Dean's World

Tech Support Improving?

Dean

PC World's Stephen Manes thinks he sees a trend toward companies improving their technical support.

Although he doesn't say so, I sense that part of this may be that some companies are starting to see that outsourcing tech support jobs overseas doesn't work out all that well for them.

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Scott Kirwin (mail) (www):

80% of offshoring projects fail to save money according to Gartner (link). Gartner has been one of the biggest cheerleaders of offshoring and here they are in complete agreement with the anti-offshoring efforts of the ITPAA, Programmer's Guild, and OutsourceCongress.

As founder of the ITPAA I have been seeing many stories such as this one in the media. I have been hearing privately that many firms have been quick to announce their offshoring to please shareholders, but more quiet about bringing things back onshore for the following reasons:

1. The quality wasn't what they needed.
2. The cost savings weren't there.

But the long-term damage by offshoring has been done. America is facing an unsustainable trade deficit, and "American" firms have created their future competition in exactly the same way that the American car companies offshored their know-how to the nascent Japanese and European firms.

I'm already concerned about companies that offshored rediscovering their patriotism in order to challenge the entry of foreign service firms into the American market. I

'm concerned about high-quality jobs for American citizens and residents; I don't care where the headquarters is of the company that provides them.

3.30.2005 1:39pm

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Publius Rex (mail) (www):

Interesting timing, Dean. Not ten minutes ago I hung up on a broadband customer support person for asking me to do something totally and completely illogical and insisting that they wouldn't help me unless I did that. It didn't help that I'm not physically in the correct location to do what they asked, either.

As far as I can tell, technical support has not improved in any measurable way in well over a decade. I can match Mr. Manes punch for punch with anecdotal evidence that support has either stayed the same or gotten worse.

3.30.2005 2:44pm

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Kacie Landrum (mail) (www):

The only tech support I'm familiar with is my university's, and it's still giving me the same consistently crappy support it's always given. It doesn't help that most of the techs don't speak English that well, so I have to wonder sometimes if they don't understand me or they're just incompetent.

Me: My IP address is 169-something, which tells me the network's probably down in the dorms again.
Tech: IP what?
Me: My IP address.
::silence::
Me: You don't know what an IP address is?

****

This conversation reminded me of those squirrels on Animaniacs:

Me: I'm on Mac OS X, and I'd like to set up my mail application so I can check my mail. What should I use for the incoming server?
Tech: You can't get your mail?
Me: I can get it perfectly fine on www.webpage.address, but I want to set up the mail application on my computer to access it there.
Tech: Do you use Outlook Express?
Me: No, I'm on a Mac. I use a program called "Mail".
Tech: So do you use Outlook Express?
Me: No, Mail. It's the name of the mail application on the Mac.
Tech: Open Outlook Express.

Repeat for about five minutes before I give up. I just check my mail online now.

3.30.2005 5:10pm

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Mason (mail):

I have no idea what fantasyland that PC World guy is living in.

3.30.2005 7:54pm

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Dave (mail) (www):

It's hard on the (few) good techs too, I have to point out (having been one). Not only do we deal with our ration of clueless customers, we deal with the ration of clue-FUL customers that the piss-poor techs have caused problems for and refused to listen to.

Luckily, I'm not in that business anymore. Instead I work for the goverment, and have no clue-FUL customers :P

3.30.2005 10:21pm

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Kevin D:

Yeah, I'd have to say the clueless customer far outweighs the clueless tech (but that's to be expected). And, often, since many tech support centers support only certain products their tech only are taught how to use said products. Broadband is a good example along with the Mac mail client. A nameless broadband provider only supports Outlook Express, even on a Mac. So, if you talk about Mac Mail they don't have the information you'll need because the company only supports Outlook Express (though they can provide you with the mail servers and the information Outlook Express would need). So, don't be too hard on the tech - he's just supporting what he's paid to.

3.31.2005 3:52am