Musical Account Reps at Dell

I have been buying Dell gear for personal and business use since 1998 or so. Over the years I’ve been personally responsible for the purchase of countless Latitudes, Optiplexes, and PowerEdge servers, as well as a bunch of Dimension and Inspiron desktops. With the exception of the Toshiba Satellite I had a few years back (Dell didn’t have any 17″ laptops, and I didn’t know enough not to buy one) and my current MacBook Pro, I’ve never worked on a system other than a Dell.

Dell consistently beats out IBM and HP in price. Arguably you can say that Dell’s website is put together better than both - IBM’s site is a maze of confusing information that never seems to get you the support that you need. HP’s is very clunky but a bit better. Dell sells decent networking gear at bottom feeder (Linksys, D-Link, Netgear) prices.

If people ask me what type of system to buy, I say Dell. I’ve brought Dell into Rubin & Raine, VPIsystems, and Smart Carpet. I brought them into my current gig, and we’ve spent close to a quarter of a million dollars on gear from them.

And all of that is going to change.

Why?

There has been one thing that Dell does consistently, and that’s change account reps on me. Almost on clockwork, every six months I get a new rep. And it’s the most frustrating thing to have to deal with. At my current gig we’re on our sixth rep in three years!

Back in January of 2007 we were forced to switch reps again. Our current rep, Emily Upton, whom I adored was “promoted” to a new business group. She was sad to see us go, and she gave me some pointers on who I could complain to to try to make the transition not happen. My account was based out of the Oklahoma City Dell call center. I ended up having several conference calls over the course of the week with the new rep’s manager as well as the Regional Manager of the call center, Chris Kelleher. I was given a two hour SLA for quote turnarounds, and assurances that my account team would not transition again for a long time. I had the impression that they finally understood how bad the process is for the customer, and I had some sense that this would not happen to me again.

Yesterday, though, I was treated to this email:

Ben Ruset,
I am writing to introduce myself as your senior account manager at Dell.  Along with my account team, we will be working together as your company transitions into our preferred accounts division.  I will be your main point of contact and below you will find all of my contact information along with my account team.
Our main goal and objective is to develop the relationship between our companies to ensure we provide your business with the highest levels of service and support with the best value on each purchase based on volume.  I look forward to working with you and members of your company to develop customized solutions to fit your company’s IT objectives.  The fastest way to contact me is via email and I plan on being in touch in the next 2 weeks.
Thanks.

Uh oh. Now, this is the same canned email that I’ve got every time. It’s always the last line that bothers me the most. “I plan on being in touch in the next 2 weeks.”

No. I buy $50k worth of servers at a clip. I was my former reps biggest client. I will wager that I am this new rep’s biggest client. You’re not making me wait two weeks to hear from you.

I fired off a quick email from my iPhone as I was at our colo at the time. I asked what happened to Sandi, our old rep:

I do not know Sandi personally but one of two things happened. Either she got promoted and moved to a different division or she is no longer with Dell. Please let me know what you liked about dealing with Sandi and I’ll make sure to provide the best level of service.

Uh huh. I fired off an email to Sandi, her boss Kyle, and Chris Kelleher. The only person who responded was Kyle, and he neatly played the company line. I spoke with my new rep Paul, who basically told me that he was a new rep in the department and that he was voted one of the best reps over the last few months and that he wouldn’t be transitioned away for “at least” a year. Ooh, reassuring.

Today I spoke with his boss. Still more of the company line. Sandi got promoted (which is good for her) and essentially I should “give them a chance.” Now, you’ve been reading this article so far and probably wondering what the big deal is. Let me explain:

1. Getting good account reps at Dell is very hard. My experience has been that the vast majority of them have been awful. I was lucky to have Emily, and Sandi turned out to be good (after I had to kick and scream to make sure I got the same level of service as I had with Emily.) I don’t want to have to be stuck with some terrible rep. It’s not worth it for us to have to take that chance - it’s a business risk that Dell is forcing upon us.
2. I threw a fit the last time this happened. I had the ear of some pretty high up executives. I thought they had understood the angst in the process. It seems they have not. The fact that I’m notified of this transition by a canned email instead of a call from my old rep is mind boggling. If I was such an “important” customer as they had said I was I would think a phone call would be in order. Like I said, I’m not upset that Sandi got promoted. I’m upset with the way this has happened.
3. We deal with a 3rd party leasing company which is hard to deal with sometimes. I had to fight hard to have them let us keep Sandi as our rep because I knew of the level of service she would provide. Now I have to go through the process all over again, with some unknown guy.
4. I haven’t had any contact with anybody but my rep and his manager. No higher ups have contacted me. Nobody, with the exception of Kyle from my old team, has contacted me. It’s as if this is not a serious problem for Dell.

One very telling thing happened the other day. I had asked the new sales rep for a quote, which to his credit I received very quickly. He called me and I was really giving him an earful about the transition. In the middle of my tirade he’s like “so can I place an order for those servers?” That is the most callous thing anybody has ever said to me. I’m complaining about your company and you have the chutzpa to ask me if I’m going to drop $15k with you? Give me a break.

The musical account reps only serve to benefit Dell. They cause signifigant disruption to my company. It’s an extra hassle when I trust my vendors to be solutions providers, not problem providers. I have had the same rep from CDW for three years. Why is this so hard for Dell?

I have a quote for five Dell PowerEdge 1950’s in front of me. I also have a quote for 5 HP DL160’s. They’re coming in at the same price. Who do I want to go with?

HP.

Treat me like crap and I’ll vote with my wallet. Dell stands to lose quite a bit of money over this.

I’d like to hear from other people who have gone through Musical Account Reps with Dell.