Dana's Animated Mind

When I mention I work for Dell, I get quite a varient amount of responses. There is, of course, Dell sucks, and there is always that it must suck to be me. Of course there is always the statement about being from India. While it is safe to say from supporting the XPS Line of Business, I have my hands full due to high price range of these systems. The only system that beat them are Precisions, but that is escalating off topic.

A good deal of customers have flatout told me over the phone that Dell sucks. Clients tend to be less incline to say that, but I believe this is due to the fact the Information Technology Department more then often contacts me. Their perception based on their background versus average Customers with no IT background leads to a better communication channel. If a hard drive crashes, they know it can happen without warning so it is not something that is entirely Dell's fault. Customers, without technical background, want their machines running one hundred percent of the time. So their perception of Dell sucks half the time is because something happen they didn't expect, and therefore it is a bad machine.

The other reason Dell might suck in their eyes is because we have technical support over the phone versus sending a technician out. We try to utilize many tools to assist them better, but this seems to be a great inconvienance for them. At my particular call center, we are staffed by A+ college educated technicians, and this seems to not good enough. We have endless patience in helping them open the case up and try to find out what part is failing, and yet we are still the bad guys.

The best one is we suck when we tell them we do not support 3rd Party Hardware/Software. This includes viruses, browser extensions, and other software related issues. Despite it being explicitly spelled out in their warranty, we suck. I do my best to try to guide the customer to the light side, but in the end of the day, someone somewhere is regretting they bought a Dell because they downloaded spyware. Clients are not as bad in this regard due to Information Technology Department. They are aware of these issues, and they know these type of things can happen. The fact is you have paid me to perform a particular function, and I will perform that to my utmost ability, but I will not leap so far out of scope for you. If it turns out that I suck, then that is something I have to deal with.

When folks here what my job is at Dell, they sometimes have sympathy for me. They are not the ones who sit on the phones to listen to a barrage when we try to help them, and they can emphasize that is not the type of job they want. Do I have a thankless job? Sometimes, it does feel that way. Sometimes, it feels like that no matter what I do, I am still the enemy. Some customers even gone that it must be difficult diagnosing an issues purely on description, and to some degree it is. So to listen in for clues from the customer's statements, and trying to find a point to steer towards to the resolution came be very difficult. Sometimes I get thank, sometimes I get phrased, and sometimes customer leave in a huff. So I can see where some might feel sorry for me, but this is something I do with pride. If I can save one computer, I am happy.

The silliest notion I hear is that I work in India. Dell has made steps to bring Technical Support back to the United States, and I am among those initial agents that was hired in that move. I am very much in the United States, and no intentions on moving anywhere else. Due to my neutral accent, it is quite difficult to tell where I am from as I don't say Y'all. I am just one of those hard working XPS Agents who taking in United States calls to assist customers with their needs. This puts a lot of customers at ease because they can understand me, and the fact I am laid back with them doesn't hurt. Although I do have company time to account for, I do not rush the customer at all.

There are times when people wonder why I do what I do for a living, and the shortest answer is because it's something I am good at. Some customers may believe Dell sucks for any variety of reasons they chose from, but in the end I am one of the reasons why some people stay with Dell. Their computers goes down, I take steps to get it back up for them. So the perception of Dell sucks is merely that. A perception. Along with other agents, I have committed to making the perception that Dell Rocks.