Dell intensifies after sale services in Kenya

Dell, a global systems and services company is investing Sh40 million in Kenya to enable it offer after sales services for its range of products locally.

The project involves investing in spare parts that will be available in Kenya, providing telephonic diagnosis through the Dell worldwide technical support centres and on site services through the company’s authorised services partners.

The free technical support will target those that have bought Dell products from authorised dealers and signed a point of sale warranty whose validity is three years. Through the initiative, Dell also looks forward to relieve its dealers the cost burden of offering these services.

The service will be available countrywide, but consumers in Nairobi will get quicker response as services will be offered within four hours from the time of making the call while those in other parts of the country will take 12 hours to receive the service. Previously it could take up to two months for the clients to get technical support.

“Our objective is to make a fully-functional, highly reliable ICT environment both more affordable and less of an over arching concern,” said James Thurston, head of services, Southern Africa.

To achieve this objective, the company is offering technical training to its partners. For companies with technical IT support staff, the company has availed training materials online. The service will be available for home users, small and medium enterprises, governments or multinational organisations.

“It shouldn’t matter if a customer is in New York or Nairobi, their interaction with Dell on a daily-to-daily basis should enjoy the same levels of committed response,” said Stewart van Graan , Dell Southern Africa, general manager.

Other than Kenya, Dell intends to offer similar services to Tanzania and Ghana in January next year. In Kenya, Dell accounts for 15 per cent market share of laptops, notebooks and desktops.

The company says, customers in Kenya can now handle their Dell-based ICT environment the exact manner as customers in the UK or US markets.

Dell will offer same level of experts support rapid hardware diagnosis and replacement of parts just like in the mature countries.
The need to offer the support services , according to the company is stemmed from the growth in the ICT sector in the country.

The company, however, did not provide the number which the customers should call when they need the technical support, but said they are arranging to get a local telephone number.

Business Daily Africa