[Enterprise]

This is for CORPORATE customers. For you peons who buy it on your own, well, you're on your own. Learn to understand Indian accent and you'll get along just fine. Or else, go pay big bucks to you local computer repair geeks.

[CedarDave]

Got a bad link someplace. Can't access the full article.

[aculeus]

You mean that commercial is supposed to be in Calcutta?

[river rat]

Earthlink should do the same....

I can predict EXACTLY what will happen to anyone attempting to get anything even remotly unusual resolved by talking "live online chat" to one of their Indian "solution centers"...

Forget it...
Call a human in the U.S....bypass their online Indian assistance..

Semper Fi

[AgentEcho]

The Dell experience. Written while on hold tracking 75 missing PCs in October.

All of our representatives are currently helping other customers, customers that have spent more than your petty $250,000 this year. We don't care about you, just your money. You will hear two beeps. The first is our telephone system's way of laughing at you, the other is an actual customer service representative saying "BEEP" then muting his phone so he can hear you cursing. He will laugh and laugh at your futile attempts to check your account. When he is finished laughing, and going to the bathroom, and getting a cup of coffee, and going to the bathroom again because coffee goes right through him, he will answer just to say you will need to be transferred to the MegaGoldPremiumWonderAccount in Jakarta. He will say he's transferring you right now, which he will, only to put you at the bottom of the queue. After being rerouted from Jakarta to Bangladesh because the Jakarta exchange trunk is overloaded you will get Babagushin. After realizing that Baba (you now have pet names for the reps to keep you interested) does not understand when you say three, but does if you say "TREE" he will let you know that your account is a MegaGoldPremiumWonderAccount but that PC was "misinputed" as he says, and it itself is not covered under MegaGoldPremiumWonderAccount. He would like you transfer you to Steve in the Austin office as they have this problem all the time and Steve is the best at sorting this kind of "ting" out. In case the line is dropped Steve's extension is 56894. Steve's the first person you called. You explain that to "Baba". He say he will transfer you right to Steve, which he does. But Steve's gone for the day and the voicemail asks to leave a message. Then the automated operator comes on line. We'll call her "Betty". She sounds cute for a computer. Betty politely informs you that Steve's mailbox is full, and he has no backup. Thank you for calling Dell and have a Dellicious day.

After hanging up from this 85 minute call and the twitching subsides you come to a few conclusions:

Steve's a jerk

Baba's a bastard

Screw Jakarta

Nuke Bangladesh

And Betty, though sounding cute for a computer... is a bitch.

[irv]

Tech support for corporate customers with Optiplex (search) desktop and Latitude (search) notebook computers will instead be handled from call centers in Texas, Idaho and Tennessee

But those of us working for a company that was stupid enough to buy one of their "servers" are just plain out of luck.

Fortunately, we don't have very many of the *&^$%(! things.

[observer5]

How about this headline:

"Dell to stop building lousy computers"

[CedarDave]

PING

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Would you like a slurpee with that?

[1stFreedom]

I had to call Intuit tech support and a woman from India answers the phone. I ask her where she is located and she says "for security reasons I'm not allowed to reveal that".

Like, what am I gonna do, find out exactly where she is India, take the next jet from NYC, and come harm her? Silly, it's obvious she was from India. Not very helpful and answered my questions with canned answers which were not relavant.

I asked to speak to someone else and it was slightly better.

I've worked with programmers from India, and most if not all were very nice people. However, the language barrier is a big obstacle, and it's even worse when they are in India and not here CONUS (Continental United States for you "Civilins")

[nutmeg]

ping! ;-D

[nutmeg]

ping

[Fitzcarraldo]

Time for Artificial Intelligence - a virtual customer service agent would cost 1/100th that of any human.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Only way to deal with Dell, HP and the rest that do this is to NOT buy their bullshit products.

This is not just a service issue, this is a Jobs issue.

If you want to sell in America, Hire Americans.

Case Closed

[JoeGar]

I've gotten SUPERB tech support only twice in my life. Once was by HP about a printer problem, and the other was by a Dell techie in India.

[rocksblues]

Just so you all know. AT&T has laid off most of their help-desk call center workers and sent the work to India. Also the new workers are trained to state that they are someplace in the US if asked where they are from.

[Smogger]

This is why I just laugh at all the moronic blue chip companies that outsource. The companies and their customers that tolerate this crap get what they deserve. I have personally delt with dozens of technical people from India and Pakistan. And I am not talking overseas employees, these were most likely H1 visa holders. In general it's my experience they are extremely difficult to communicate with. You can't understand half of what they are saying. Ironically, Worldcom was the company that employed many of these Indian software engineers/technical people that I am referring too, though I was suprised to find various state agencies also used foreigners with heavy accents.

Communication on say technical conference calls was so poor in most cases that I came to the conclusion that companies hired a lot of Indian and Pakistani's with heavy accents not only because they were cost-effective, but because their customers would be too emberassed to speak up and say they couldn't understand a word of what the technical person was saying. Therefore, customers wouldn't be tempted to ask "too many" questions or request too many new features as it wasn't worth the hassle.

Seriosly.

[SinginSuzi]

I work for a call center, my company outsources much of it's call center business to India (not Dell, that I know of).

But, before we flop and twitch too much about outsourcing, we need to do something at home first.

In my community, for unskilled labor (which most of our reps are, or retired), a person can get minimum wage in the service industry such as fast food, Wal-Mart, K-mart, etc. My company pays 2 - 5 dollars more an hour for sitting and helping customers. Granted, there are some pretty cranky customer's out there and it's not easy at times.

However, a small minority of the reps in my call center are dissatisfied with their 8 hour day, higher paying, with benefits job, and are trying to get a union in.

If you were the company that runs these call centers, what would you do? Stay local with reps where 15% or more are on FMLA and call out at will (for sinus problems, headaches, etc.), or go somewhere where the people actually want to work?

I personally dislike calling a customer service center and speaking to someone with a thick accent, but there's a flip side to every story.

[dr_who_2]

Oh well. Mind you, I've never been impressed with any computer/IT/ISP company's technical support. You basically have to play their little game until they give up and give you what you wanted in the first place.

[No.6]

AUSTIN, Texas — After an onslaught of complaints, computer maker Dell Inc. (DELL) has stopped using a technical support center in India to handle calls from its corporate customers. Some U.S. customers have complained that the Indian technical-support representatives are difficult to communicate with because of thick accents and scripted responses. Tech support for corporate customers with Optiplex (search) desktop and Latitude (search) notebook computers will instead be handled from call centers in Texas, Idaho and Tennessee, Dell spokesman Jon Weisblatt said Monday.

The upshot is not union vs. non-union, the upshot is that the wave of offshoring is beginning to break ... just a little, but you can see it.

CEOs are beginning to see the effects of their actions. Just wait until the costs of bad software written by 'cheap' programmers come home to roost.