(04/27/04)
When I bought my computer in 2001, Dell was at the top of the rankings for service, reliability, and warranty coverage. This was important to me because my previous 2 systems were plagued with problems from the beginning, and I was sick of unknowledgable phone tech support people. I had a few issues my first year with my power supply, but Dell handled the issue well. Last week my computer started messing up in ways I had never seen before. I did all the checks for malware and nothing came up. I checked my RAM and my hard drives on other computers. I got ready to back up my data and reformat, only to find that I was unable to copy large files. So I went back to Dell tech support, remembering the last issue and how they handled it. Fortunately, I still have a few more months of warranty coverage left (I know I got ripped off) so I knew they'd replace any broken hardware.
Then I realize that things have changed in the last 2.5 years. I never really cared about the outsourcing of jobs before because I am a firm believer that these American businesses are improving the lives of people in India, China, Thailand, and Singapore. Who's to say that my comfort is more important than the well-being of the 4 programmers it took to replace my mom? But I've discovered this week why it takes more than a 1:1 ratio of replacers to replacees. The simple fact is that these foreigners completely blow at these jobs. I still haven't gotten my computer fixed because I've been trying to sift through broken English by 6 separate Indian tech support "specialists."
So what does this mean to Dell and other American companies? Well instead of getting the problem fixed, they've pissed off a potential repeat customer and wasted a lot of employee time. If the American you were paying, say, $30 an hour, takes only 15 minutes to solve my problem, it costs them only $7.50 in labor. If instead, you have 6 separate Indian techs each spending an average of 15 minutes at the rate of $5 an hour, you've spent the same amount of money but you managed to piss your customer off. In my particular case, they've spent that much money on labor and NOT fixed my problem or even sent someone over to take a look. I mean I freaking threw down money for the 3 year on-site support and they refuse to send someone until I jump through their hoops.
An acquaintance of mine bitches nonstop about the terrible code he has to fix from Indian programmers, and that the firm he works for is saving money because they're forced to work unpaid overtime (heh, salaried suckers), not because the outsourced workers are more cost-efficient. Newsweek touched on this in an article a couple weeks ago, and the Dell experience is convincing me that Newsweek was right.
In the end, I think the global economy will ultimately be beneficial, so the solution is not to adopt protectionist trade policies, but to let the market decide what is and isn't a good idea. My next computer might still be a Dell, but I sure as hell am not throwing money down for anything but the bare minimum 1-year warranty.
