Remember that dopey but convincing geek who drawled "Dude, you're getting a Dell"? Too bad Dell fired him. Rumor had it that his image was too "gay" for the company's liking. Of course the company had to maintain a crisp clean corporate image. That very image is upheld by the countless call center soldiers on Dell's payroll.... upheld by cool Hollywood names, Dravidian-Floridian accents, sweet waiting periods that let you enjoy entire music albums and the occasional background chatter that breaks the monotony of the wait.
"Phone rakh naa bhenchod, khatam kar" !! Translated - "Put the phone down sister-fucker, get done with it" (with friendly annoyance in tone).
The call to Dell had been especially lengthy and mundane till this point. 'Ken' had put me on hold for the 9th time, only this time he forgot to hit the mute button. And there it was... the capstone of the chatter. The call center friend - GI Joe - beckoning sister fucking Ken to get done with the call (and me) and join him and Barbie at the tea stall. It was after all 530 am Indian standard time. "Oh yeah", I thought, "listen to GI Joe and double step on this call Ken. But why are you fucking your sister when you have Barbie? Could it be that the Indian Ken and Barbie are in fact siblings?? Incest? At a Dell call center "??? If they could fire their star mascot for sounding gay, surely they will guillotine Ken for incest?
Ken got back on the call oblivious that I was onto his dirty little secret. He had no clue as to why I was chuckling at his grave diagnosis of my optical drive. We worked out the details of sending the notebook back for repair and before hanging up came the customary "can I help you with anything else". I couldn't resist. I said "Yes Ken, please tell me which Dell customer service manual has Phone rakh bhenchod in it?" I could almost hear the thud of his jaw dropping on the other side. Ken panicked, stuttered, fumbled and managed a lame one - "Oh that must have been some cross connection Sir". "Yes Ken, it surely sounded like one... why would any professional from a clean company like Dell mouth such profanities while calls are live to customers." At this point Ken probably realized that if in fact this conversation is reviewed for the "quality assurance" promised to us, he would be neck deep in shit. Out came a few apologies and a bit more fumbling for words. At this point I felt sorry for the guy and backed off. Ken is a super dude, but even he has to be given some slack after staying up all night talking to people about plug and play instead of indulging Barbie. This Ken and his pals were probably 19, 20 tops, still in college.
I don't blame those kids cause kids will be kids. It's the people who set the standards of operations in these scourge-of -our-times places that I have a problem with. In the long run it doesn't matter if you knock a hundred bucks off your closest competitor. If you keep dishing out crap in the name of customer service, very soon every customer that can afford to shell out 100 bucks more to go to the next shop, will.
Earlier in the conversation Ken kept trying to get me to trouble-shoot my device before he would accept a repair order (within the warranty period no less). He wanted me to get a Phillips screwdriver and unscrew the monitor hinges and some bs on those lines. I asked him if it would make sense if he called his car dealership within the warranty about getting an appointment to fix a problem and they asked him to troubleshoot by removing the carburetor and reporting back to them. Poor kid understood exactly what I meant, but company policy made him insist on my compliance.
So here is company policy, obviously designed to penny pinch and save technician labor by giving the customer a crash course in IT 101 and making an unpaid technician out of him. That I have a big problem with. If I felt blind sighted by this imagine the 80 year old grand mother who got a Dell for Christmas being asked to run diagnostics and take her hard drive apart. Unbelievable! At the very most the damn troubleshooting should be a polite one-time request, and no more.
Dude, will I get a Dell again? Yeah, possibly. As long as the company dishes out decent quality products at bargain prices and the competition is hardly better, I guess I can cope with poor customer service. But then, I am a pragmatic buyer with a large threshold of emotional tolerance. There are plenty of emotional buyers out there, and customer service shenanigans are likely to turn them away. Michael Dell shouldn't be pushing them away. It hasn't affected his company just yet but does he really want to find out how close Dell can get to the tipping point without actually tipping over?
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