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Dell Moves Call Center Back to US 961

Posted by CmdrTaco from the americans-hate-accents dept.
alphakappa writes "Fox reports that Dell is moving its call center operations for the Latitude and Optiplex computers back to the US from Bangalore, India after an onslaught of complaints from dissatisfied customers who couldn't cope with the differing accents and scripted responses. Is this the beginning of a trend where companies recognize that the quality offered by relocation to cheaper centers around the world doesn't result in customer appreciation and better quality?"
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Dell Moves Call Center Back to US More

Dell Moves Call Center Back to US

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  • Coming back? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:26PM (#7559471) Homepage Journal

    Is this the beginning of a trend where companies recognize that the quality offered by relocation to cheaper centers around the world doesn't result in customer appreciation and better quality?

    For call centers, perhaps, but I wouldn't bank on having the IT jobs return from cheaper lands. If the IT geek doesn't have to deal with the end user then the language barrier is virtually nonexistent, at least as far as the masses are concerned.

    Does the primary language of the person who programs your dialog boxes really matter?

    • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Covener ( 32114 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:30PM (#7559523)
      For call centers, perhaps, but I wouldn't bank on having the IT jobs return from cheaper lands. If the IT geek doesn't have to deal with the end user then the language barrier is virtually nonexistent, at least as far as the masses are concerned.
      Does the primary language of the person who programs your dialog boxes really matter?

      IT jobs require significant interaction from a Software Engineering standpoint. Having your architects/sales/management on one side of the world and ppl doing the "grunt" work on the other side can be very frustrating and impede progress.

      • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by weave ( 48069 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:42PM (#7559710) Journal
        Another thing I've always wondered about is confidentiality. Say I farm out the programming of my next big internet thang to some foreign company. What's to say that company could resell (or at least reuse) some of that code when they do the same coding for my competitor when they want in on the next big thang too?

        If not that, what about the programmers bleeding out code?

        Imagine you're running a programmer sweat shop and you get two companies wanting the same sort of thing. Why write it twice. Reuse code, profit. And if it's closed source, each company will never know they helped subsidise the code for their competitor and visa-versa.

        • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pesky25 ( 512779 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:13PM (#7560088)
          Imagine what would happen if you host any data overseas. If some big financial institution wants to move some/all of their data overseas, what recourse with that host gov't will they have if someone locally steals it? Are the host countries going to go after one of there own and help out a Chase bank, I think not.

        • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @03:07PM (#7560659) Journal
          >>What's to say that company could resell (or at least reuse) some of that code when they do the same coding for my competitor when they want in on the next big thang too?

          This code sharing thing happens over there.

          I've been approached with a proposal like this by our offsite coordinator. I told him that I DID NOT WANT ANY ONE ELSE'S CODE IN MY SYSTEM except for open source solutions. This was backed up by emails from myself and my boss. God forbid we got caught with someone else's code.... what a fsking disaster that would be.

          However, we did interview and bring on 2 of the key guys from that other project. :)

          Thinking aboot this a little more, I wonder who it is that's ultimately responsible for ensuring that the codebase is pure. The US team? Or the offshore guys? This sounds kind of like the SCO issue, I know. But this is a legitimate concern, I think.

          Hmm. Must talk to boss about risk.

          Whos says that posting to /. has nothing to do with work? I'm gonna' set up a meeting to talk to my boss about this tomorrow.

          wbs.

          p/g

        • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by kcornia ( 152859 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @03:25PM (#7560910) Journal
          There was an article I read not too far back about a Pakistani woman threatening to release private medical information of patients for a particular hospital because she hadn't been paid for her transcription service.

          Turns out the hospital had outsourced it here in the US, that company had outsourced it to ANOTHER company, which then outsourced it to Pakistan.

          Speaking for myself, I'm not very thrilled with that many groups having access to my private info, let alone groups that are outside the reach of US law enforcement.

    • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Funny)

      by standsolid ( 619377 ) <kenny@nOspaM.standsolid.com> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:33PM (#7559554) Homepage
      well if the "error" dialog reads

      "Thank you, come again!"

      It might just be too comical to even try and get work done.

    • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Funny)

      by tdemark ( 512406 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559568) Homepage
      Does the primary language of the person who programs your dialog boxes really matter?

      Let's see:

      "Are you sure you want to delete this file?"

      Or:

      "Sure are you would enjoy this file to remove?"

      Yes. Yes it does matter.

      - Tony

      • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tenebrious1 ( 530949 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:49PM (#7559775) Homepage
        Let's see: "Are you sure you want to delete this file?" Or: "Sure are you would enjoy this file to remove?" Yes. Yes it does matter.

        No, it doesn't. Users are going to click "YES" anyway, without reading the warning, then call you later to say they're missing a file and need it restored from tape.

        • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by shepd ( 155729 )
          >Users are going to click "YES" anyway, without reading the warning, then call you later to say they're missing a file and need it restored from tape.

          That's the problem with India. Their responses to double negatives are actually correct; unlike North American dialects.

          "Would you please not to delete this file?"

          What you expect to answer depends on your dialect. I'm dead serious on this [umich.edu].

          'Yes' and 'no' agreeing to the form of a question, not just its content --
          A: 'You didn't come on the bus?'
          B: 'Yes

          • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:29PM (#7560241)
            "Would you please not to delete this file?"
            What you expect to answer depends on your dialect. I'm dead serious on this.

            In any part of America, "would you please not to delete this file?" is incorrect grammar. Hiring local programmers does not help your cause if you hire illiterate ones.

        • Exactly - and more (Score:5, Funny)

          by fnj ( 64210 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:34PM (#7560296)
          It could say "The gostak distims the doshes; OK?" and they would click Yes. Hell, *I* would click Yes. Life is too short to figure everything out all the time. Because it's not a dialog in isolation. It's part of your life. You've been tussling with this program for hours. You need to take a leak. It's time to mow the lawn and pay the bills. You're hungry. Your girlfriend just came into the room in a red lace teddy.

      • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by BrynM ( 217883 ) *
        I had to try it. I went to Intertran [tranexp.com] and grabbed the closest language they had: Turkish.
        "Are you sure you want to delete this file?"
        becomes
        "Are sen emin sen istemek -e dodru silmek bu ede?"
        in Turkish and becomes
        "Are you safe you wish for had straight wipe this file?"
        translated back to English by a computer with a dictionary. Imagine what a fallable and awkward human can do with a phrase they don't understand ("All your base"?). Oh, and use TP when you wipe that file and wipe it straight - not croo

    • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559573) Homepage
      no the language barrier is not a problem... the Quality of the code certianly is.

      Code quality for a couple of the vertical apps we use cince it was moved "overseas" has dropped so far that several of the offices here have reverted to a version that was pre-outsourcing just to avoid the bugs and instability.

      when your product quality drops so badly that your customers will happily use a non-supported version and pay the IT guys to write a data-conversion tool to use it? something is certianly wrong....

    • Re:Coming back? No. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RawCode ( 464152 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:35PM (#7559594)
      Agreed. When the almighty buck is most important, companies will find a way to get around all barriers. It shocks me that Dell is moving the operation back to the US, instead of dealing with the issue, and hiring language coaches (and no I dont want these jobs to leave the North America to begin with). 10 to 1 says they move back with 5 years.

      Money is money. Bottom line!
    • Does the primary language of the person who programs your dialog boxes really matter?

      Now that you mention it, probably not... I mean even if
      This application has generated an error and will now terminate

      got switched to something like
      Your application is full of eels

      I end up with about the same amount of useful information.

      Blockwars [blockwars.com]: multiplayer, head to head, and free

  • For corporate customers ONLY (Score:5, Informative)

    by descentr ( 296258 ) * <descentr4&yahoo,com> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:26PM (#7559472) Homepage
    Note that this is only for Latitude and Optiplex machines for corporate customers, this is not for normal home users. From the article:
    "Calls from some home PC owners will continue to be handled by the technical support center in Bangalore, India, and Weisblatt said Dell has no plans to scale back the operation there."

    So, it looks like quality won't be increasing for the average Joe. Dell will probably keep sending support calls from home users to India until it makes enough "cents" to do otherwise.

    • Yeah, Home Corporate (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Chibi Merrow ( 226057 ) <mrmerrow AT monkeyinfinity DOT net> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:41PM (#7560373) Homepage Journal
      One thing I've learned from working with Dell for the past few years is that they don't give a flip about their home users... But then again, why should they? They make money off corporate/government contracts, not supporting grannies who don't know where the any key is.

      After having such good experiences with Dell in the Office, we started recommending people buy Dell for their home, too. Oh boy BIG mistake. The hardware is substandard, just about every default installation is munged somehow or another, and the things generally stop working within a year. *NO ONE* I know has gotten a good Dell home PC recently. Meanwhile we noticed a definite decrease in quality of customer support in the past year...

      Me: Here's an article from Adobe that says there's a known issue between this motherboard and Adobe Acrobate 5.5, what's the solution?
      Faceless E-mail Tech: Here's an article on how to troubleshoot Windows 2000 startup problems.
      Me: Argh!

      Ad infinitum.

      On that note, is there any big name manufacturer that still makes/supports good home machines? People always ask me recommendations but I'm out of them, other than "Just buy a Mac".
  • Here's a great article originally in the Hindustan Times [rajiv.com] about a perplexed Indian visiting the states.

    I worked TDY in our reservations center in London (for my former employer, an airline) and was asking the lady to give me her address so we could mail the tickets. And she said "two ten" and I said "two ten what?" and she said "two ten!" and I said "two ten what?" and she "Tooting! It's Tooting you idiot!"

    If you want a REALLY hilarious article regarding cultural differences and language confusion read Jesus Shaves [esquire.com] by David Sedaris.
    • as a native english speaker, of the american "dialect", i would have considered any of the "odd" uses of english in the http://www.rajiv.com/india/humor/langusa.asp article as absolutely normal and understandable. I would have understood everything the Indians had said without hesitation.

      I can't imagine any town or city in the U.S. were they wouldn't know what a "bill" is in the context of a meal at a resturaunt or a "ring" in the context of a getting in contact with someone. it was rediculous.

    • Re:Jesus Shaves .... and other language difficulti (Score:4, Funny)

      by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @04:16PM (#7561487)
      First sentence:

      I have lived in the US a little over 30 years now, and am thoroughly Americanised in the usage of English.

      But not in its spelling, apparently.

  • Not good enough (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ryosen ( 234440 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:28PM (#7559499)
    This is only for their business lines of computers, not for the consumer level, and has nothing to do with accents. They were getting a lot of flak from their corporate clients for outsourcing. Dell simply does not want to alienate their corporate (read: where the real money is) customers.

    • Re:Not good enough (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shaleh ( 1050 ) <shaleh.speakeasy@net> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:38PM (#7559645)
      Every few support calls I get an email from Dell asking me to fill out a survey. On a recent one I complained about the poor quality of support I had received. After dealing mainly with the people from the server support division the complete lack of clue and ability was very, very obvious. Good to know companies still listen to their consumers. Seems obvious, but many don't.

      I was talking with a woman yesterday who said she was getting very bad service from HP's support system. But she never complained to anyone. We as consumers must remember that if we just idly accept whatever the corporates throw at us this is the kind of treatment to expect. I can't speak for the rest of the world but here in America the desire for the absolute cheapest solution possible is slowly killing us. We complain about poor service, no help, etc. but then we go shop at the Super Mega Mart because their product is 5 cents cheaper.

      Sorry for the vent. My point is, we need to vote with our money and complain to the management when things are not how we want them.

  • Answer (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alan Partridge ( 516639 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:29PM (#7559509) Journal
    No!

    Next stupid question please.

  • Not surprising really (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tekiegreg ( 674773 ) * <tekieg1-slashdot@yahoo.com> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:29PM (#7559518) Homepage Journal
    Some functions outsorced to India (or wherever for that matter) work out well, and some don't. Speaking from experience, we just completed a major project with a firm in India, which helped us greatly, producing quality code with few bugs (about the same ratio as an equivalent U.S. Programmer).

    However afterwards we didn't feel that for our clientele they would provide adequate support and maintenance programming capability so they were released from there. So now it's my job to do some of the front line maintenance for this code and respond to customer issues with minor tweaks as needed.

    In short: no one solution is a magic bullet, everything needs careful analysis.

    • Re:Not surprising really (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:39PM (#7559663)
      > So now it's my job to do some of the front line maintenance for this code and respond to customer issues with minor tweaks as needed.

      Ok few bugs.. honest question:

      How well documented is the code? The English? Can you tell yet whether the code being outsourced to India has made your current job harder? If so by how much?

      Thanks.

    • Re:Not surprising really (Score:3, Interesting)

      by yamla ( 136560 )
      I have some experience outsourcing development to India. I'm quite interested in knowing some specifics about your experience. How many programmers did you employ in India? Would this have been the same number as you employed in the U.S.? How much extra management was required? How much did you pay the Indian programmers compared to the U.S. programmers? (In Canada, it can often be more expensive to hire Indian programmers) How much did the culture and time zones affect you? How well spec'ed were th
  • Our call center is in Bangalore just like the Dell one. The company that runs it is called Convergys. I went to their website and they are "proud to be an ethnically diverse company" I guess that means they have Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims answering the phones.

  • Well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:30PM (#7559526)
    I for one welcome _back_ our call center overlords!

  • Hello, and Thank You for Calling Dell (Score:5, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) * on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:31PM (#7559538)
    Hello and thank you for calling Dell!

    Here at Dell, we care about our customers and have changed our menu system...please listen closely.

    To speak to a guy from Calcutta who will have problems giving you scripted answers to the simplest problems, press 1

    To speak to some dope from Texas who will handle your problem like a bucking bull at a rodeo, please press 2

    To speak to your average nerd who will solve your issue in the most condescending way possible, please press 3

  • It's discrimination!!!... not (Score:4, Insightful)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:32PM (#7559542) Homepage
    It's really anoying when people with very little english answer phones, and work in places where they deal with customers (fast food is a big one).

    I'm tired of paying money, and having to call several times to find someone who I can "somewhat" understand. I've more than once called, to get someone who I couldn't understand.

    It's not just Dell whose done this... many companies have.

    And it's annoying.

    I couldn't care who is on the other end. I have the following requirements regardless:
    - Good English skills - must understand and speak WELL
    - No scripting - must be knowledgeable on the topic and products/services offered

    That's all I ask. Someone who can be understood, and can understand... and knows what they are doing at their job.

    American call stations can be just as bad. I remember calling Verisign (yea them) and getting someone who didn't know what "DNS" stood for. Yea! That was helpful.

  • w00t! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Other White Boy ( 626206 ) <theotherwhiteboy&gmail,com> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:32PM (#7559550)
    our company was one of the dissatisfied customers, we've been pushing for this for the past six months as its been just unbearable.

    the worst part about it was that they knew the problem existed. if you somehow magically got somebody in the US that could help you, they'd finish the call in 5 minutes, no prob. if you got India, not only would it take an hour, but then they would have to transfer you to a 'quality control agent' who was basically a US operator that would repeat the entire course of the call to make sure they did the right thing!

  • Jobs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by deacent ( 32502 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:33PM (#7559559)
    I don't mind competing with other programmers for jobs, regardless of where they're from. I just wish that employers were able to recognize who is qualified for a job and who isn't. I've personally lost plenty of opportunities to US programmers who were not qualified and screwed up a project, only to have the client come back and have me fix it, except now most of their budget is gone.

  • Educational differences... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slykens ( 85844 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559576)
    I worked for one of the first companies to open a call center in India, ours was in Chennai. We started doing it in 1993.

    We hired a guy with a PhD in education to teach us how to work with the Indians and to help the Indians understand us. I've got a copy of one of his papers and it makes good reading.

    The largest problem is the difference in education systems. In the US we stress problem solving above all else, in India and other parts of Asia memorization is king. Our problem with our Indian employees became that if we gave them a procedure they could follow it easily but they couldn't develop the procedure on their own, thus everything must be scripted because the typical call center agent can't think on their feet.

    As far as communication differences we employed an American accent program to help smooth out the Indian accent. For the guys we put on the phone in outbound situations it worked great and they were easily understood. Some of the other folks needed a lot more help.

    It all comes down to how much you're willing to pay for good equipment and good training, both for the Indian employees and the Americans responsible for supervising the overseas call center.

    • Teaching (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nuggz ( 69912 )
      In the US we stress problem solving above all else

      No you don't.
      Most education up to the lower levels of an undergrad degree is simply memorization.

      Times tables, memorizing formulas and plugging them in.

      Why do you think so many people complain about "word problems", they just don't cleanly fit the formula the person has in their head.

      We test this way, we check facts, or provide a simple problem (that was answered in the textbook) then have them regurgitate it.

      That being said, it isn't evil, I don't thi

  • As if American Accents aren't hard enough... (Score:5, Funny)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559582) Homepage Journal
    Most of the rest of the world has problems with the American accents, of which there are serveral that sound nothing like the English spoken in my parts of Canada. When we say 'about' they hear aboot, because they are used to the oo sound being an ugh sound.

    "Rebught yughr comughter now."

    • Re:As if American Accents aren't hard enough... (Score:5, Funny)

      by reiggin ( 646111 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:39PM (#7559664)
      ...there are serveral that sound nothing like the English spoken in my parts of Canada.
      Your parts of Canada are irrelevant.

      Oh. Wait.

      All parts of Canada are irrelevant.

  • Myopia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bluethundr ( 562578 ) * on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559584) Homepage Journal
    From the article:
    In afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Dell was up 67 cents at $35.19.

    There are social [nomoreh1b.com] movements [meetup.com] about to save american jobs in the technical sector. As horrible as this is bound to be for the economy at home, it's always been "bout tha dollar dollar bill y'all" so this is the one and only thing that will bring these jobs back to American soil.

    My girlfriend and I had dinner one night recently with the CTO of CS First Boston (he's a church buddy of hers) who was responsible for the decision to move many of the jobs of his subbordinates. This is a topic that I feel quite passionate about, but due to the nature of the social occasion I was understanably polite about it. But I felt the need to at least mention it and perhaps have a rare opportunity to get into the mind of someone calling the shots in this capacity.

    Among the points that I raised was that from a national security standpoint, American companies are creating a great incentive for cultures across the globe to become technically savvy. A good many of these cultures may likely be unfriendly to the USA and the companies creating these incentives. By the same token, I believe that knowledge of computing is so far reaching that there is an element of historical inevitability to all cultures acquiring this knowledge. But I still believe that American companies are accelerating forces that they may not even realize are beyond their control in order to impact their finances in a very immediate way. In my view, it's just myopia. Plain and simple.

    • Re:Myopia (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cynicalmoose ( 720691 )
      It's just myopia

      The internet is one of the best forums for discussion (look around you), and potentially to unify many different cultures and viewpoints. The myopic attitude is to limit technology to the rich, which will built up hatred. Clearly teaching people in other countries good English (as any company trying to avoid Dell's mistake will do), and the skills to communicate, will bring cultures closer. Only by doing this can we move together to a more peaceful, unified world.

  • Vote with your $$ (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smashr ( 307484 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559586)
    A friend of mine who runs a fairly succesfull accounting business was nearly ready to purchase a brand new software package to repair that years returns, when he discovered that the tech support was out sourced to india. Now, my friend has no more technical knowledge than the average Joe (and sometimes less) but he knew that he did not want to deal with people in an different country every time he had a problem. He eventually got the CEO on the line and told him exactly why he had lost a sale. Needless to say I was quite impressed. The CEO's excuse: everyones doing it.

    • Re:Vote with your $$ (Score:4, Insightful)

      by demachina ( 71715 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:17PM (#7560128)
      Two of the biggest culprits behind "everyone is doing it" are Accenture and Mackenzie. I like one of Accenture's services "Human Performance" and of course they also list "Outsourcing". They are making a lucrative business out of going from company to company telling them which parts of the company to offshore and how to do it. Unfortunately HR consulting can't be easily offshored so they can't get a taste of their own medicine. If you see these snakes...errr...people coming in the door, get your resume and unemployment insurance paperwork in order.

      Unfortunately, from the perspective of the overpaid executives the argument is unavoidably compelling. Labor costs are so integral to profit margin that there has always been constant pressure to reduce labor costs. American labor made a lot of gains in the 20th century which started out with conditions about as dismal as most of the third world has now. Unfortunately with the development of free trade, cheap telecommunications and a very efficient air and sea freight expensive American labor has become largely a liability unless you're in a service business that requires you're body be in the U.S. Of course there is also a solution for service, immigrants legal or illegal. Its no secret why there is so little enforcement of immigration law in the U.S and why H1B visas are so popular. It provides a vast pool of ultra cheap labor for service jobs, labor that by definition can't compain about poor working conditions. If you work for a living in the U.S. the good times are over.

      Dell's action is commendable until you read that they apparently didn't sack anybody in India so presumably they just shifted all of their inferior customer service in India to individuals who haven't got the clout to effectively complain.

  • Useless in any country (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#7559589)
    Dell is notorious for utterly worthless tech support. If you don't have standards, your location is irrelevant.

  • I've predicted this would happen (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:36PM (#7559627) Homepage
    This is but the beginning of the backlash... Customers are going to make companies who do not employ English speakers who are easily understood pay for it in the wallet...

    Dell would not have done this unless they had been scared into doing it...

    It really pisses me off when I have to open a Novell or Microsoft support incident (which cost $300 each) and they give me someone in India who I can't understand...

    • Re: I've predicted this would happen (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:42PM (#7559717)


      > It really pisses me off when I have to open a Novell or Microsoft support incident (which cost $300 each) and they give me someone in India who I can't understand...

      Most companies I call give me someone in the USA that I can't understand. It's nothing to do with IT; it's the crappy pay scale and the sociology of who gets the crappy-paying jobs.

  • Not a surprise (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:38PM (#7559646)
    I worked tech support for Dell for a year on the business Latitude/Inspiron lines. Often we would take calls from the home and small business customers desperate, often begging not to be transferred to India. There was no reason the Indian support couldn't be trained to the same level as the US support (Dell has excellent in house training for its techs), but for some reason the Indians were mostly trying to solve problems using a decision tree tool.

    The US support was constantly being pressed to update the tool, but like many corporate IT programs the tool was written/updated by another department that did not handle customers on a daily basis, and the tool was fairly sparse.

    The biggest issue is the the tool did not take into account the customers prior support history... if the customer's cdrom won't read, and yesterday you replaced it, today you need to replace the mainboard... etc. I also heard persistant rumors of rapid turnover in India...Tech would get trained and jump ship to other companies in Bangalore.

    Like most tech support departments, Dell has customer that have a miserable time (my sister has had 8 service calls on a 1.5 year old system). The truth is that most tech support calls (80-90%) are FTF (First Time Fix).

  • Is there any inconsistency here? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sohp ( 22984 ) <.moc.oi. .ta. .notwens.> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:39PM (#7559660) Homepage
    The question on my mind is -- how many of those companies that complained about the quality of the customer service themselves have offshored their tech support or other operations? Will they see the irony themselves, or will that little bit of cognitive dissonance be swept under the rug?

  • Thank Christ, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EZmagz ( 538905 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:40PM (#7559678) Homepage
    Because dealing with Dell's offshore support people is a nightmare. I have an Inspiron 8100 and a few months ago the AC adaptor died. Pretty frickin' easy to diagnose IMHO. Unfortunately, Dell didn't think so. I was literally on the phone for 45 minutes talking to a girl who made me jump through EVERY hoop possible. I can understand if it's your grandma calling up and has no idea what the hell's wrong with her computer, but that's not exactly the case with me. Numerous times I told the girl on the phone that "Actually, I do tech support for a Fortune 500 company, and I know what's wrong. I just NEED a new AC ADAPTOR." Apparently she didn't care.

    It wasn't until I literally offered to email her manager my resume to prove I knew what the hell I was talking about before they decided I needed a new adaptor. Then it was another 20 minutes for them to try to spell my address.

    • Re:Thank Christ, (Score:5, Informative)

      by mfarver ( 43681 ) * on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:09PM (#7560036) Journal
      If you're certain of the answer, the best thing to do is simple say you tried "a known good" AC adapter or whatever and it worked. Almost all of the Dell support trees have an option for "tested with known good" and the solution is, duh, replace the part. Calls like that we could wrap up in 2-3 minutes.

  • What, employees aren't commodities? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:41PM (#7559686) Homepage Journal
    Is this the beginning of a trend where companies recognize that the quality offered by relocation to cheaper centers around the world doesn't result in customer appreciation and better quality?

    No, because that would imply that a major American company is taking a diametric turn from the growing trend to consider employees as completely interchangeable commodities.

    That happened to me in spades at my last job, from which I was unfortunately laid off recently (sad to lose the pay, not the job). I am a Windows developer with 16 years of professional programming experience and long history of developing superior code, but was directly told to write no code which could not be understood by an entry-level non-C++ programmer. This does _not_ mean to write good, clean, well-documented code. This literally means that I was not allowed to write anything more complex than brain-dead C code, even though this project was developed with Visual C++. For instance, all memory allocation was done in fixed-size arrays, meaning if you exceeded one of the many arbitrary limits, the program crashed and you had to hunt down and find the proper #define to increase to make the array big enough. Of course allocating 70-some thousand instance of some object that was used many 500 times was one of the lesser adverse side-effects of such nonsense.

    The idea of using something so simple as a CArray was beyond these people's experience and they were afraid that in bringing too much of this thinking on board, they would find themselves at a point where they couldn't swap bodies and have a new person pick (who theoretically didn't have any C++ experience) could pick it up and run with it.

    Encapsulating the hard parts to make the rest easier to use was not only met with resistance, but actively condemned. I was truly being treated as a body warming a seat rather than having my substantial skills and experience utilitized in a meaningful way.

    Why, might you ask, did they hire me then? I don't know, and no one could answer that question. On the other hand the pay was decent and it gave me something to do (struggling to keep sane from boredom is a challenge). I fear for the project, however, since I was just about the only one asking the tough questions, while the party line was to blunder along blindly and fix problems only when they showed up.

  • The power of the customer (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:42PM (#7559711)

    I hope the business world is playing close attention- and I hope all the "lets cut our budget for customer service" pencil necks are told promptly by their CEOs to, well, just shut the hell up. The customer is always right. Always. Repeat that. Keep the customer happy, and they will keep buying from you; keep more customers happy than your competitors, and you will do better than your competitors. Do it with efficiency, and you will make money. That's what all business boils down to. Good product, good service and efficiency = profit. Walk into any small manufacturing business, and you'll probably see the same sign I've seen countless times: "for every customer you who walks away angry, you loose 10 more." "Joe's Iron Works" understands it better than Dell, apparently...and one exec at Dell makes probably more than all the employees of JIW combined.

    Any management listening? Here's an open threat from those of us that have to buy stuff from you. Make my job harder when it's most important, when I'm most in need, and you'll find an instant enemy and I'll screw you at every chance. That includes cheap equipment, harassing salespeople, any more than 2-3 voicemail choices for getting support, waiting for more than 5 minutes for support, or dealing with someone who I can't understand or is incompetent. Show competence in my time of need, and I'll reward you with praise to my supervisors- and they're the ones deciding where the money goes. That simple.

  • No (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cornjones ( 33009 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:42PM (#7559716) Homepage
    Basically, this is one small happening against the general tide. India seems to be against elocution classes but there are plenty of other countries w/ no problem at all. Take the philippines for example. The medium of instruction is in english. And the elocution classes are quite popular there.

    I have a friend in the philippines now who told me of a guy he met there. This guy as a bar trick would speak in a different american accent every couple of minutes. Southern, boston, brooklyn, etc. My buddy grew up in Queens and testified that his Brooklyn accent was spot on. This guy is probably on the higher end of the skillset but the call center he worked for paid for his training. The deal was that they would speak to whomever called in a similar accent. They even had scripted "i am from Prattsburgh!" responses (close to the caller but not close enough to be quized).

    Point being is that the jobs won't move back to the states but the skillset will improve to the point where we can't tell the operator is overseas.

  • Corporate propaganda - plain and simple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Marx Marvelous ( 727006 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:43PM (#7559725)
    http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/7345 841.htm [miami.com] "We did not send back any calls to the U.S.," the Dell International Services' spokeswoman in the high-tech hub of Bangalore, said on Tuesday. The spokeswoman said she did not want to be quoted by name. "Now, I don't know why Jon said that," the Dell spokeswoman in Bangalore said. "We are committed to India and we are growing."

  • Hurray? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by devphaeton ( 695736 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:45PM (#7559737)
    I don't want to diss anyone from foreign lands, and i don't mean to make blanket statements...

    but a majority of the things i hear about using coders and admins from these places sounds as though it would be a counterproductive business strategy.

    A case in point- a friend of mine (who btw, isn't prejudiced at all) used to work for a county job in SoCal. He would say that a lot of the code written and sent over by the interns from the middle east was just horrible. Often it would just barely "function", and when it would break, whoever was stuck with maintaining it would take one look at it and decide it would be easier to just rewrite it from scratch.

    Things like variables named sequentially ("aa, ab, ac, ad, ae..."), no comments, or comments that rarely made sense or were ambiguous, etc etc.

    Sometimes the application wouldn't work at all, and it would have to be either rewritten or have hundreds of hours of time invested into it before it could be used.

    Sure there are plenty of native coders that get pumped out of some 2-year degree mill and are probably just as bad, but the job market seems to be infiltrated with foreign coders doing just this.

    The main thing is that they aren't ready to do the job they are doing. With some more practice and experience maybe, but they aren't ready to make market-ready code. This sort of thing wouldn't fly from a U.S. coder, but businesses put up with it from the offshore coders because they can pay slave labour wages to them. It is sad because native coders and admins are out of work, and the offshore coders are being borderline exploited.

    Hopefully businesses are learning that this sort of thing often means having to do stuff twice- that their own greed is costing them more money than they thought.

  • Corporate Customers talk longer. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Aetrix ( 258562 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:45PM (#7559739) Homepage
    Corporate customers of Dell (of which I am one) REJOYCE! I'm a tech monkey for a big-10 university and I personally support 60+ machines, all but a handfull are Dell's. It's bad enough that we fork out bou-kou bucks for tech support but we use it much more frequently than standard home users. Usually we are technically competent, much moreso than the Indian at the other end of the phone line. So when we are VERY SURE that a memory stick is dead or a CD drive needs replacing, we still have to trudge through about 3 levels of "esclation" until we get to either a technically competent person or someone who speaks English well enough to send us a replacement part.

    Comparing this to the older America-based call centers, we had about a 60% chance of getting some college CS major making a few extra bucks at a Dell Call Center. These people were able to realize when they were talking with someone technically competent and address the questions appropriately.

  • PITA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxrubyNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:47PM (#7559755)
    It's a major pain in the ass to deal with the Indian tech support. There are accent issues, but that is only a minor point. The real issue is the training and scripting. Typical experience (of many) I had a little while back from when I had to replace a screen and hard drive on an Inspiron. Even though I had done extensive testing ahead of time, told the tech what I had done I still had to go through 2 hours of hell before they finally acknowledged that I in fact did have failed hardware.

    The scripting is bad, the fact that they can't operate outside the script is abhorrant. But what really ticks me off is when they keep trying to trick people into stating something that would void their warranty. When I had to get the LCD for the laptop replaced I was asked no less than 10 times if I had dropped the notebook. The question was varied from "did you drop it even a little bit" to "now, you said you recently dropped it, right".

    The reason they got so much hell from corporate customers is that they have dedicated IT professionals who've already done all the testing and can't afford two hours on the phone to get some replacement hardware sent out. The IT dept will simply switch to a new vendor if that kind of crap persists.

    Since the call center people work for the call center, and not the company, they have no incentive or access to institutional knowledge - you know when you tell someone about a certain model and they don't have to look everything up? The Indian support centers also pretend to be located in America, practice American accents, have sports teams they pretend to watch, and otherwise try to fool you into thinking they are in the US. All of which to get around the issue of supporting local jobs. If we farm all of our jobs out to India, who will be left to buy anything?

    • Re:PITA (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mfarver ( 43681 ) * on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:15PM (#7560109) Journal
      Since the call center people work for the call center, and not the company, they have no incentive or access to institutional knowledge - you know when you tell someone about a certain model and they don't have to look everything up?

      Oddly enough, in Dell's case most of the Indian support is full Dell (blue badge) employees. The US support is about 50% contractor temps (red badge) and about 50% blue badged full employees. Most of the temps are "converted" to full time employees after about 1 year if they prove competent, if not they are washed out.

  • A call to the next gen helpdesk (Score:5, Funny)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:49PM (#7559776)
    Hi,

    There is a new next generation all purpose call center (currently beta) working here [www-ai.ijs.si].

    Support: Hello. I am XXXXX. How can I help you?
    Customer: I have a problem with my notebook.
    Support: Why do you say your notebook?
    Customer: Because i bought it from you.
    Support: Do any other reasons not come to mind?
    Customer: No
    Support: You are being a bit negative.
    Customer: The notebook isn't working.
    Support: Please go on.
    Customer: Suddenly yesterday it stopped working.
    Support: Please go on.
    Customer: What shell i do now?
    Support: Does that question interest you?
    Customer: Yes!
    Support: You are sure?
    Customer: Very sure
    Support: Please go on.
    Customer: Will you replace the system?
    Support: Oh, i replace the system.

    Sounds like a typical hotline to me....

    Regards, Martin

  • Support being outsourced (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DarkMagician07 ( 686278 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:50PM (#7559794)

    A company that I did support for recently moved from a shop in the US (my company) to one that is in India to 'reduce costs'. However, they have since hired more second and third level support reps in-house to maintain quality. So, they went from spending a minor amount having us do their support to spending far less, then increasing costs even higher by hiring more people at their location.

    If a company is trying to save money, moving to another country isn't always the best option.

  • From bad to....equally bad (Score:5, Funny)

    by nicedream ( 4923 ) <brian@NOsPam.nopants.org> on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:51PM (#7559803) Homepage
    ...the Indian technical-support representatives are difficult to communicate with because of thick accents...

    ...will instead be handled from call centers in Texas, Idaho and Tennessee...

    Looks like they might encounter the same problems ;)

  • You Want Customer Service? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dr. Dew ( 219113 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:53PM (#7559844) Homepage
    I ordered a motherboard on a Monday to replace a dead one. That Wednesday, I got a call from a person with a thick Indian accent, who attempted to upsell me to the retail version rather than the cheaper OEM version I'd ordered. I still didn't have a UPS tracking number by Friday, so I contacted them via their live chat.

    This is classic, and unedited except to get past the lameness filter and that I've taken out the company name and my order number to protect the clueless and the obnoxious. (You get to decide which is which):

    CHAT TRANSCRIPT
    ---------------

    Please wait for a site operator to respond.
    All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
    All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
    You are now chatting with 'steve'
    steve: xyz.Com Welcome to xyz.Com Live Chat Support. It will be my pleasure if I can be helpful to you.

    Computer Peripherals at xyz

    you: Hi, I'm looking for status on order xxxx, to be shipped by UPS. I don't have a tracking number yet.

    steve: Just hold on please let me check the details
    steve: I have check status of your order. Your order has been authorized and scheduled for picking. Means it is in inventory for picking and then off to shipping department. In case of no delays in inventory department (Like back log or order reaches there past cut off time), your order will be processed and sent to shipping department. We would send you the tracking number as soon as your order is shipped. In case if it does not show any result, you may try to track your order from our website.

    you: So what you're saying is that someday someone might get around to sending the item....

    steve: As soon it would be send to the shipping department you will receive it in
    steve: about to 24-48 hours

    you: But you can't tell me how long it will take to get to the shipping department.

    steve: It will go to the shipping department today itself

    you: So I should expect the motherboard on Monday?

    steve: It will be soon in your hands after 24-48 hours after it is sent to the shipping department

    you: Which you said will happen today.

    steve: yes

    you: I'm sorry, I don't understand then why it's uncertain when the product, which I'm paying to have sent overnight, will arrive.

    steve: sorry for the inconvenience that may caused to you

    you: Can you help me understand what could keep the product from arriving on Monday?

    steve: We regret for the inconvenience

    you: Does that mean, "no?"

    steve: Sorry,as we don't ship the orders on weekends you would get your order by monday

    you: Did you mean to say I *won't* get the order on Monday?

    steve: It would be soon shipped to you by monday

    you: Okay, we're closer to a real answer. But when you say, "by Monday," do you really mean "on Monday?"

    steve: Yes steve: We deeply regret for the inconvenience

    you: Please don't say that again.
    you: So as I understand our conversation, you expect the product to reach shipping today, be shipped on Monday, and thus I should expect receive it on Tuesday?

    steve: No, it would be shipped to you on monday

    you: When you say "it would be shipped to you on Monday," do you mean that UPS will pick it up from you on Monday or that it will reach me on Monday?

    steve: No, it would be shipped to you on monday

    you: I desperately hope you are a computer and not a person. Could you rephrase your answer in a way that actually answers my question?

    steve: I am not a computer
    steve: I am a person

    you: I'm sorry if I offended you, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out when I should expect to receive the product. Since I'm paying to have UPS overnight it, and since you seem to know when it's being shipped, could you tell me what day it will arrive?

    steve: Never mind steve: Our aim

  • Is it a good news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sisukapalli1 ( 471175 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:58PM (#7559908)
    I wonder sometimes that whole of America is undergoing "walmart-ization". Here is my theory about dell call centers (complete theory pulling out of thin air):

    (1) Dell pays prevaliling wages to call center people
    (2) Dell wants to cut costs, so moves to India
    (3) Dell employees get shafted big time
    (4) Dell ex-employees (or new kids) realize no new jobs are there
    (5) They are ready to accept much lower wages
    (6) Viola, Dell moves back the call center

    Welcome to the walmart-ization :)

    S

  • Slashdotters (Score:4, Funny)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @01:59PM (#7559926) Homepage
    Perhaps they should hire some Slashdotters to replace the Indians.

    We:
    Need Jobs...Check
    Know the job...Check
    Communicate effectively...Hmm
    Have great grammar skills...D'oh!

  • Actual Transcript (Score:3, Funny)

    by barryfandango ( 627554 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:02PM (#7559952)
    Caller: You don't sound like the guy who helped me last time. Is that you, Dave? Tech (sounding like apu): Oh, you must be referring to the way I am talking now.

  • my .02 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BubbaTheBarbarian ( 316027 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:28PM (#7560223) Journal
    Just about every company that I have been with over the past four years has at some point decided to take dev and/or support to an outsourcer in India. In every case, and I do mean every one, they end up moving the critical components of the dev cycle back to the United States.

    This seems to be due to cultural and communication issues. The culture of India is one where saving face can (and notice the use of the word can here) lead to a group of unsupervised programmers to do things their way no matter what the company wants. In all of these cases, deadliness were missed due to the fact that once we got the code and saw that it would either not fit into the parameters of the overall program or it was not optimized correctly, leading to slow operation.

    The other issue is one of communication. It is really easy to look racist on this one, however it cannot be ignored that if your customers cannot talk to you about what is going on, and those are not being communicated back to those that can fix it, then you have reason to have a support department to begin with. Support is not only key to customer satisfaction, which to a company like Dell is a huge thing, but it is also the front line of the war against defect and defect tracking. Properly used support and properly utilized support can make the difference in releasing a product that is alright or releasing a product that fixes your customers issues. I can guarantee that these issues were not being reported to Dell in the manner that they needed for proper and timely utilization.

    This is a real hot button issue within the community right now. I would hope that we can look at this issue from the point of view of pro con and not just from the POV of them thar Injuns are taking our jobs. The former will work to the upper level muckeety mucks. The later just makes us look like every other UAW worker that ever bitched about a Honda.

  • One designers experience (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ShipIt ( 674797 ) * on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:35PM (#7560301)
    My company, a telecom equipment provider, has several times in the past tried to move design engineering work to companies in India. As a software architect, my experience has been:

    1) The Indian contractors have excellent attitudes, are friendly, and want to do a good job. I still keep in touch with one guy who was here in the states for a few months - before he went back for his arranged marriage - picked out by his mom from a book.

    2) They are excellent at following a set of predefined steps to solve a problem, but run in to real difficulty if the problem requires deviating from their memorized steps. My education professor friend tells me this has to do with how their education system works. Deviation from the presented method is discouraged.

    3) The language and timezone differences are both killers. It's frustrating and unproductive for all parties involved.

    My company is on its third attempt at outsourcing design work to India. The first two attempts failed and the managers responsible for the transition are no longer with the company. They had no idea what they were getting into, which is a shame, since they were both decent managers. The current attempt acknowledges the failures of the past and is to focus more narrowly on software areas we think they are capable of handling. The result of this exercise has been a long list of stable software that hasn't changed in years and rarely has a problem. This, of course, leaves everyone questioning 'why are we doing this again?'.

  • Yeah, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stonewolf ( 234392 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @02:38PM (#7560344) Homepage
    I live just a few miles from Dell headquarters in Round Rock, Texas (just north of Austin) and know many people who work there. Several people I know have been called back for call center customer support jobs. Considering they have been out of work for 6 months or more they are very pleased to be going back to work.

    *BUT* they have been told these are temporary jobs and will only last until they can get call centers in (IIRC) Tennessee up and running. Seems it is a lot cheaper to live in Tennesee than in the Austin area so they can pay less. These folks are facing the choice of being unemployeed again or moving to Tennessee at a lower hourly rate.

    The race to the bottom for technical salaries has not slowed a bit. Dell just found that there are other factors that affect the total cost.

    Stonewolf

  • The basic problem here:

    Dell didn't properly handle a pilot project to asssess what would happen when they moved operations to India. When the Dell management invested other people's money this way, they should really have understood the risks/benefits involved up-front.


    This is yet another example of quality problems on the part of Dell. I own a Dell-it has been rebuilt-3 times in 3 years(I'm glad I got the warrenty!).


    Major changes in business practices are risky. The software business is one where 200-1 productivity differences in organizations aren't uncommon. It is short-sighted to disassemble the highly productive software organizations-or to cast off highly productive workforces-whereever they might be. The pool of folks with 150+ IQ's in the world just isn't that large and may not be growing despite a world population boom--and the pool of such people inclined to do technical work is another issue. The productivity differences simply swamp any cost of living differences. If we have organizations that are ceasing to be optimally productive-they need to look at their business practices.


    My own guess here, McManagers with McMBA's are a major part of the problem. The Dotcon era attracted a lot of slick operators that understood money well-but didn't understand much else and offshoring is a last desperate attempt on the part of these guys to avoid the chickens inevitably coming home to roost.

  • Moving Back (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheTomcat ( 53158 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @03:24PM (#7560893) Homepage
    I work for a company that moved back.
    (I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer, though.)

    This happened a few times:
    *ring ring*
    Us: Hello [company] tech support.
    India: Hello, yes? Your application is down.
    Us: REALLY? *checks monitor* Everything seems normal.
    India: Well, it's not responding.
    Us: Hmm.. *typing* No. It's up. What exactly is the problem?
    India: We just can't connect.
    Us: Uh.. try google.
    India: Yeah. Google's down, too.
    Us: *SIGH* Your internet connection is down, AGAIN.
    India: Ok, can you fix it?
    Us: No. It's your problem. Call your ISP (just like last time).

    Sad..

    S

  • American Express (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jellybear ( 96058 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2003 @03:34PM (#7561023)
    I don't know about Dell, as I've never had to deal with their customer support. Whenever I've called American Express, however, I've found that the many customer support people who had very slight Indian accents were extremely curteous and helpful. On the other hand, I've spoken to some women with Southern accents who were real bitches. I'm just saying you can't generalize.

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