The ruin of a once-great company

What has happened to Dell Computer Corporation? The nightmare this person recounts is echoed in my own recent experiences with Dell. A major part of the catastrophic decline in the quality of Dell’s customer support and tech support has been connected with its outsourcing of its customer and tech support services to India. This was the company whose claim to fame was the quality of its customer support. It was the reason why, when I purchased my first PC in 1998, after much research I chose to buy from Dell. (As a PC beginner with hundreds of questions, I think I probably got more value from Dell tech support than any customer in the history of the company—in fact, they probably lost so much money on me that I may have been the reason they outsourced their tech support to India.)

In any case, I need a new computer now, and it would be easier for me to buy from Dell because I have a credit line with them, but I hate the thought of dealing with them any more.

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A reader sends a cartoon with a critique of Dell tech support. He warns us, though, that there’s some mildly bad language in it.

Bob J. writes:

I just read your Dell support post. I couldn’t help but laugh as it reminded me of something funny that happened at a company where I used to work.

I was writing programs for a mainframe/web application. One of the on-site people I was working was a Chinese fellow named Diu (Day-you). It was very difficult for me to understand him as his English was very poor. We had been working on the project for about a year when I got temporarily reassigned to a crisis project and had to turn over some testing I was working on to an off-site Indian named Subra. I had spoken to Subra many times on the phone, and his English was also very poor. About a week after I turned the testing work over to Subra, Diu came to my office really agitated. It took me about 15 minutes to understand what he was talking about. The bottom line was that Subra was not doing the testing as I had told him to. He went off in a totally different direction. Anyway, I asked Diu if he had called Subra to discuss the problem with him. He got even more agitated, waiving his hands in the air and rolling his eyes. I just burst out laughing when I thought of the two of them trying to communicate in English. I still laugh to this day when I am reminded of it.

Every year we get more “English as a second language” programmers. In order to help myself understand what they are saying I insist that they only communicate with me through email. For me, at least, it seems to help.

I understand the frustration caused when trying to solve a technical problem—which is bad enough—when there is a language and/or accent barrier.

Good luck with your search for a new computer. Love your blog. Keep up the great work.

Vivek writes from India:

You write: … “A major part of the catastrophic decline in the quality of Dell’s customer support and tech support has been connected with its outsourcing of its customer and tech support services to India.” …

Bob J. writes: … “Every year we get more “English as a second language” programmers. In order to help myself understand what they are saying I insist that they only communicate with me through email.”

I have a point to make. And this is NOT about political correctness.

What I make out as the purpose of the rush in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) activity by American and/or European companies, is what they call cost-cutting measures. And they explain it by saying that we have “cheaper” human-resource in India (and say China).

I, for one, find it difficult to appreciate how one can get “cheap” human resource which are also “high quality.” Even if such a thing happens, it can only be for a very short period. Therefore, all the cost-cutting measures must also result in quality-cutting.

For example, Coke (an American MNC—multi-national corporation) sells its brand in India too. It has bottling and refilling plants in India. And believe me, Coke tastes different here (I have never traveled abroad, but my own friends who have done so have told me)! It looks to be Coke’s policy to sell inferior Coke at cheaper rates. So long as they get their royalty/profits, it does not seem to bother them. The same can be said of toilet soaps like Dove and many such MNC products.

This makes one feel that the MNCs have lowered their quality standards to make things cheaper. If that is the main reason, then it is the management which is responsible for the lower quality products/services.

I mentioned about Political Correctness because “Liberals and the likes” will say that you (LA) imply that “Indians/Chinese/Third World residents” are “inferior” to whites and Europeans.

Whereas the root cause is not Indian/Chinese labour, it is the quest for cheap labour.

I was also told about the shift in NASA’a policy some while ago. Earlier it used to employ primarily Europeans (mainly British, Germans and French etc.). Then they started employing others as well, in large numbers. It looks as though one could view space-shuttle disasters in the same light. The policy of non-European work force seems to be “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Microsoft followed the same practice for quite some time. That is the reason that it used to do post-release bug fixing by “patches.”

One could possibly use similar arguments to explain the effects of immigration as well. Either one lets only “quality” seekers in, or one must ensure (which is very very difficult, if not impossible) that they undergo mandatory “quality training” after they are let in. Otherwise, one has to be prepared for a decline in the quality of the society.

LA replies:

Thanks for this. I get your main point . As you guessed, I never thought that Indian tech support people were “inferior,” it’s the entire set-up which is the problem. But part of that set up is language and cultural differences. The strain (at least for this American) of dealing with the Indian accent when talking about complicated tech issues is large. Also, the Indians are excessively polite. They say “sir” every sentence! “Sir” is fine. But not with every sentence. It slows things up. It’s part of what makes communicating with them so laborious. With an American tech support person, you get right into it, you understand each other. The idea of people on one side of the world, from one culture, giving telephone tech support to people on the other side of the world, from another culture, is absurd.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 11, 2006 11:36 PM | Send