Hopefully Dell will either hire people with easy-to-understand accents or train them to speak with “American” accents for their customer service centers. (Source)
Have you seen the Dell commercial with a white and obviously American customer service guy? False advertising. I heard that Dell business customers (as opposed to us regular “home” customers) get to speak to Americans. Home users just have to suffer, I guess.
Have you ever tried to explain a computer problem or billing issue you barely understand to someone with a thick accent you could barely understand?
It’s brutal.
(AP photo)
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LaShawn,
A wonderful site regarding this topic is here. Please by all means check into it.
http://www.zazona.com
6 months ago, we bought a new Dell system, with Dell discounts and the discounts from my wifes job, 12% I believe it was, we still spent $3000.00 on this thing, we got it ALL…
Well, there was a minor problem and my wife, a dedicated Texas Gal, with a very heavy Texas accent, called Dell…
We almost had an international incident on our hands, she got to talk to about 5 different people in India before she totally blew her stack and they transfered her to a service center right here in the DFW area…
The lady my wife talked to at the somewhat *local* center said this was an ever increasing problem and they were receiving massive amounts of complaints from Americans not pleased with having to talk to Indians, Indians with HEAVY accents that are extremely difficult for Americans to dicipher…
Wife: “Next time, YOU call those people, I won’t…”
Perhaps large businesses get to speak with their American counterparts, but it goes either way for small businesses.
I called Dell Support a few weeks ago, and was transferred to India. Don’t get me wrong; the support person was professional, very capable, and extremely helpful – I simply had a hard time understanding her.
Time is money, especially when it comes to call volume. It seems to me that the cost of the time spent overcoming basic communication problems has to cut into whatever Dell saves by out-sourcing their support to India. I don’t even want to know how much it costs to transfer a call to India.
My other frustration was with the ridiculous script she had to follow. Half the call was spent waiting for her to finish the information she was required to repeat or confirm, several times. I felt sorry for her!
In the end, I wasn’t frustrated with her, but with Dell. Which should concern Dell.
It really is tough when you’re diagnosing a tech issue and have a hard time understanding the person helping you. Tech is hard enough for me in perfect English! It’s been enough to put me off some services. That’s why I don’t call my ISP and only use chat help. The funny thing is, even in chat help you can see certain translation quirks that make me believe the help is still from overseas.
First, what do you expect when you buy a product based on the lowest price? If you want good customer service, you need to pay for it.
Second, I funded by college education 100% by doing tech support for IBM. And I was good at what I did, but that was not at all common. All of my coworkers were college educated, but most were not capable enough to do tech support. I can tell you from experience, it is difficult finding people with the willingness to put up with pissy customers and the insight to solve technical problems.
So much for the “efficiency” of outsourcing.
I’ve got a problem with taking jobs that could be provided by Americans and shipping them overseas.
Coincidentally, I heard representatives from Dell on a radio program in Cincinnati claiming they were hiring local people to work at their distribution center.
lashawn…you need to quit…..don’t insult the people that are hired, tell that to the people who hire them….Shame on you!…..lol
Because of a business relationship that my employer has with Dell, I’m able to purchase, for personal use, Dell computers. However, after attempting to use Dell’s customer support and failing miserably, I went out and purchased my next computer at full retail price. It’s refreshing to speak with a customer service rep that speaks with an accent that is understandable. Now, if I could only teach them to speak “Texan”, life would be perfect. Heh!
I have AOL as my service provider. A few months ago, I called them about an issue. I really had trouble understanding the woman who answered. I said to her “I’m having trouble understanding your accent.” She said to me “You can understand my accent, you’re just not trying.” I asked her if she could transfer me to someone else and she said no it was impossible. My options were to deal with her or hang up and try again. I’m still trying to figure out why I remain a customer of AOL.
HP is no different. I needed a new desktop printer, and it had to be able to “speak” PCL5 printer language. So I called HP tech support, thinking I could get a list of PCL-compatible printers. Silly me.
Got connected to a guy in Bombay who couldn’t make himself understood without repeating 3 times. To make matters worse, after I had finally gotten him to understand my question, his next words were (and I swear this is absolutely true) “What is this PCL you are talking about?” Unbelievable. I patiently explained that it was the printer language I require. His next reply was “And what does this PCL do?” AAARRRGGGHHHHHH
I asked to be transfered to someone else, and this idiot said he couldn’t do that. I hung up.
After several more calls to various HP numbers, I eventually did find someone with the answer. The two hours I wasted, however, will be gone forever.
Here’s a tip to all you computer company execs out there. Hire tech support people who can actually speak the language of your customers, and oh yeah, do try to make sure they actually KNOW SOMETHING as well. Good grief.
In the past I would buy only HP printers and faxes. But as a consequence of HP’s rotten customer service, the result of deliberate policy decisions by HP management, I now have zero loyalty to HP. This isn’t what any business should want.
All I can think right now is: “Take your Squishy and get out. Tenk you please come again.”
I’m ok at figuring out most accents (grew up with parents who spoke with Brit colonial accent), but that’s just regular conversation. I wouldn’t want to try tech support that way.
Are you sure you didn’t buy a Delhi?
Sorry ’bout that.
Was it a New?
Sorry again.
We use Quickbooks. When it was time to renew, we got the same Indian/Pakistanian accent, and my husband chose not to renew with a credit card, but to send a check directly to the company. A month later, there were some problems, he called, got the same accent and an offer to purchase something by credit card (I don’t know what the something was). He told the person he preferred to pay by check and didn’t want to give out his card number to someone in another country. The individual tried to convince him by stating that it would be _so_ much quicker to charge, and _that they already had his credit card number_!!! Husband has stated that he has never used his credit card number for the products of Quickbooks, and that he has never given them permission to keep his credit card number on file (even if he might have). How did they get his card in the first place? It is illegal to retain cc numbers in the US unless specific permission is granted…but in other countries?
I called the CC company – first question was whether they actually had a current number. I didn’t know the answer to that (note to self – if such a thing happens again, ask what number they have), but the CC company suggested that we get a new number in any case. New cards arrive this week.
Dell is hiring Indians for Tech Support for the same reason Mexicans are rebuilding New Orleans. Americans don’t want these jobs, or there are not enough qualified people.
Interesting – I called Road Runner tech support, and I got a Canadian and an American, and they really knew their business – so I was off the phone in 5 minutes. Time is money for them.
We want cheap products and quarterly profits from American corporations. To meet this goal the Corporations have found cheap labor (it costs about 3600 dollars a year for a Help Desk employee in India compared to 25-32 thousand for and American not including benefits. The sad fact these are entry level jobs that are disappearing. The problem is much bigger than the bad service you may receive.
I work in Customer Support and have for many years. I have had my share of difficult customers, most of whom were difficult because they were upset or frustrated. A very few were just naturally obnoxious people.
When I have a complaint, or need help, and I feel myself getting frustrated, I ~always~ apologize to the CSR, even if it is his/her fault. It doesn’t help to antagonize them. When talking with people with heavy accents, I always ask them to spell words I am not sure about. I use the International Phonetic Alphabet that is used by air traffic controllers (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) for clarity if needed. I do a lot of repeating.
Finally, most lower-level CSRs do NOT have any decision-making authority or power. If I feel that the conversation is slipping away (or, as a CSR myself, I feel this is escalating way beyond my provenance), I ask for the Supervisor. Get a name and a phone number, in case the transfer doesn’t work. After the Supervisor, ask for a manager. If the problem is a persistent one, I go to the Supervisor or Manager directly. And I tell them that I am not receiving satisfactory service from their front-line staff.
#16 According the U.S. Dept of Labor http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos268.htm the median annual earnings for a computer support specialist was $40, 430 in 2004. There are plenty of Americans who want those jobs. The ONLY reason they are outsourced overseas is cheap labor.
Well, finally a topic I’m actually qualified to discuss.. I worked for Dell for 7 months right after college. First of all, American’s wanting that job are not scarce. There are tons of people in Nashville alone that line up for those support jobs daily at the temp agency. Second, they start at $12/hour (or did when I was there) regardless of your experience or degrees and that’s nowhere near $40k. I had a B.A., another friend of mine had a Masters and the other guys had H.S. diplomas.. we all got $12/hour and after earning our full-time status 6 months later, we went to $12.25/hour.
There are Americans working in their US call centers (at the time they existed in TX, TN and ID) but getting them depends on the time of day you call and which queue is the least busy. Believe it or not they have people whose entire job is to route calls to keep the wait time as low as possible. One of the problems is people (especially on the west coast) who call later in the evening because at that point India is the only call center open. Ours closed at 10pm CT.
What it really comes down to though is the workers in India get paid next to nothing and that’s why they were moving more jobs there. They told us what they got paid, but I can’t remember for sure. I think it was something ridiculous like $2 or $3 US dollars a day versus my $96/day. That’s why your new desktop costs
Dianne,
There is a saying:
“In Africa, every morning a gazelle awakens knowing that it must outrun
the fastest lion if it wants to stay alive.
Every morning, a lion wakes up knowing it must run faster than the
slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.”
Here in the US, we had better start learning how to run faster…This is the nature of the free market. What can be outsourced, will be outsourced. What can be manufactured more cheaply abroad, will be. Hopefully, this will help to reduce the prices for services and goods in this country and increase the standard of living in other countries. The difficulty is that it will take more to keep our lead and not everyone is going to make it. What we can do is try to gear our education system towards producing people who can compete on a global level.
In terms of accent, I think that many people just don’t make an effort to understand people who sound different from what they grew up with. I grew up in a university town and can understand most accents. It just takes a bit of patience. If it is completely unbearable and the company starts losing enough money, then the company will eventually notice and switch its service.
Oh and I forgot.. those commercials showing the call center with swinging flat screen monitors, full cubes, etc…. that’s all BULL. The “cubes” are little desks that are about 4.5 feet wide, 2 feet deep and there are no walls. Inside the call center is mainly just row after row of these.
I love my mac, and the beautiful American accents they posses.
You wonder why a business will trust someone half way around the world to represent them, but they are mighty slow to accept home sourcing, or computer commuting. Someone needs a model of supervision of homesource workers. My last trouble call I got a domestic voice and the problem was quickly resolved, something rare on foreign sourced problems.
#21 I agree with you. Whenever there is a change in tech or industry in general, we better be prepared and one step ahead of the game. However, I’m an old lady I guess (59) and damn it, I don’t like it. Life isn’t supposed to be like that. You should work hard, reap the rewards of your harvest and be happy. I am reminded though of the sermon last week..it all belongs to God..everything we have is His. One thing about getting older is God gives you wider vision, not necessarily 20-20, but with His aid, corrected. I struggle…I am human…sometimes it’s hard to get centered but He is always right.
Aside from sales related calls, or when talking to 3rd level support, corporate customers get routed to India too.
A simple answer: buy a Mac. I live in Austin. Had a software issue. Called them. Talked with a guy actually here in Austin. Not only was he American and easy to understand, but sent me new software free of charge that solved my problem. Stop buying from Dell (who lives in Austin but employs out of the country) and from Bill Gates and then many computer issues would be solved!
My cell phone was setup by a nice woman in India. However she messed everything up. She got my address wrong, I didn’t get my first bill, I lost out on a $200.00 rebate from Amazon and a $150.00 rebate from Sprint.
About three months ago I talked to a young man who told me the group he worked for was transferred to Texas and after a year they transferred all those jobs to India. Here you have a group that was so willing to work to the extent that they moved from one state to another, yet they still lost their jobs to workers in India.
I know that many India workers are college educated but I still have a very difficult time understanding them and have yet to get decent help.
Funny, I’ve had a lot of problems with black customer service representatives, namely, their accents and/or attitude.
This issue is larger than accents and cheap labor.
First, let’s get one thing understood:
THERE IS NO JOB AN AMERICAN WON’T DO FOR THE RIGHT PRICE!
That’s why there are still garbage men even though nobody “wants” to be a garbage man. In a free market system a garbage man will get paid exactly as much as needed to have garbage men.
The main issue with the outsourcing of jobs to India is the US Government…yes, I said it. If the Government wasn’t so gargantuan requiring such high taxes to fund, the price of having an American worker would not be so cost prohibitive.
If you think about it, that is saying a lot. It costs less for a company to pay workers and operate an entire networking backbone in another country to communicate back into the US than it does just to hire people in the US. That is mind boggling if you know anything about the costs of operating that type of infrastructure.
The problem is Government. The only answer to these problems is to begin a process of severely reducing the size and reach of the government, therefore reducing the money needed to fund the government, therefore reducing taxes. Allowing people to keep more of the fruits of their labor, allowing companies to pay workers less for the same net income, which will make American labor more competitive.
Democrats are liberals, there is no way they introduce initiatives to begin to take power away from the government (and themselves). Also, I have said it before on this blog, regardless of the spin they use, the currently elected Republican majority ARE LIBERALS AS WELL! Being less liberal than Democrats does not make you a conservative.
Other than Congressmen Ron Paul (R-TX), and Tom Tancredo (R-CO) can anyone name for me just one other Republican that would actually stand for significantly reducing the size and power of government?
If you can’t name at least 261 Representatives AND 60 Senators AND the President than you have a socialist/liberal/left-wing government…PERIOD.
Wake up people…there is an election coming up in 2006, if your Representative or Senator has voted for increasing government size and power…VOTE THEM OUT! Hopefully, you will vote for a libertarian or constitutionalist (note the lover case letters, these are mindsets, not necessarily political parties), but voting the incumbant out (Red or Blue) is a good start.
Dell customer service was bad even before they started outsourcing. Several years ago my wife got a Dell computer through her company that came with a 3-year on-site support contract. It was worthless. After going around and around with a clueless support rep, he finally consuted his manager and told me “That’s an advanced configuration option. You’ll have to pay for someone to come out and do that.” Basically it was beyond their comprehension that the built-in network adapter was not working right.
As far as I can tell, all of the major PC manufacturers use the cheapest motherbaords they can find. My solution is to just build my own machines.
Laurie: I’m sure Macs are fine machines… if Apple hadn’t tried to gouge people on hardware years ago I might’ve bought one before accumulating several thousand dollars worth of software. Switching now is not really an option.
Arnold, it may be easier than you think, once the intel based macs and windows vista comes out.
I’d bet you’ll see dual booting macs sooner than you expect. The cost may be more, but if you have 2 machines in one, what’s the problem? And who knows, you might LIKE the Mac BETTER.
I bet you do.
Not only Dell, but I tried to update TurboTax and I think I talked to someone in India. Read “The World is Flat” by Steven Freidman, it is a real eye opener.
It’s very refreshing to hear you make fun of the accents of Indians when usually you hear people make fun of the accents of blacks and complain how they can’t speak English. It’s nice to hear something different for a change.
Criticizing someone for being unqualified to do a job (a customer service telephone person who can’t speak in an understandable manner) is hardly the same thing as making fun of that person.
In addition, the criticism has been primarily directed at the companies who hire unqualified people.
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