In meantime, Dell tries its own "service innovation"

So I wrote about IBM's service "innovation".

Now Dell announces a new support plan, which the WSJ reads to mean - pay more and get to speak to an American.

Now, I am all for giving people choice and if a caller wants to speak to an American, fine. But paying more for that privilege? Only if Dell delivers SLA measured type service that it offers its outsourcing corporate clients. Not more of the typical poor quality consumer focused call centers with a different accent.

Poor call service has little to do with accents. The single best thing a call center can do is to give the lowest level employee some power, not just a script. Combined with good training , good follow-up/escalation process and decent case database and trouble ticketing systems. The majority of call center calls are not exceptions. They have been handled many times before. Aim for 90+% first touch resolution.

I am shocked how many call centers do not tell consumers their case ticket number. How many do not allow their reps to call customers back. How few companies have tried to tackle the massive staff turnover which plagues consumer call centers - partly because they do not have a SLA which dings them on staff turnover.

Consumer oriented call centers clearly need innovation. But it goes way beyond accents. They need to adopt a much more corporate call center orientation.

Comments

[Nitin Goyal]

Makes me wonder. Is Dell planning to contest the coming elections? Poor customer service has nothing to do with location. It has to do with processes, commitment, follow up and the breakneck speed of growth in India where quantity of recruitment was factored against quality. This Dell strategy of paying to pay for an American does not make business, economic or strategic sense to me and seems more like a gimmick.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Nitin, not sure they are just talking about India..call centers are such a poor experience for most consumers that any foreign accent has become the scape goat...