It’s me again. I just talked to J.B. Johnson, Dell’s program manager for the battery recall, and I wanted to provide an update on how we're taking care of our affected customers.
When the announcement went out last night, the phones started ringing. J.B. and her team were handling 500 calls every 30 minutes until midnight (CT). The volumes decreased overnight, but calls are ramping as I write this post. We expect the highest call volume for the recall to be between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. (all time zones) today. Call now and you may find that we’ve maxed out our trunk line—if this is the case you will be redirected to our battery recall web site where there is no wait.
Roughly 33,000 customers are accessing our website at a time right now. This is only about 8 percent of our capacity so performance is excellent. We have had 15.4 million folks access the website since it went live last night. One of my friends called this morning and has a recalled battery—I sent him directly to the website for quick resolution. That’s my best advice to any of you who need a replacement battery.
As of 11 a.m. this morning we have taken 84,000 orders, worldwide. The first replacement batteries will go out today. The team made sure every available battery was boxed and ready to go so we can minimize the inconvenience for our customers.
This is a global recall: our Asia team hit the ground running with the announcement. My colleagues in Dell Europe were sleeping during the announcement, but they are full-speed ahead now.
Based on early customer feedback, we are increasing the prominence of our recall links on Dell.com to ensure customers can easily find the recall website. There also has been some confusion about whether to input “O” or “0” (zero) into the battery ID tool on the website. The answer is always use “Zeros.” CORRECTION: Please see updated blog post about entering the battery ID number. We are clarifying this on the website and working on an automated solution, as well.
Finally, 2,000 people called before the recall website was live, and we are calling each of them today.
Despite the size of this recall, things are going smoothly now. We have a long way to go, but I am proud of J.B. and her team and all of my colleagues working on this around the world. We’ll keep cranking.