Hating customer service
Computer-maker Dell will hire another 2,000 people by the end of the year to make India a hub for its software development and back-office work, its top executive said Friday.
“It has been a very exciting time here in India, running customer support and internal software development centers,” Dell Inc. Chief Executive Kevin Rollins told reporters in Bangalore, India’s technology hub.
Dell will increase its staff strength in India to 10,000 by January from nearly 8,000 at present, he said.
Less than two years ago, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell moved support for some customer calls back to the United States from Bangalore, citing “customer complaints.”On Friday, Rollins said the November 2003 decision was due to the company’s internal management issues…more
No Rollins, this had to do with a language issue.
If you are like me, there is nothing more frustrating than to call up any customer support service these days. These days, practically anything that is electronic-based has its customer support based out of India (for the culturally-sensitive, no I do not hate people from India). A typical call will have me asking the CSR to repeat what they just said at least 20 or so times. Believe it or not, that is not what bothers me. What ticks me off is when the person on the other end of the phone is actually reading the troubleshooting steps out of a book and not listening to me. I do not interpret this as some character flaw or ignorance on their part. Instead I believe that these folks are so focused on getting the language part right that the technical expertise is greatly compromised (again, I am strictly dealing with CSRs here).
This problem is not remote to India. Call just about any American-based call center and although there is no language barrier to deal with, you still have to deal with the widespread incompetence.
You know you are in sad shape when YOU have to tell the CSR how to fix something. I have heard of stories where the only problem was that an icon was missing and the CSR recommended a full system recovery. Personally, when I have to make the unfortunate decision to call customer service, I go straight to the manager about 90% of the time. Don’t worry, I do not get ig’nate with the struggling CSR, I just politely ask “Can you just get your manager, boo?” “Bless yo’ heart, you tried”.
Getting back to India, I am all for improving the economy of any impoverished nation. I just have huge problems with it when it comes to the expense of the American consumer because now we are stuck with sometimes expensive products that cannot be fixed unless you are prepared to pretend that you are an interpreter for the UN WITH NO TRAINING.
Remember when PC’s used to average about $1200 in sale price? Well, part of the reason you can almost buy your average computer these days for almost a song is because of this compromise on customer service.
What cracks me up about Dell is that the CSR’s that they use on all of their commercials are white, black (actually a light-shaded black man with the blow-out hair), and female (for political correctiveness). All of them speak perfect English and answer customer questions on the fly. Maybe it is time for them to show us the staff in the back office ‘cuz we sho’ nuff talk more to them.
April 29th, 2005 at 11:25 am
This CSR problem is not only related to foreign accents or location. I had a cable modem problem for nearly one month. I would call the local number, get a CSR to told me to re-boot my PC (’I have four PCs. What about my router? uh … what’s a router?’). there were several missed appointments which I forced a refund for lost time, thinking that would get good service. Finally, one CSR said, it’s not your problem; I see signal loss in the wires. What’s that? Someone who looks at the screen and not the trouble-shooting guide?
The tech came out, re-wired the connection and no problems.
Tech companies have attempted to go support on the cheap for years. Simple problems can go to the low-level support staff but companies need the ability to swing more technical people into solving problems.
And not only Dell is returning the CSR jobs back due to customer complaints. More situations like Citibank faced (employees in India getting account numbers and almost stealing over $200K) will awaken the profit-driven accountants as to what globalization really cost.
April 29th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
This is a aspect of globalazation that I can do without!