Dell Dilemma Over Routing Calls To India

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HOUSTON, NEW DELHI, Nov 24: Dell Inc has halted sending US corporate technical support calls to its Bangalore call center after complaints from commercial customers.

The Austin, Texas, computer-maker said support for US purchasers of its Optiplex desktop and Latitude notebook personal computers for now will be handled solely from existing facilities in Texas, Idaho and Tennessee facilities. Other products and regions aren’t affected. The switchover was first reported in Saturday’s Austin-American Statesman.

When contacted, Dell International Services, a support service arm of Dell Computer has clarified to eFE that the company is not stopping any support calls being routed to India and it would continue to operate its support activities from its two centers in India. The company spokesperson in India said the company was fully committed to India.

“We will continue all our activities including tech support from India,” said the spokesperson.

Dell currently retains around 2,000 employees in its two centers in India.

Meanwhile, as part of the shift, more of its home-PC and consumer electronics calls will be routed to its Bangalore call center, a spokesman in Houston said. The moves won’t affect employment in India or the US, he said.

“It’s a re-distribution of tasks and calling queues,” the spokesman said. “Corporate customers were telling us they didn’t like the level of tech support they were getting from Bangalore,” he said. He couldn’t provide specifics of the complaints.

Brooks Gray, a senior analyst at Technology Business Research Inc, a Hampton, NH, market researcher that tracks customer support, said Dell customers complained of language problems and delays in quickly reaching senior technicians.

“They were having a difficult time hiring the right engineers for those positions,” Mr Gray said. Dell opened its Bangalore call center in April 2001 and rapidly expanded its work force to 3,000 employees.