Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Customer Service? Not in Ireland or Canada or Texas!

Dell was accused this past week of "taking the money and running" in Ottawa, Canada as a result of closures at yet another call center. A similar center was closed in Edmonton, Canada recently in seemingly similar sweetheart deals.

Another 250 jobs were lost in Ireland.

These loses and others were announced in the plans by Dell to shed over 8,000 jobs worldwide. A plant in Texas, home state to the company, will see the loss of some 900 jobs and was announced earlier this month.

Most of the loses are in the customer service sector of Dell and much of the work is going to India to the great distress of many frustrated Dell customers.

I posted comments on the Direct2Dell blog on that topic and stated that I never had a problem understanding anyone, and if I did Texans can talk pretty funny too, eh? So who cares, as long as they HELP....

The shocking thing to me about it all is that Customer Service is the biggest source of woe for Dell and it seems a desperate move to axe jobs in the english speaking world. Do executives have no ability to look at the long term?

Dell should suck it up, keep moving ahead with good products and good service at competitive prices and build for the long term future... that will mean taking loses, quarter after quarter till things get better both within Dell and globally, but they still make buckets of money every year and that is what they seem to be focused on, the old mantra of "share price and investors first, customers last" which drives much of American industry.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Dell in Competition for "Worst Company in America"

Way to go Dell! Yet again we dredge up more evidence of the continuing failure of Dell to make inroads with the consumer... the endless drivel served up on the Direct2Dell website somehow manages to ignore the reality on the ground. Kind of like watching President Bush when he talks about the situation in Iraq, lots of truth in there but a pretty fair amount of dis-connect, propaganda and half truths as well. (And keep in mind please that I support the war in Iraq and have always done so!)

So this week we bring you a bit of fun... over at http://consumerist.com Dell is featured in Round 19 of "Worst Company in America" and in this fantasy league styled series of articles they have Dell squaring off against Home Depot, no slouches themselves at crap customer service and shoddy products!

Here is the summary of Dell... Quote: "Formerly the king of direct to customer PC sales, Dell now has a well-deserved reputation for abysmal bad customer service ever since they outsourced their Home and Home Office customer service departments (secret trick: always order from Small Business, it's US based and the reps and techs still know what they're doing). Horror stories of botched warranty repairs abound. Just Google "Dell Hell" and you'll know what the company is so reviled." End Quote.