The Captain’s Blog ™

By any measure, Dell has to be one of the UK’s most accomplished online retailers. Their website provides both home and business users with a diverse range of PCs that will cover most buyers’ needs.

Typically, when buying a new PC online from Dell, you start with a base configuration. You’re then given the option of either keeping or upgrading / downgrading various components within the overall build in order to better suit your requirements and budget.

For some people (myself included), this can understandably be quite daunting. What, for instance, are the relative technical merits of this graphics card vs that one?

Recognising this issue, Dell’s customisation process features content-sensitive help buttons, usually denoted by a big question mark in a blue circle with clickable text: “Help me choose”.

In principle, this is great, but the practice - in my experience at least - is disappointingly inconsistent.

It’s part of my job to try and keep on top of the latest products, so that I can relay particularly good deals to you. So I often respond to emails from Dell by clicking through to have a look at new PCs and play around with specs and pricing.

Take the new Studio range. Dell’s new Studio notebooks now come with a choice of fancy cover designs. And the Studio desktop PCs range from compact, coloured models to more traditional desktop designs.

But as a case in point, when playing around with the spec for a Studio desktop (D105403), I reached the stage of being asked to choose a graphics card from a choice of two. I didn’t know what either model offered in the way of features, so I clicked the help link. On clicking the “Compare side-by-side” option within the help window, I was then presented with specs for no less than six different graphics cards. Yet none of them corresponded to either of the two models I was being asked to choose between.

That’s really not very helpful at all. As I was only window shopping, I called it a day right there. But in doing so I was conscious that this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the problem.

Dell is so close to getting it right that it sticks out all the more badly when the customer journey leads to a dead end. I’d suggest that Dell could do with paying a little more attention to the parts of its website that customers are likely to be relying on the most.

> See the Studio range at Dell’s online shop

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In the current economic climate, with rising inflation fuelled by increased bills for utilities, petrol, food, mortgages and more, it’s entirely sensible for us all to be making an extra effort to save money where we can.

Surrounded by such doom and gloom, I’m sure many of us find ourselves even more tempted to spend a few moments every now and then to enter free prize draws and competitions for luxury prizes. Sure, we realise that our chances of winning are slim, but it’s nice to know that there’s still a chance that it could be you who receives that special letter, phone call or email. So you keep an eye out and maybe spend some time entering - as you certainly won’t win otherwise.

Part of Virgin Atlantic’s efforts to keep Flying Club members happy includes urging them to enter competitions for the chance to win “fantastic prizes that are waiting to be claimed”.

Two such competitions currently offer chances to “win 2 Economy flights to Hong Kong plus three nights at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong” or to “win 2 Economy flights to Hong Kong and 3 nights at the Island Shangri-La”.

Don’t those prizes sound great? Just the kind of thing that many people mightn’t be willing or able to buy, but would be delighted to win.

But guess what? Those flights aren’t actually free. Instead, the small print in the terms and conditions states that “passenger taxes, charges, fees and surcharges (the amount of which are subject to change) on the prize tickets are to be paid by the prize winner“!

So from a technical perspective, only the “fare” is free. A quick search today on Virgin Atlantic’s site revealed that example return fares for two (London to Hong Kong return) total £938.80 - of which £582.80 is taxes, fees, charges and surcharges!! I’m not great at maths, but I make that a LONG way off being free.

I think it’s appalling that Virgin is offering these supposed “prizes” with such enormous drawbacks. They may claim it’s all above board because it’s stated in the terms and conditions, but I’m a firm believer that a prize should be a prize - ie free, gratis, without catches.

A prize is certainly NOT something that you have should have to pay for. And most definitely not at over 60% of the regular price!

Virgin Atlantic is one of the last companies I’d have expected to find adding such horrible semi-hidden catches. It’s just plain wrong. And perhaps also a particularly telling sign of the times.

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