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DELL support staff doesn't speak English ???

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lordkosc

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
OMG !!!

So I called Dell tech support for my friend Kara, her desktop hard drive had died, and she tried to explain it to them the first time she called, but the were asking her questions that she said she didnt understand and telling her to do other things she new even less about, ( she is cute and blond and pc-illiterate).

So... I went over and investigated, I push the power button... PC Posts, Bios is on screen, IDE displays gibberish where the hard drive should be listed, at the same time the hard drive starts making very unusual noises and then nothing.... The PC cannot find the hard drive....

So... I poke it with a stick and it doesn't move.... It's dead JIM ( I mean Kara)....

Ok so .......

I call the Dell tech support line, run the guantlet of numbers and voice commands, (why do they have both???) I finally get into the hold queue...

And I wait……………………..

And wait………………………..

Oh and I wait some more……….

19 minutes later…. A human being answers…..

But…… Instead of saying hello, hi or this is BOB how can I help you, I hear the word.......…..

Nehma stay ? , and a whole lot of other words I can’t even being to pronounce, but somewhere in the first sentence I did make out the word “DELL” :bang head

My first words were , “do you speak English? “ I then heard the man on the line say “ok” (that was in English) and then I was on hold, I was sort of in shock I guess and laughing to my friend Kara about what just happened.

So I didn’t keep track of time ,but I was on hold maybe 8-9 minutes and then…… nothing…. No music, no dell ads, nothing… I had been disconnected…..

Make note that this is the first time I had ever called Dell tech support… I was in shock… Could it be this bad???? :rolleyes:

I called back a second time, and went threw all the motions , hold , etc… And finally got threw to Andy, he was also in India, but he spoke fluent English from the moment he answered the phone… And was helpful in getting a new hard drive shipped out… :)

So… As someone who has never used Dell in any way shape or form, I am scared to actually buy anything from them that will require possible tech support… 50/50 is not a good percentage of being able to be helped… :mad:

We need to bring support back to America! Where English is spoken by all, Ok I am calm now… Replys are welcome :)
 
Most customer service for alot of companies are based in Asia, more specifically in India. That is probably why you got an Indian on the line. "Nehma Stay" means Hello in a polite way.
 
IrishAssassin said:
Most customer service for alot of companies are based in Asia, more specifically in India. That is probably why you got an Indian on the line. "Nehma Stay" means Hello in a polite way.

Yeah I googled the word, at least he was friendly, but I didn't understand him...

I was just shocked that they didn't realize the call was coming from the USA, I dunno... I just expect everyone to speak english I guess...
 
I used to work for Dell in a call center. Its all outsourced to india now. They make in a day less than I made an hour. Excellent capitalist decision.
 
DELL has really went downhill since they the support went to India. I have to call them sometimes for specific DELL replacement parts for my customers. Everytime I call them I want to pull my hair out. They are useless in my opinion.
 
Our long distance customer service is re-routed to India also but when asked, they all swear that they're located in California. haha

Anyway .. yes Dell tech support is that bad. They're answer to almost any question is "What you're going to need to do is reformat the PC ..."
 
I don't expect everyone in the world to know english, but I agree that it would be nice if they had a system in place that would route an incoming call to a service rep who could speak (fluently) at least one of the official languages of the country of the call's origin. So if I made a call the system would know to route me to someone who spoke either English or French (preferably both).
 
Dell gets an A+ for their server tech support but for home systems its another story. I believe the server support is all US and they typically don't treat you like a moron. Besides wait times home support isn't always bad. I can see how an avg joe might get confused and want to kill the Dell operator. Anyone on these forums should have a breeze getting what they want done. Here's some tips.

1. Always run the Dell diagnostic cd that came with your computer. They will ask you this 99% of the time when it has to do with a computer issue.
2. Do some testing of your own. You don't want to boot up and see the problem magically disapear while your on the phone after waiting 20 minutes.
3. Be persistant about the issue. If you have to tell them what is wrong with it five times then do it.
4. Play the expert. Sometimes telling them your in the IT field and you've seen the issue before on another Dell computer etc will help move things along.
5. Be unethical. If you have two of the same computer and one has a warantee and the other doesn't then swap parts. I've been told this by both Dell and HP contractors.
6. If your up late sometimes you can get instant help through the chat assist link. I got a DVD burner replaced at 3 am.
 
Ebola said:
Dell gets an A+ for their server tech support but for home systems its another story.
And I know a guy who has quite the story at that! Can you say three months without a working computer because Dell wasn't doing their job? A friend of mine can.
 
DsN said:
Our long distance customer service is re-routed to India also but when asked, they all swear that they're located in California. haha

Anyway .. yes Dell tech support is that bad. They're answer to almost any question is "What you're going to need to do is reformat the PC ..."

How do you think dell can afford these crazy 50% off deals.

the biggest expense of any company is labor, and these guys get paid $20 a week and arn't unionized.
 
Lionsault_100 said:
How do you think dell can afford these crazy 50% off deals.

the biggest expense of any company is labor, and these guys get paid $20 a week and arn't unionized.

The US dell workers arent unionized either. We watched a video on how unions are bad and steal your money during orientation.
 
Curiously, I had to seek Dell Tech support assistance a few days ago, as SMART predicted imminent HDD failure. I was put on hold for a good 15 minutes. Clearly, the tech support guy was from India. However, he knew his stuff and even provided a quick technical tutorial on S.M.A.R.T technology (for my uncle's benefit). He also answered a few questions regarding single sided vs double sided RAM (the OCZ PC3200 I put in didn't work) and warranty issues, if I do the needful by myself.

Overall, I'd say the tech support experience was quite satisfactory.
So, I wouldn't slam tech support at all! In fact, in this particular instance, the tech support person acquitted himself rather nicely.

It is sad that the first thing we do on hearing a non-American accent, is to assume that that person knows nothing.

PS* I don't work for Dell :)
 
tom10167 said:
Everyone buys Dell because of their BS advertising on customer service. They scored an F a few months ago in some review for PC customer service ratings. IBM wasn't much better, and Apple got an A.

haha. A wile back, I called apple for help in getting my ipod unfrozen. I waited probally a whole 3 mins until I got on the line with a *american* rep. it was so nice being able to understand him. I dont like apple at all (yes but I still have a ipod, LOL) but that was the best tech support i have ever spoken to.


I still hate you Steve Jobs*
 
My friend works for the military setting up computer networks and such and he has to call this or other tech support few times a week and he says no matter what company he calls there is always a guy with Indian accent on the line :)
He says that one time hes accent was so bad that he couldn't understand a word that he said and he hung up and called again.
I actually watched an BBC doco on how companys transfer their tech support to India and from what I saw they are very well trained.
 
David Coleman said:
The US dell workers arent unionized either. We watched a video on how unions are bad and steal your money during orientation.

Some Retail stores make you watch that propaganda garbage too, I've heard from a few friends that there training/intro videos were dedicated solely to that Lmao.
 
Dell Home Support is based in Bangalore, India. I agree its horrible I may have gotten 1-2 out of 30 calls ive mad to them, that I could understand most of. If you buy a Computer on a Business or Small/Home Business division of Dell you get tech support out of Texas... Dell is really dispicable IMHO, I mean I have absolutely NOTHING against Indian people but seriously we should get someone without a huge accent or that knows english fluently.
 
Nor does Linksys' support. I just called them and couldn't understand 2 of them. I called Dell up last night and thing guy barly spoke english, he kept saying "Sank you" instead of "Thank you". I kept thinking of James Bond with that short dude in the Man with the Golden Gun.
 
Dealing with dell tech support has always been a hair pulling experience for me. I consider myself to be a very patient person but dell tech support is trying to say the least...
 
David Coleman said:
The US dell workers arent unionized either. We watched a video on how unions are bad and steal your money during orientation.

And that's partially why their jobs went elsewhere - no leverage. Being a displaced worker of a now outsourced helpdesk I understand the reality of today's tech support industry all too well.

But there is good coming from all this. These companies are seeing first hand just how horrible things are as reviews of their tech support are plummeting in a way no one ever imagined. Eventually either the Indian support analysts will catch up and speak engrish well enough to pull it off, or once the contracts are up the companies will eat the cost and pull the support back to Engrish speaking nations. Probably still won't be coming back to the US though. My job is now in Canada. It costs too much money to do blue collar industries in America. I'm willing to bet good money that in our lifetime we will see the Unites States become nothing more than a bloated third world economy. Free enterprise imploding on itself by sending all the work to other nations and using everyone else's supplies to make the few remaining products to sell to ourselves. Eventually we won't have enough people earning enough money to buy any products, then we're all out of work and before we know it we're answering the phones for Abib at pennies an hour.
 
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