[TriLUG] "The Linux Experience" at Dell, a tale of woe and wow. VERY LONG

[Kevin J.]

Most of the call centers are in India, Canada, or South America now it seems. Dell and HP both caught a lot of flak several years ago after moving their enterprise phone support to India and quickly moved it back to the states (or to Canada and other "less conspicuous" localities). Man, that is so annoying to spend an hour on the phone with someone who barely comprehends the English language and makes you go through the same fifteen steps you already went through before placing the call. 

Their on-site support is different, however. That is generally parceled out to regional contractors who pay a per-incident (or per-mileage) flat rate for "boots on the ground". It's rare to find one of those guys who really understands a particular product in-depth. I've had pretty good luck when it comes to IBM's AS400 support and HP isn't too bad. I don't think Dell has really caught on to the enterprise support game yet, but that may have changed in the past year or two (though I doubt it).

Kevin


----- Original Message ----
From: Roy Vestal <rvestal at trilug.org>
To: Triangle Linux Users Group General Discussion <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 1:45:12 PM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] "The Linux Experience" at Dell, a tale of woe and wow. VERY LONG


IIRC, IBM was using the same tech support "call center" outsource that 
both HP and Dell were using when I left IBM.

Kevin J. wrote:
> I did tech support for Dell and other hardware vendors years ago and unless things have changed it is all outsourced to third party contractors who rarely check the backgrounds of their employees. I've seen a lot of incompetence in the support staff for many vendors, not just Dell. I'm not sure about IBM these days, but most of them have gone this route and it's pretty much hit and miss as to the skill level of the technician who shows up at your door. 
>
> At my last job, I got in to the habit of just taking the part from the technician and replacing it myself then giving the old part to the tech so he could ship it back. Most of the time, I knew more about our systems than the techs who showed up. I wouldn't trust most of them as far as I could gently throw them.
>
> Kevin 
>
>   
>
>
>   


-- 
---------------------------------
Roy Vestal

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// \\  >Phear the Penguin<
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