It’s really YOUR fault you know…..
“Thank you for calling Dell Tech Support, my name is…Bob…how can I habib you today?”.
Everyone cringes at the thought of calling tech support. Why is this? Well the reasons are multitude but the next time you have to call tech support and you cringe, you have no one to blame but yourself. Thats right folks, YOU the consumer are responsible for the creation of crappy tech support. Disagree with me on this? Keep reading, I bet you might think otherwise.
Back in the ’90s, when the consumer computer market was really taking off, IT Support was something that a person paid for. (either via a 6-Pack to your buddy or $$$ to the local computer shop) It was rarely over the phone and rarely cheap. Eventually, companies (I’m looking at you, Gateway) starting offering lifetime phone support for any computer you bought from them. There was a catch. You had to be the original owner.
Much like the cell phone industry, (think Verizon’s “In-Network Calling”) as soon as one company does a promotion offer to get customers, it gets parodied through the industry. This is exactly what happened to the consumer computer market. (notice I say Consumer. In the business world, support contracts are common place and paying for support is a common thing.) All it took is one company to offer Free Tech Support and promote it as a selling point and everyone else followed suit. Well, Free ain’t cheap. If I offer free tech support, I have to pay my support techs somehow. If I have to subsidize the cost of tech support, I can’t afford to pay my techs very well so the really IT oriented and talented people stay away from Phone Support. (and the result of trying to save as much money to subsidize the Free Support, outsourcing to India is the inevitable result. It’s cheaper.)
The ultimate result is this. Now that everyone EXPECTS free phone support for technology, they balk at the thought of having to pay for it. Plus, why should the average consumer take the effort and time to learn how to use a personal computer, cell phone, etc? I would bet large sums of money, the average consumer would make it a point to learn how it works when they have to pay for someone else to do it for them.
So the next time you call for Tech Support and get “Bob” in India, you have no one to blame but yourself.
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I agree completely.
On a side note, I much prefer talking to Esha from India, rather than “Bob”.
Esha means “desire, wish” in Sanskrit.
So, I propose instead of these 1-800 numbers for free tech support lines to the wonderful people of India, we outsource some 1-900 numbers. This is the land that gave the world the great gift of the Kama Sutra after all. Better international sexual relations and better paying jobs for all these telephone workers.
But that’s just my two cents… or rather my $5.00 for the first three minutes, 99 cents each additional minute.