sign my petition

I am not here to argue, just state my opinion as you have stated yours.

As you might have some good points, I am not going to sign this.

Outsourcing is a step to a better, more competitive society.

If they are speaking understandable english (yes, some are not) and have knowledge in their field, nothing is stopping me for giving them the same respect as I would any american.

Economic prosperity is not in american prosperity. It is in the world as a whole working together in some ways.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for capitalism and keeping the workforce in america for american companies, but when it comes to technical support, if they are doing a better, more efficient job, while adding to their economy and therefore boosting the standard of living for their society, I am all for it.

Thank you.

ha. hold in there. you will get some supporters.. eventually!

You can't be serious. I can NEVER understand the Indian Dell Support technicians. I don't even think outsourcing and market capitalization are the issues here. It's more fundamental than that. I just want (and I'm quite sure the OP just wants) someone I can understand. (and I am Indian, by the way.) But to be honest, I think it is even more basic than this. I am quite certain that no matter where in the world Dell hires its support technicians, they will always be incompetent, simply because Dell trains them so poorly. Back to the OP's original request...I am happily going to sign your petition

after being with dell techsupport for over 30hrs and being around the world. It was non-stop "oh you have bin transfered to the wrong service" and half the time I didn't understand the person. I was ready to kamikaze the nearset dell outlet.

So yes I will sign the petition.

I swear I just talked to someone today from Dell who had the I.Q. of a grapefruit. I could have provided better service if I didn't know what a computer was. Seriously. I'd sign again a hundred times if I could.

I swear I just talked to a customer today who had the I.Q. of a grapefruit. I could have provided better service if they knew what a computer was. Seriously.


I honestly couldn't sign your petition because i work for a tech support company and you might be able to complain about the reps you talk to, but man, if you could hear it from the other side, you would CRY.

probubly, there are people out there who shouldn't even have a computer in the first place. I start to cry just thinking about it
It's all about the numbers. Techsupport needs to improve to give better services to the people who need it. and people should rtfm before they phone tech asking what is email. You PEBKAC are one of the better tech people. When I finally got help from tech it was some german guy in the netherlands who was not supposed to help me in the first place. I just wish I could get a hold of him again to thank him properly for fixing the fatal error I've bin getting after one week of getting my laptop.

Anyway there are 2 sides to every story and it's better to understand both of them.

I 100% agree with you. I have worked as someone on the other end (not in tech support, but in a call center of sorts) and I hated it because you deal with rude/incompetent customers constantly. And it sounds like you are much better than the Dell reps I've dealt with. But there is a difference, I'm sure, between dealing with someone who knows what they're doing and someone who doesn't have a clue about what they're doing. And that applies to both support reps and customers. There are times where I'll go into intricate detail about a problem I'm having and I'll get a response to the effect of "have you tried unplugging and plugging it back in again?" All I'm asking is for a little common sense. It shouldn't be too difficult to gauge after listening to the customer explain the problem for a minute. But when you get customers with a college education or above calling in and being told to replug their power cord or being rerouted to four different departments or being given blatantly incorrect information that makes the problem worse...I think they have a right to be perturbed.

Based on my experiences: Dell's technical support's quality varies drastically from the contact method used. I've only called Dell a few times because I just can't deal with the wait times and the accents of some of the techs, and they often ask you to go through a series of basic, repetitive steps, even if you say you've been through them. When my Axim (PDA) went defective, no amount of soft or hard resets would fix the problems it was facing, and I made that clear to the tech I was talking to. What'd he tell me to do? A soft reset. And then a hard reset.

Dell's live chat is a small improvement over their phone techs, as you don't have to deal with accents, and the wait times are usually shorter. However, they usually go through the same process phone techs go through.

Now, I always e-mail technical support. The last problem I had was my left speaker on my E1705 going bad, making weird noises, etc. I e-mailed Dell, saying that I'd checked all the possible software aspects of the problem, and narrowed it down to the speaker being defective, and also added that I was confident in disassembling my notebook, as I've done it several times already. I received a response within a few hours, saying that a new set of speakers had been shipped directly to me, instead of a tech, and that was it. Out of all the times I've e-mailed technical support, I've never had someone computer illiterate attempt to hold my hand through basic diagnostic processes. They've always been polite, helpful, and efficient.

I don't know if I've just been lucky with e-mails, but if Dell's technicians manning the phone lines and live chats were of the caliber of the techs I've been e-mailing, then Dell's customer service would be damn near top notch, in my opinion.

EDIT: e-mailing has the added bonus of you choosing which department your email goes to, thereby avoiding misdirections.

You:Yes My laptop was completely destroyed when it was dropped out of my window into a tree limb shredder. I have complete care & am inquring about a replacment

Dell Tech: Can you turn it on please so we can diagnose the problem sir?

You: Do you not understand, it is in tiny little pieces no bigger than a quarter.

Dell Tech: Well Sir can you please call back once you have re-assembled the laptop. We need to do a diagnostic before I can put in an order for it to be replaced.

You: IT IS D E S T R O Y E D! Understand????? Little tiny pieces! like if you were to take your laptop and throw it off the building!

Dell Tech: Sir we do not cover you throwing it off your building. I am entering that you threw the laptop off a building into the street on purpose. If there anything else I can help you with let me know

You: Sound of the phone breaking

______________________________________

Apparently you are unfamiliar with the cultural aspects of the Indian society. They are not taught to think outside the box, in fact their parents pick their occupations for them. They are by the script call center reps. Inquire about anything that is not in the script and you are entering a brave new world...

Take this from somone who has been there & did work in a major CC over in India..It was not pleasant... While the people there are extremely nice they have no idea how to handle situations that are outside the parameters of their script...

As far as being able to understand them...Well that just adds to the frustrastion so many people feel, which is why a lot of companies are beginning to relocate thier Tech & CC services back to the U.S. It is costing them more money to maintain a CC here, however outsourcing is beginning to cost them more & more customers.


...At least when you are talking to a rep over here and you tell them for the 3rd time you want to speak to a supervisor you actually get one that you can understand...

ok so there is really no good answer to this, and i'm not trying to pull people against you, but its generally not a good idea to sign a petition that takes a strong stance on something one doesn't firmly believe in.

yes, there are certainly disadvantages to the customers presented by outsourcing the tech support, but in the big picture i personally feel the advantages far outweigh the benefits. first, EVERYONE who buys a laptop from dell is saving money by this strategy, second dell turns better profits which leads to better technology advancements which yeilds a better product to the consumer. and if you want to get really conceptual about it, in the long run it will benefit america overal. today's world doesn't have the constraints that it once did. you should read the book "the world is flat." very good read. but this will only drive americans toward professions and jobs that are less likely to be outsourced to foreign countries now, or possibly in the future. and of course there is much more to this.... i think you should do some research on what globalization will be doing to the US before you go and make a petition with little reasoning behind it other than that it presenting a little inconvenience for you.
and (lets forget that online petitions mean NOTHING) even if dell were to quit ousourcing(which we know they won't), guess what, every other company in the US is going to continue. globalization is going to happen whrether we like it or not. might as well find effective ways to live with it instead of making online petitions...

Its really about the bottom line. There are alot of people right here on this forum who want to buy these systems at rock bottom prices then expect someone from the US making $15-18 an hour to answer the phone whenever they call. That can't happen, this a perfect example of not being able "to have your cake and eat it to". I will choose the lower price anyday, However I do think there is room for improvement in India but all the training in the world will not help until they get there employee turn over rates down to a reasonable level.

Yes, why would anyone want to sign a petition to raise the price of their PCs? Anyway, until the USA becomes a 3rd world country, tech/customer support will not start moving back there.

I agree that the outsourced support is just atrocious. It's really mind boggling how bad it is. I've tried calling a few times, but always get the 'reformat your drive' after about 5 minutes - EVERY time!! And when I asked if any data would be lost 'No, Sir, nothing will be lost', that's when I decided the incompetence was too much to bare.

However, I don't think the Home support here in the US was any better 8 or 9 years ago. It is a script that Dell has given the Home support people to read. There is no interpretation (no doubt the level of average education is below high school), no thinking, at least in my experiences.

The Business side, though, is superb. I have a few workstations and have Dell's Gold Tech support. Never have i waited on the phone for more than 10 minutes, usually connected immediately, and never have I had someone that didn't know how to answer every question I had. They've helped me install additional processors, hard drives, replaced tons of stuff in 24 hours, etc. I love them and will pay for that support.

So that's what it comes down to. Money. If you really, really care about the tech support, buyt a business machine. If you only want to save a few hundred bucks, get the Home computer and accept the lousy support (although I do agree Dell needs to do something about it, as it has kept me from recogmending them to friends).

My opinon:

Outsource jobs, call center, manufacturing , etc. Then Dell or whomever saves a ton of money and you get a nice inexpensive laptop/computer, but experience longer wait times on the phone for the CC.

Don't outsource the above, and you end up with ungreatful employees (not all of course) and Dell ends up paying through the nose and then it is passed on to us in the form of a expensive laptop/computer. If it gets that expensive, I would have probably bought an HP.

Outsourcing has its advantages and disadvantages.

Of course, I choose to have an inexpensive laptop.