wednesday (2.1.). I stumbled as this is something that I expected in a small shop with 1 or 2 employees but not in a global corporation with thousands call center agents world wide...
The delay was especially problematic as the new notebook was needed ASAP (as always), in mid-January at the latest and my sales person told me, they could probably manage to ship it by the 15th of January if I order in December.
2. January: My sales person was still not available. The alternative one was busy, I spoke on her mailbox but got no call back on Wednesday.
Finally, I got a call back today (3.1.) by my sales contact but now Dell just needs too long to ship the product to the customer so I had to choose another supplier which costs about 20% more but ships in a few days! Dell lost a sale due to poor internal organization despite superior technical quality AND a lower price.
I suspect that no other call center agent was available to accept my order because Dell has an internal reward system on the basis of customer orders and they have an internal codex that no-one may take customers away from another Dell agent.
I suggest:
1. If a small business customer has an offer, make it possible to place the order 24/7 (at least in Germany, you can not do this right now). Sometimes I need to work on Saturdays or late in the night. Just provide a web page where I enter the offer number and the payment option.
2. Do support established payment options even if these are unknown in the US. In Germany, "Lastschrifteinzug" is widely used (works like a Credit Card but you give the seller your bank account number and the permission to get the money directly from your bank account) but is not offered by Dell.
3. Improve your shipping times (may apply only to Germany). I know, that Dell is built on the "Built-to-order" principle but customers really expect that *I* ship computers "just in time" for them, too. And they don't announce this a month in advance but only a few days, 2-3 weeks at the most. Mostly, they just need ordinary business computers, nothing special, just "Windows ready". Why does Dell not provide some computers which are pre-assembled, can't be configured in any way (maybe choose the monitor you like) but are shipped to the customer within 24/48/72 hours?
felix.schwarz160.0
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