To be fair, Dell has known that its customer support arm was the weak point in its operation and was spending millions making it better.

Unfortunately it could not have predicted what the impact of the recall of more than 4.1 million batteries could do its already ailing system.

Dell's response has been to set up a hotline, in a bid to drive the battery callers away from its already beleagured customer support teams. However the average waiting time, listening to classical music, to get to a human is now 30 minutes.

That is if you get through. The phones are overloaded most of the time. Once you are in the queue there is a good chance that you will be disconnected and have to go through the whole thing again.

A spokesDell has admitted to Business Week that there are long telephone delays, saying the company had already received 90,000 orders for new batteries. She suggested using the Dell battery programme site for a faster service. µ

L'INQ
Business Week