Will The Air Force Buy Computers With Little Green Men On Them?

from the why-not? dept

Alienware has made quite a name for itself in the gaming world, making high end, stylish computers designed for (and built by) gamers. Now, however, they want to expand into other areas, including selling to government and military officials who need higher end hardware -- leading to amusing situations where Alienware's founder is showing off their "Area 51" computer, complete with the signature Alienware alien face with glowing eyes, to a group of Pentagon and Air Force officials. One other interesting point in the article is that Area 51 says they want to get customer service right -- and that means not doing it the way almost every other computer maker does. For example, if you speak to one customer service representative, you can always ask to speak to that same rep again, to avoid having to re-explain everything. Having recently needed to waste countless hours on the phone trying to explain some computer problems (and getting different, and often contradictory answers each time), this simple idea sounds quite intelligent (though, perhaps much more difficult to handle logistically as a company grows).

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1.  

    by?

    identicon
    armando, Aug 30th, 2004 @ 10:05am

    is it supposed to be "buy"?

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: by?

    icon
    Mike (profile), Aug 30th, 2004 @ 10:11am

    Indeed... Fixed. Thanks.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Outsourcing?

    identicon
    blairkincaide, Aug 30th, 2004 @ 10:24am

    It would be quite interesting to see the helpdesk assigned to support US government computers be located outside of the country, wouldn't it. ;p

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Customer Service was a bad experience.

    identicon
    Bis, Mar 22nd, 2006 @ 5:46pm

    Starting with the $600 rebate they denied me and so many others for no reason. Thats when I most need their customer assistance, to figure out what could be done about a "lost" rebate. Its a shame, they would not even let me speak to a manager and provided all sorts of lame excuses. Even their strategy during the sales stage was a bit shakey. Whatever. My very expensive notebook is still working and it better remain like that.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss
From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This