Quote from spect8or:
PS -- you guys don't like Dells? Newsflash: you don't gotta buy one!
Never said I don't like them. I think they make a great product for a great price. That's the good thing about them. For me, a call to Dell Tech Support is a rarity. And if I bought from anyone else, I'd probably have my call directed to someone else's offshore support.
I have no problem with knowledgeable people doing the work for low cost. i've outsourced numerous projects overseas myself and worked with some who are far better than those I've worked with here. The thing is that in Dell's case, they just let the ball drop by having another firm see that good people are hired and trained properly when all they're doing is pulling up canned answers from the same database I can pull-up on-line myself. Except, I know what the answers mean and they don't, just how to repeat them.
Support is not as easy as that. My wife's an accountant and uses software specifically for accountants. They started outsourcing their support. Not only were they bad with tech support, they had no practical experience in taxes. Even the average Joe off the street here has had to deal with income taxes numerous times in their lives where very few of the people doinf the tech support for the tax program did. It was so bad that she got to the point where she'd hang up in the middle of the call, and call right back hoping to get someone more knowledgeable in the queue. Even if you have to do this 3 or 4 times to get someone knowledgeable, it beats having to deal with idiots. SHe wasn't alone in this. At the first of the year, they brought it back in house. We talked to one of the new support people and they said that they had such horrible problems, they didn't want to go into the new tax season with the outsourced support.
It can be done, but doing it right is not easy.
BTW, did anyone notice SAY the other day when IBM announced buying an outsourcing company in India... I think SAY is facing some competition.
Cash
