Dell Outsource Madness: Do Customers Need To Learn Indian Language To Get Anywhere?
April 5, 2007 (7 Responses)
IT ALL BEGAN with a desire to upgrade my graphics card, which was really brought on by my recent purchase of a shiny new Dell Ultrasharp widescreen monitor. As is typically the way, one thing leads to another and before I knew it I was thinking about replacing my entire PC system, all because of those wonderful people at Dell.
It is worth pointing out at this stage that I have in fact had almost three years of pretty good performance out of my existing rig, a Dell XPS Generation 3 Tower System with all the trimmings. I purchased this rig because at the time there was a three month wait for a decent Alienware rig, and I hadn’t the patience to wait.
Typical gamer really 
So recently the latest batch of decent PC games started to arrive in my postbox and I figured it would be a good idea to upgrade my graphics card to a shiny and fast ATI Radeon X1950XT, however I ran into a slight snagette; the card needed a 500W power supply at a minimum, and my current system only had a poor little 460W PSU. So, armed with righteous indignation at my situation, off to the Internet I went looking for a cheap PSU solution but of course I also contacted my local Dell folks too (and by local I’m talking about 1 hour south of where I live, so they really are local), but that’s where it all started to go wrong…
Outsource Madness
I duly rang the local Irish number to talk to a nice sales representative or even a techie about how much it would cost me to upgrade my existing Power Supply Unit (PSU) to a 500W or higher one, but this was not as simple as it first seemed. You see Dell have apparently gone mad on the auld outsourcing front. I got the usual “push 1 for sales, 2 for technical support” malarky on the telephone so of course I hit ’1′ for sales and was eventually greeted by a very nice – but amazingly incomprehensible – Indian lady who proceeded to completely misunderstand me for many many minutes. It sounded like she was based in India, in some oursourced centre or shared service type scenario because the line quality was a bit suspect to say the least.
Eventually we both got tired of trying to communicate in English and just as I started to wonder how these so-called sales representatives were going to be rewarded (because if it was based on telephone sales she was fucked; I doubt anyone outside India could understand the woman) she decided that I should really talk to a techie. Great, I thought, some progress at last… but it was just another round of transferred calls and misunderstood gurgling and clicking on the phone, which at some point may have passed for an energetic rendition of the English language but still remained just out of comprehensible reach. I guess we have all become used to this scenario; I know I’ve had my fair share of so-called technical support calls via India that just go nowhere due to the language barrier. But sales too?
WTF is up with that? How can someone sell to you if they can’t even speak the sodding language?
Anyway eventually the techie decided that what I really needed was to talk to the ‘Dell Upgrade’ department. More clicking, more holding music and then lo and behold an actual person who spoke English on the end of the phone; due entirely to the fact that the upgrade department was actually somewhere across the pond in the UK itself.  I nearly wept with joy at the prospect of actual communication taking place, however the joy was short lived because said person then proceeded to tell me the sodding Dell PSUs and motherboards on the Dell XPS Gen 3s were proprietary and as such couldn’t be upgraded. Full stop. Thanks for your call and is there anything else we can do for you?
Click.Â
Now - at this point I felt like getting in my car, driving the one hour or so due South and then parking in front of the Dell offices, opening my boot and taking out the sodding XPS system and throwing it through their front window; but I didn’t. Obviously. Still I do wonder at the logic of outsourcing almost everything customer facing to parts of the world that don’t speak English. What do Dell expect us to do – learn Indian? What ever happend to the Customer Is Always Right approach?
So now here I am considering a bloody new rig as a result, earlier than I thought I’d have to. I don’t want to spend a fortune on one, but I know I need to do something soon to get me through the next two or three years and I’ll be damned if I ever buy a Dell system again. Unless of course some kind soul out there can offer me some specific advice about my Dell XPS Gen 3 and potential upgrade options for it? If you can though, I’d want to know – from direct experience rather than hearsay – exactly what the risks/issues were.
On the other hand… Intel chip prices are falling quicker than a whores knickers these days so I could just wait until the end of the month and revisit things I suppose 
UGH. The outsourcing to India is one of those things that REALLY chaps my ASS! I’ve only had to deal with it once so far, since they don’t so that here in Sweden and I don’t have much business in the US. But it was last year and I needed to change the address on my credit card (I decided to change it to Sweden instead of my parents’ address). I got a call to India and seriously it was like talking to a freggin wall. First they couldn’t quite get what I wanted to do and that took forever to explain. I told them I was living in Sweden and they kept asking “When are you moving to Sweden?” I already live here! I just wanted to change my address and they kept asking me for how long I would be in Sweden. And I old them indefinitely and they would say OK, but then asked me AGAIN. And it just went on like this for 15 minutes! How hard is it? Finally I had to tell them 5 years to get them to move on. After it was all done I was so nervous that they got everything wrong. But fortunately it worked out OK.
But it was the most frustrating thing ever. All I hope is that I don’t ever have a real problem. Because it seems like they just follow a strict script over there and don’t seem to know how to analyze a problem. ARGH!
It’s actually getting as bad now here in Ireland in the service industry. This is not meant to be rascist in any way, but when an enconomy starts to do well typically the ‘service’ jobs are taken by non-nationals who migrate into the country because of the economic boost.
In Ireland this has happened in a big way and we have a lot of folks coming here from the EU to work in the service industries – hotels and hospitality in particular – but the problem is they don’t speak english particularly well.
So you end up with a waiter who can’t understand you, or a receptionist who would be better off drawing diagrams than trying to make sense and so on. Even in our hospitals the doctors and nurses that you get when you are in the Accident and Emergency wards don’t do so well at the English stuff.. which is pretty scary considering the fact that you need them to sort your issues out.
So I guess insourcing has the same perils as outsourcing in that respect
Is is called Globalization. Your country is promoting it with a couple of poop-pets (like puppets, but stinky and…you get it)…Canada is not like that…wait…is it a State issue…hell no, the world is poor. At least 80% of the world poopulation
Sorry, I got a scat fetish
My sympathies entirely. I have travelled extensively throughout India, and was thankful that so many of their newspapers are in English. But, oh boy! Trying to understand their brand of spoken English was the biggest challenge this globe-trotter ever experienced. I managed to do Mt Everest – some of it!
But Indian telemarketers are another breed entirely. Whenever they make their intrusive calls, I go into my “no spikka Engalish” routine. No matter what they’re saying, I no-a understanda. It’s great fun.Not only that, but whilst you have them tied up, they’re not annoying the shit out of some other poor clod who ony wants to eat their dinner in peace.
I also used this ploy when Jehovah Witnesses came bashing at my door. These people are normally at least bilingual, if not multi-lingual. Great entertainment can be had by not understanding a syllable of what they say.
I used to keep a Kaftan, turban and exotic accessories
( incuding Turkish slippers, with curled up toes) handy for when they were known to be infesting the neighbourhood.
I’d whip on my “national dress” and open the door with a very suspicious look on my face- the sort that a refugee would wear after years of being tortured by the secret police. Yeah, that expression!
Amyway, they’d go into their usual schtick and I would mournfully inform them “No spikka Engalish”. That would give them the opportunity to display their linguistic skills.
“Parlez-vous Francais?” they’d say.
I would light up. “Ah, Francais!!!!….No-a understanda.”
It would go on. Sprechen sie deutsch? Parla Italiana? And on and on. To all, the same reply. Meanwhile, they’d be eyeing my costume and trying to figure out what part of the world I was from.
Anyway, it was instructive about how people who really don’t understand get treated. If a foreigner doesn’t understand you, shouting will have the magical effect of instant comprehension! Their voices would get louder and louder, and still I would tell them the same old thing.
Finally, they pointed at the sky and yelled, slowly and deliberately , that they were here to talk about God. I pretended to misunderstand entirely, and began climbing on the roof to see what was wrong, smiling and nodding my gratitude that they had come to tell me I had a problem. Hee hee. They gave up at that point and I didn’t have another visit for, oh, about 15 years. Snigger.
BTW- it helps if you can keep a straight face.
I normally advocate good outsourcing, but lol, I guess Dell is not doing such a great job at it!
http://www.outsourcingdelegation.com
Dell, congratulations, you lost a custmer to HP when you india operation learn proper englisha so they can understanda the languahe, let me know
Hi….dont blame tht call centre lady …The problem is not that she doesnt know english well and u are perfect in english….the difference lies in the accent…I am an Indian and have been to ireland so i know the accent difference b/w indian english and irish english …..Indian English is quite similar to US one….but irish one evaded me for atleast the initial few days….but thank god atleast u guys speak only english and have left ur original gaelic ..otherwise it would hv been a much more mess for me …