Customer Service truth, from a customer service representative's point.

[Yubal]

hi, I'm new posting in aximsite, but i've been reading closely for a few weeks now. this is a very nice site and has helped me with many things.

I wish I could do a few things for some people too.

I'm not a customer service representative for DELL, but I've been in this bussines for quite a while, for a couple of big big comapanies (wich I will not mention for obvious resons).

Been there and done that so many times as to being sick of doing the wrong things. I quit. I've heard people here say: "I chatted with them and they told me this and they told me that.", and I feel bad for them, because actually they are getting the finger, from the representative chatting with them to the guy next to him to the supervisor.

DELL, probably, wants to help their customers, if not, they'll spread the voice and new ones'll go somewhere else to buy. True.

DELL, being a big big corporation, tries to outsource eveything as long as it saves money and headaches, they just pay the bill.

I bet it's a 99% chance that DELL's customer service is run by a company wich is not DELL, let's call it X, but it's dedicated to provide customer service to companies that need it, for a hefty fee.

Now, here's when it get's interesting, they really don't care about DELL's customers. Management, that is. X's management only cares about how many people can we, CS Representatives, dispatch in the least amount of time.

Ever seen those advertisements from capitol one? NO! NO! NO!

We are trained to do that. Exactly that, and very fluidly. But very subtle. We even say exactly what you want to hear so we can hung up on you quickly so we can have lower call times, wich give us more quality-service points, and get's us a better review.

We are trained to never, ever!!, let you get past us to the manager or supervisor, that will get us in trouble, fast.

When we are new, managers and supervisors tell us what lies we have to give you in order to get you happy and hung up. One supervisor told me once: "You know, this is the lie you have to tell them, man, or else you won't get them off your back!"

I was new and I did it, and I felt really bad.

Sometimes, Top Brass (DELL) will monitor us. "Your call may be monitored.", remember? they do it, once a while, and all we have to do is sound professional and interested in the customer and make him hang up within the specified amount of time, or else. If we tell him a blatant lie, they take points away from us.

I once worked at a pre-paid calling card company and and it was the worst. *cry* "please, sir, give just ONE more minute just one, to call my mon!!! she's at the hospital! just one!!"... poor girl.


anyways, just don't believe anything they (customer service representatives) tell you, and don't put answers in their mouths, they are more than willing to use them. Ussualy they know, but only what they where trained to do when they got there, and any small news their supervisors give them: "New ROM, sometime..."

I just upgraded my ROM to A04 last sunday and have had no problems 'cept one time that it got hot and the compact flash vacation, but I plan NOT to call them or chat with them anytime soon... oh well, hope this raises awareness on some people 'bout Customer service.

Anyone wanna post nasty experiences 'bout CS?

[dtlee]

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......