Dell complaints

[DrDuKeS]

Personally I found it annoying when I had to transfer a customer to an <insert overseas country here>. I'd start by saying something like, "Hi this is Joe from Dell hardware warranty support. I have a customer on the other line who's having issues with their <insert system type> and was wondering if you could help them out. "... almost always they'd ask me "my" service tag number, address, etc. I'd be like, "I just told you I'm not the customer. I'm a Dell employee".

So then they'd ask for the customer to be transfered over and then they'd do the exact same thing to the customer and ignore what I just told them.

Then they'd start asking the customer what the problem was even though I JUST told them.

It was REALLY frustrating so I just stopped talking to them. I'd just transfer the customer without talking to the other person. Let the customer get pissed off instead of me. I don't get paid enough for this shit.

[CLCP4ME]

[incident_man]

Sadly, quite a few of the techs over in India are very reluctant to dispatch parts because they get dinged for it. I honestly believe that they put the customer through the works, troubleshooting this, disassembling that, and reinstalling something else to try to keep from dispatching anything and discourage them from calling back. Another trick I saw all the freakin' time was to convince the customer that no matter what, it's a software problem and rush them off to DOC. I even had my own run-in with a supposed tech support manager and flat out told him that I knew why he didn't want to do a system exchange after 3 parts replacements, that his department is penalised for doing exchanges and that's why he was giving me flack about it. Man was he pissed.
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Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

[FallenAngel]

Just to be fair, I was one of those reps that would ignore everything that you said and take the call and go through the motions all over again.

Why?

9/10 times the transferring rep was a complete f**k up and did no troubleshooting, or transferred an issue that was clearly NOT in our scope of support. The case notes? Laughable at best.

So sometimes the receiving rep will just ignore you basing it on the numbers that you are likely 1 of the 9 of 10 that are complete jackoffs that shouldn't be working in a call center, and just dumping a call.

[paul_dellcc]

[CLCP4ME]

Oh God, did someone mention QA? What a waste of time, effort and money. If they needed money so bad they could get rid of QA. No one pays attention to that crap, most techs don't read their QA audits or just make fun of it. It's so freakin' lame. The rep failed to VA, the rep VA'd before a VA trigger, the rep could of, the rep should have, the rep didn't, the rep failed to, the rep should not, the rep failed to follow step by step tree in DSN even though strangely enough one doesn't exist....ad nauseum. Maybe we should just swap places with QA and see how they do.

[paul_dellcc]

[FallenAngel]

The only benefit to dancing with QA is just like was mentioned, pay evaluations and raises and things like that. There is no other real benefit to them, because QA auditors would be out of a job if they actually took the time to look at WHY these people were failing.

Internal policies that are so backhanded it's pathetic.

QA, if done and applied properly, should root out the "bad apples" but also at the same time expose flaws in the system and the policies, hence re-evaluating what they are doing and how they are doing it - which should lead to a better experience the next time around.

That will never happen in my lifetime though. QA is just a token and arbitrary measure in which Dell can apply the chokehold to you if they should so decide.

[Padawan2007]

Wanted to add a post to clear up something...
Do not confuse the term Outsourcing with Offshoring...
Dell has a lot of badged employees offshore... people mistakenly think they work for some other company and call that Outsourcing... where as they are Dell badged... they just live in another country - Offshoring...
Walmart - pushed the little man out of buisness...
Dell - Pushed America's Techs into another line of work...
Globalization/NAFTA - it won't hurt anyone ...
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Released in 2008!

[help_me_im_in_hell]

[Padawan2007]

There was some initiative a year or two ago - HIP - Handle In Place... (Do Not Transfer)...
That call would have been a good candidate for Handle in Place...
Guess that initiative is no longer active or followed
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Released in 2008!

[HellResident]

Most agents dropped handle in place long ago due to pressure from management in the other direction. Sometime in October or November in fact they directed a new policy to NOT handle in place and transfer all the dimensions out of the XPS queue, as the dimension customers had figured out if they told the IVR they had an XPS they would be supported anyway and reach a north american rep.

HellResident

[FallenAngel]

Handle In Place was dropped because it was pointless. It was adopted as a band-aid, weak counter measure to the rise in wrong queue calls. Dell decided not to pursue proper training or follow ups with the reps that dumped calls - and let's not forget that joke of an IVR they use.

Rather than spend the time and resources to actually deal with the problem that was ever growing, they threw this nonsense policy out there instead. Yes agents were dumping calls. Yes people couldn't understand basic literacy skills long enough to hit the right queue. Yes the queue/routing was BADLY DAMAGED and sending customers to a dial tone or the wrong queue anyways if we decided to try and transfer them to the appropriate queue. Yes some customers actually did get savvy enough to work the IVR to their advantage and avoid talking to India.

Dell had ample opportunity to resolve the issue accordingly and choose instead to apply band-aids. After a futile tenure, they canned the Handle In Place policy except if the customer was escalating. Other than that, transfer them to the appropriate dial tone, I mean, department. The policy was doomed from inception and should never have been adopted to begin with. Dell should've taken the correct steps to break down the issue and then fix what needed fixing.

This is just another black mark against the company that claims to be so trend setting. Find something that's broken and break it even more. Then pat yourself on the back for a day for your strategy that fails days later. Don't know who first said it, but their think tank needs a stronger filter.

[Starman97]

They need to flush once in a while.

[thanks_for_all_the_fish]