How Dell LatAm pushes buyers towards Samsung, Acer
DELL HAS great hardware, but after a recent experience trying to order a LCD display for my home office on the firm's web site, and then on the phone, I'm now looking at Samsung and Acer as my only options.
Yes, Dell hardware is top notch, and its pricing is hard to beat. But there are some glaring omissions in the web ordering process, and small annoyances that make a local customer if not suspicious at least a bit wary.
Once I added the LCD monitor, I noticed something odd, the shopping cart showed quantity one of "LCD monitors, wide screen" with no reference to the model number. Second, the numbers used the American notation, that is $1,247.11 instead of $1.247,11 which is the local notation, using dots for thousands separation. Of course, no big deal, but those little details are what make the local customer feel from the start that they're dealing with a foreign company far away. "If they don't know how to write prices, what else don't they know about us?"
But more important than these little details was the reference to taxes and import duties. At the top of the screen, a blurb read "Your Price", followed by the following statement: (literal translation) "Price of purchases $1,508.80* Price in Argentina Pesos. The price includes shipping and import duties. Includes VAT". The latter was in red and bold typeface.
But below, "shipping and duties" was marked as "Not Available ††" and the footnote read: "This configuration is presented only for your convenience. Prices are subject to change without previous notice. PRICES DO NOT INCLUDE SHIPPING, OR IMPORT DUTIES. SALES TAX [they surely mean VAT?] IS INCLUDED. The final prices including import duties, shipping cost, and sales tax will be communicated after we have received your on-line order." So there you have, two conflicting statements on the same page.
Notice that the green button to continue at that point is entitled "Order here ". How was I supposed to order something if I don't know the total cost in advance?. Actually, if what that button does is send a Request for Price, it should be labelled as such. I decided to check on the terms and conditions on that page to see if I could cancel an order after receiving the order confirmation and finding the final price would be totally out of my budget. What I found was confirmation of why most U.S. companies that come down here and just copy their US web site and business model fail miserably (Home Depot, AT&T failures come to mind).
Dell should bear in mind that what separates its Round Rock, Texas headquarters from Buenos Aires is much more than 5161 miles or 8306 Kilometres, it's language as well. When you read the Terms and Conditions page it's evident that they just translated the U.S. legalese document, something I will find funny being applied to a local sale to a local customer by a local business - as is Dell Argentina. The result is sometimes worrying, sometimes funny, and sometimes tragic.
This document in Spanish and under the "Dell Argentina" section heading reads [original in all caps]: "This agreement and any sales subject to it will be ruled by laws of the State of Texas, regardless of any other rule to resolve conflicts of law". Now let me get this straight.. Dell Argentina as a local branch is a local business, located with a physical address in Buenos Aires and its own Argentine tax ID number 30-70719843-3. So how could the laws of Texas apply to a local sale by a local customer with a local business registered in Argentina is beyond me.
I'd like to see the face of a local judge being explained by a Dell representative that the customer, by placing an on-line order, agreed to subject himself to the laws of Texas - or the face of a Texas judge being brought a case by a customer in Argentina against Dell's Argentinian branch.
Point number three is probably just to scare you into prompt payment, but reads: "The customer agrees to pay interests over any owed amounts, at the highest interest rate allowed by law". Not nice, Dell! Why not say something subtler like "twice the average interest rate". In short: I couldn't find an answer to my question... Would I be able to cancel an order if the price I received by e-mail was totally unacceptable?
The joy in that document continued: "Changes: Occasionally, Dell can, at its sole discretion, change products or pieces of a product". I think they must mean "replace" and "replacements" in the English original. In any case, the current Spanish document might make some people think that Dell can change a system or parts of it from your order without previous notice. Not something very enticing for someone who's having doubts about making his first on-line order.
A later statement is less ambiguous but not less scary: "Dell can revise and discontinue products at any time without previous notice. Dell will send products which have the power and functionality of the products ordered, but it's possible that there might be changes between what is shipped and what is described in the catalogue pages." This is followed by this orchestral ending: "Dell does not accept nor does it assume any responsibility besides the remedies outlined herein".
I suggest the company changes it to: "You have no rights, we have the final say. Ha-ha!"
OK, before the nitpickers flame me, I know that all similar legal documents look as outrageous as this one, it's just that very few people read them, what I'm trying to say is that I was forced to read it because I wasn't told during the order process whether what I was entering was a firm order or a request for pricing - remember, import duties were shown as unknown and the final price was thus a big question mark in the air.
"Price includes duties". "Does not include duties!" All very clear...
So I tried Dell Argentina's local toll-free number. What I got was a sales girl speaking in Central American - Puerto Rico?- Spanish, which doesn't sound at all like the Rioplatense Spanish we speak down here. Again: is Dell trying to make local customers confident or scare them? I explained to the girl that I wanted to know the final cost of a given Dell LCD monitor and that the web site wasn't telling me the import duties, and that no way was I going to enter an order without knowing that in advance.
I was asked the model number ... and everything went well until I said the last "W " in the model number. We call the W "double V". In other countries that also speak Spanish it's named as in English, "double U". The girl asked several times "double V?" I realised what was going on ... but decided to play "dumb local" and NOT correct my speaking to impersonate a Central American.
After all, why should a buyer change the way he speaks when trying to buy something over the phone, if he's calling a local number? The poor girl was probably typing "VV" at the end of the model number and not a "W". Not my problem! She told me to wait and put me on hold. Then suddenly I found myself back at the IVR menu! - For PC orders press one... for accessories, two.. etc. Sheesh. I hung up in outrage.
Free advice for Dell (I'm getting a bit tired of giving free advice for corporations which should know better and probably pay more per month to expensive advisers than my yearly salary.)
1. Total cost, please. If you have an ordering web site, either calculate import duties and display the amount, or, if the order is just a request for pricing, make the button one must click on read as such and not " order". People - like this scribbler - will wonder if pressing the green button would mean entering an order and then having the legal obligation to pay whatever total price is them e-mailed for the item. Not good!
2. The Call Centre. I don't care if you choose to serve Venezuela, Colombia, and the whole Central America from a call centre in Panama or Puerto Rico, but while our language is still in theory Spanish, it sounds different. It would be akin to Dell taking US orders from a London - or Sydney - call centre. Besides, there's a booming call centre industry in Argentina, so why not answer all local orders from a local call centre? So you know, the person on the other side can understand that when I say "doble ve" I mean "W" not "VV".
3. Meaningless Legalese: aka "Texas Laws, we couldn't care less." For Heaven's sake, have your legalese document checked by a local attorney and translated to the local legal mumbo-jumbo. Make the references to the corporation read your local branch, not the Texas HQ. After all, customers are buying from Dell Argentina, not Dell Texas.
4. No stocks I know this probably goes against your efficiency and cost-cutting dogma, but how about having a little local inventory as "buffer" between orders and new shipments from Brazil, the US or Asia? At least for items that do not change and cannot be customised, like LCD screens. Would Dell go broke by having 10, 20 units of each model in a warehouse somewhere and ordering more as each one from the local inventory is sold? There have been plenty of complaints on web sites and the local blogosphere about people waiting 30 days - some claim even 75 days - awaiting their purchases.
According to users, Dell sometimes blames it on the customs, which I find a bit hard to believe if you hire a competent customs broker, considering I personally paid duties and retrieved a purchase shipped by UPS and held at the customs depots in about six hours - believe me, this is fast by local standards. Plus, a couple of days of strikes at the customs surely cannot amount to a 40 days wait for some people.
This is far from a personal rant. A blogger over here liked his new Dell notebook but also shares my comment about the Central-American Spanish: "Even while they generally are able to answer questions, they have a different Spanish, and sometimes it gets though to understand. To make things worse the whole thing uses VOIP so conversations do not have much sound quality."
While I was writing this, I spotted great deals from both Samsung and Acer, in the same price range as the Dell I planned to buy. And I can go to a store and check them out, hold them in my hand. Of course, these two companies have a different strategy. Acer and Samsung rely on sales channels, while others like Philips have factories in Argentina's far south Tierra del Fuego which manufacture some product lines locally - getting tax breaks and contributing to local employment in the process.
Dell instead has apparently chosen the maximum-profit, minimum-risk, no-stocks, "quickly-translate the US-web-site" and " route -calls-to-an-overseas-call-centre" approach, and that approach has a price for the company in terms of customers annoyed or lost, like me.
I think that distances for reaching South America are much greater than shipping within the U.S. in order for the custom-systems-imported-across-the-world to work reliably. I planned to order a Dell. Now, I've narrowed my choices to either Samsung or Acer. Will Dell Latin America learn something from all this? How about copying other retail efforts elsewhere? In short: Why can't Texas learn from the Chaebol, the Dutch, the Taiwanese, etc? µ
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Fernando, this is a great article, but on the other hand, you are un Gran Peludo and Pive.
I am from the carribbean and everybody who has taken Spanish or Castellano grammar would know that "double u or double v = W". So stop complaining and blaming it on a girl from Puerto Rico or whatever. At least she is not pretending to imitate Italians and pretend she is European. You Argentinians are arrogant and Full of Shit; the only country from Latin America that pretends not to be part of Latin America is guess what: ARGENTINA.
the people that work at call centers are generally underpaid and maybe not quite as educated in language as u may be. serves u right to be outraged. u proved ur point, but to who?
Greetings, Fernando. For more Dell silliness, search for "Brazilian physicists boycott Dell" on the "other plaice" ;-)

p.s. @Jose: <tongue-in-cheek> Everyone should know that Argentina is actually a misplaced European country </tongue-in-cheek>
You just wasted some of the precious time in my life with your cry baby posting. Are all people in Argentina whiners like you?
Cant you find anything more interesting to complain about. Wow. I want my 2 minutes back from reading that article.
Though irrelevant. The fact that we Argentinians are "peludos" doesn't have anything to do with Dell making a poor performance in Argentina. [Hey Fernando, if this is you, don't decorate your articles with your own comments. Ed.]
Jose, "doble u" is a centroamerican localism. Look for it in the dictionary (rae.es)... And in Spain the meaning is "uu". And if you want to study grammar, you could begin reading the DRAE (rae.es).

Fernando is usually boring in his stupid crusade against Telefonica (everybody hates ISPs, duh), but this time he has a point. Despite the conviction in the USA of mexican as "neutral Spanish", there is no such thing. 
You can say "coger" and in Spain is "to catch" and in Mexico "to f******". You can say "pan" and in Spain means "bread" and in Colombia, "c*****". etc. etc. etc. 
Bangalore English is not like American English or Brit English. Mexican Spanish is not Argentinean Spanish nor Spanish Spanish.
I work for a classification society (look it up, its a complicated thing we do) in Houston and I deal with people all over the world, but primarily in the UK for now.

I make it a point to write the UK spelling of words when I write emails- "we are returning colour copies of these documents electronically today" for example. Our company also always writes all dates as DDMMYY. Why is the US the only country with MMDDYY? It doesn't make sense when you think about it.

We also specify all our units in documents in SI, although companies in the UK sometimes send us stuff in Imperial- I sometimes wonder if they are catering to us.
...have you been living under?
Everyone in the English speaking world knows that US orders are taken not in London or Sydney but Mumbai and Delhi.
Why should Argentina be any different? 

(Point 1) Had you entered your name/address/credit card number yet? If not then you could have pushed the button and found out what would happen then close the site if it didn't agree with you. Just for kicks I went to my local Dell website and went through the process of buying a 24in monitor. 
I clicked through the customise button and it opened a new window which showed what accessories it came with. I clicked through again and it laid everything out (before tax/tax/after tax), I clicked through again and a secure webpage asks for my details. 
I closed the window and (so far) Dell hasn't demanded any payments.

(Point 2) I like you Fernando, but why get pissy about the "double VV" thing when you knew the problem and could have solved it? You threw a hissy fit and karma cut your connection.

(Point 3) So. It is meaningless, and probably unenforcible unless you plan on travelling to the US any time soon. US laws are inapplicable outside the US. It is not your problem, it's Dells. So why get bent over it. 

(Point 4) Dell sales in Argentina probably aren't enough to justify setting up infrastructure. I'm thinking that Dell isn't crying over your lost sale. Perhaps you could have supported/encouraged further Dell investment in Argentina by buying that monitor, what do you think? Besides... >cough< "M1710, M1330" >cough<

This article smacks of hurt national pride, that the Dell system in place is designed to treat us first world Argentinians as second world citizens. 

Please Fernando, grow up a bit and realise that it is a globalised world and that these complaints are trivial, nit-picking, nonsense. Dell treats everyone like this.
Fernando, Argentina isn't a huge market and is considered just a part of the "Latin American region" so deal with it.

You want local representatives that appeal to your every Spanish dialect? Get real. We have call center representatives from places like *India* who have to take "accent neutralization" courses and have fake names to sound more "American." Trans-global call centers are a fact of life, and Dell isn't going to plant a center in each and every country just because some people use "double-u" and some use "double-v."

As for keeping stocks on hand, if keeping 10-20 monitors in stock at the warehouse is enough for Argentina's entire supply line, then Argentina isn't even worth investing in in the first place. Dell doesn't keep more than a few days worth of inventory across its entire supply chain at any given time, and mere hours worth in factories. They lose money otherwise.
OMG!! What a prat. 

You think you've got issues with accents.... 

In the UK we've had to put up with crappy service from crappy people with crapy accents from *indian call centers* for YEARS.

I lived in Leicester in the UK for about 10 years - a very multicultural city indeed. Did the girl you spoke with give you a crappy fake name instead of a name I'll be able to understand just fine? 

I hate fake names because they change on every call - call notes - bah! mysteriously they don't exist when ever a problem call crops up from a fake namer.

I thought the usual English holiday plebs were bad for expecting everyone to speak English. To wind a poor girl up when you knew what the problem was is like visiting France and getting an accent wrong..........

I hope you end up with a 15" CRT.



Reading this article was a waste of time. It sounds like you were not actually trying to purchase something, but were instead looking for all the problems you could find with dell. It is sad that you are so blind and cant see that your article is simply a huge flame.
<Jose, "doble u" is a centroamerican localism. Look for it in the dictionary (rae.es)>

I did, and it said:
"Su nombre es uve doble, ve doble o doble ve."

buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=w

Fernando:

I’m Argentine too, and order a Dell 27" Monitor of which I’m the proud owner.
We have to learn that not everybody speak Spanish in our way as the English people have to live with Indian English.
I have to say that I too call dell about the exact charges of taxes in the monitor, and the Spanish was OK 

My personal experience with Dell was ok; The only complain was that my order takes 27 days.

Think how many companies (the big ones: HP, IBM or the smaller: SAMSUNG, LG, etc) offers 5 year warranty extensions. Samsung is the only one with a 3 year policy. 

I have a customer with HP Laptops and to replace a DVD Recorder still on warranty take it 20 days. I remember IBM refusing to repair a laptop because the model was not under sell locally. I tell IBM that the laptop is from a German owner, and he pays the cost of shipping the parts, but still refuse.

The big problem is that we used to pay a lot more than in other countrys with the excuse of the local warranty. But that local warranty is really poor and don’t justify the over payment that we made. 

Regards

Gustavo.
Wow Fernando! As always you impress me every time sinking to a new low. Have you noticed that all of your articles you simply bitch and moan about how big companies are horrible, how linux rocks and how tough things are in Argentina? Besides posting booth babes, can you write any positive articles or at least some thoughtful ones? 

Your articles show precisely why our region still borders the third world. You have very intelligent co-workers from all over the world, and although they complai/rant or whatever, they do so intelligently including witty remarks, not depressing notes about how minorities are always being squashed. 

Of all South American countries, Argentina is by far the one that complains the most and one that does less about the problems they have. Even worse than that, when positive things are done in your country, journalists, writters, etc. talk about them as if Argentina was the best in everything, just think FOX Sports Latin America. 

A) My "free" advice to you: complain less, think more.
B) Although "evil" corporations exist your childish remarks will make them laugh more than anything. Learn from your Inq peers like Charlie or the Mageek. People like them who write intelligent stuff DO make a difference and that's why the Inq is bashed/discredited/etc. by the likes of NVIDIA or Intel, because they write stuff in a non-resentful way, they just report the facts with humor and irony.
C) Stop using the Inq to complain about your personal problems. We really don't care that you hate Microsoft and you want Linux to rule the world.
Hey, if you check the chek out of any product for Argentina, you'll see that the text has been corrected, and now they said that all taxes and shipment is included.

we are not all whinners.
¿What's wrong with you all? ¿Have you all been brainwashed to accept being treated like junk by companies?
The article has its points: dell doesn't give you the price, it says the legal jurisdiction is TEXAS... it's laughable...

For the details about call centers one thing does not cure the other, if you people in the usa talk to people that even can't speak english right that doesn't justify something similar in other place. Both things are wrong.


All these corporations defend their own, and they rip you if they can (big news :\) so I can't see why so many people don't at least demand good service and instead look resigned like indian cows getting bad attention, bad service, telephone operators that have NO CLUE what they are selling etc.

And i don't agree on everything with fernando.
Over the years I have done a lot of work on pcs, laptops & servers of all flavors & brands. During this time I have also seen the rise & fall of many pc products companies. What seems to be the most significant issue, however, related to the pc industry has been the demise of customer service. Due in large part to the outsourcing of jobs (not just customer service ones) to OCONUS sites, customer service is now long since dead. I now make a fairly good living on simply running interference for customers that have been unfortunate enough to seek out assistance from pc manufacturers only to find factory support is available only from persons with whom they simply can not communicate. Furthermore, these persons are woefully deficient in knowledge and training, and are limited in their responses only to what they have in a script. And forget about speaking to an American citizen. It's as though the city of Austin is nothing more than a mirage, and the actual Dell complex really exists in India.

There is simply nothing good to say about Dell. It siphons funds off the American economy to support economies elswhere. It's American customers are left looking for a rape kit. If only there was someone who cared enough about Americans to do something about this serial rapist (Dell).