Mobility Site - View Single Post - Customer Service truth, from a customer service representative's point.

dtlee · 12-09-05, 12:25 AM

I used to work for a company that was in fact Dell's tech support partner before Dell moved much of this stuff to India. I worked in the Dimension Desktop division and was promoted quickly to the Latitude/Inspiron support division which was much smaller but much more well trained. I'm not nearly as cynical about my experiences as the above writer, but some of it could have changed since 2000/2001.

As a tech support rep we had several metrics we were responsible for, not the least of which was calls handled per hour. However, more important than that was one called "repeat calls handled." RCH was basically a ding against us every time someone called back within 72 hours after having talked to us. A certain amount of this is to be expected, but it really did put pressure on us to fix the problem right the first time rather than just get someone off the phone.

I was never told to lie to get someone off the phone. We were instructed to defer or "punt" certain issues, such as advanced networking support, to another entity, whether it be Microsoft or local networking expert. Third party software we of course would not support.

For the most part it was on the up and up and our management was very focused on kissing Dell's butt and making them happy to keep the contract. Did we have customers that were mad? Sure. Honestly, the most common case is someone who had onsite service getting angry because we had to exhaust the troubleshooting process before we could send out a tech to fix their issue (we could only send a tech to replace hardware, not to configure software or anything like that.)

The thing about the supervisor is partly true. We were trained to "take ownership" of the situation and solve the problem so that a supervisor would not be needed. However, we had a dedicated supervisor line for people who insisted and we could transfer someone who was adamant to them and it was no black mark on us as long as it was not a habit (someone just being lazy.)

If this is truly what its like now, things must have gone a long way downhill in the last 3-4 years......

12-09-05, 12:25 AM	#2 (permalink)
dtlee Aximsite Prospect Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 20 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I used to work for a company that was in fact Dell's tech support partner before Dell moved much of this stuff to India. I worked in the Dimension Desktop division and was promoted quickly to the Latitude/Inspiron support division which was much smaller but much more well trained. I'm not nearly as cynical about my experiences as the above writer, but some of it could have changed since 2000/2001. As a tech support rep we had several metrics we were responsible for, not the least of which was calls handled per hour. However, more important than that was one called "repeat calls handled." RCH was basically a ding against us every time someone called back within 72 hours after having talked to us. A certain amount of this is to be expected, but it really did put pressure on us to fix the problem right the first time rather than just get someone off the phone. I was never told to lie to get someone off the phone. We were instructed to defer or "punt" certain issues, such as advanced networking support, to another entity, whether it be Microsoft or local networking expert. Third party software we of course would not support. For the most part it was on the up and up and our management was very focused on kissing Dell's butt and making them happy to keep the contract. Did we have customers that were mad? Sure. Honestly, the most common case is someone who had onsite service getting angry because we had to exhaust the troubleshooting process before we could send out a tech to fix their issue (we could only send a tech to replace hardware, not to configure software or anything like that.) The thing about the supervisor is partly true. We were trained to "take ownership" of the situation and solve the problem so that a supervisor would not be needed. However, we had a dedicated supervisor line for people who insisted and we could transfer someone who was adamant to them and it was no black mark on us as long as it was not a habit (someone just being lazy.) If this is truly what its like now, things must have gone a long way downhill in the last 3-4 years...... Last edited by dtlee; 12-09-05 at 12:27 AM.