"[Office Story] And it continues..." Topic

Disclaimer: standard applies…

Oooooookay, so for a quick catch up…

1: We were outsourced to Malaysia and Panama by the "Dude!" Company…
2: Company was supposed to take over all operations as of Aug.7th…
3: Company then came back and said "Ummm…hey…the people we outsourced your job to, can't DO your job at your level in the amount of time we've been trying to train them…so um…can you stay two more weeks until we are SURE that they can do your job?" (90% of us said no…we now have about 8 people in an office that held almost 50…)

Sooooo…This week has been interesting. It's taken the new folks almost 2-3 weeks to learn how to simply reset passwords and domains on our pc's. Remember earlier when I made the post about the call metrics and how we had so many minutes to handle a call? (8 min)…Well, we are now finding out that many of the calls going "overseas" are now taking 20-45 minutes for a simple password reset!

And it gets better.
See, the "Dude!" Company "officially" starts taking ALL calls tonight at 6 pm, and in doing so, for the next week, we are just "backup" in case something happens that they can't handle…
Such as password resets, slu errors, installing printers, and writing up basic trouble tickets…

We are now doing damage control…
We are getting clients calling us saying that the tech folks are telling them "I can't help you with your problem." and hanging up on them, or resetting passwords and hanging up on them without giving them the new password!

I had a nice long conversation with one of the Tier 3 techs yesterday who then said that each day her queue has between 30-45 incorrectly done tickets (each one takes time to have to go into, see what it says, try to figure out whats going on, contact the user and get the correct information, and THEN reenter the ticket data)…

Then on top of that, right in the middle of the busy part of the day, Panamas voice and data line went "down"…
And our offices in Indy and Richmond were tossed in to fight the fire…

So far this is proving to be a monstrous headache for the clients, and for Service Techs, etc…just as I told them it would be…Yes there are "growing pains", and if you like the idea of "it will get better", then please believe so. But you honestly cannot take a person that has 5-7 YEARS of experience on company systems, and replace him with someone that you "hope to have trained to "proficiency" in 2 weeks"….

So we have one week left and counting;…this should be fun to watch…

Well, you know where their priorities lie, and it certainly isn't with customer service.

You'd think that they'd vett the new company at least a *little* bit before they did a full-on switchover…

-Alex

You two have to write a book !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joke 'em…

There is a reason why Xerox and a couple of other companies brought their call centers BACK from overseas…

Wyatt

You'd think that they'd vett the new company at least a *little* bit before they did a full-on switchover…

Since it sounds to me like the new company is Dell (as in "Dude! You're getting a…"), the company probably thought the "big name in computing" was sufficient vetting.

Although the real reason was probably just the promised "cost savings." Harr-harr-harr.

Maybe what Murph needs to do is grab all the old techs who know-their-business and team up to provide experienced "outsource help desk" services to clients.

Will need daily updates now , in triplicate , crossreferenced, and sent through a third party administrator .

Do the clients who call in know there is a transition going on or are they figuring it out on their own when they get hung-up on?

Do the clients who call in know there is a transition going on or are they figuring it out on their own when they get hung-up on?

A little of both. Many of them were never told of the outsourcing, or the transition.

And now they are painfully learning.

Dell still outsources many of these deskside support services. I know one IT company that I worked for did and still does signifcant volume on customer sites as a contractor to Dell.

"Since it sounds to me like the new company is Dell" =

That would be odd, most of Dell's support has been outsources over seas for years. Only their gold service Server support and Linus/Unix groups are still in the states.

That would be odd, most of Dell's support has been outsources over seas for years.

Which is exactly what is happening here; I'm suspecting a "through" contract. In other words, "Company A" has contracted to obtain support services "through" Dell— who in turn simply pockets a check and passes the services on to an overseas subcontractor. "Company A" gets to cut its cost (and a whole department) and brightly tell unsuspecting clients/operational departments, "Oh! We've contracted with Dell, the leading name in computers, to provide superior support services," thinking the magic name will appease everyone, while Dell just "slaps a label on it," as it were, and subcontracts the actual work.

Nobody said it was a good idea . . .

I wonder if its the same mob who staff my helpdesk….who lighten my day and grey my hair with their amazing levels of incompetence….

That's why "Dude! I'm not gettin' a Dell!"

A bit of a risky strategy, but consider resigning, and then offering your services back to the company as a consultant. At consultant rates of course. Not sure what that would be in your business, but I'd guess at least a grand a day?

Nothing like desperation to get people to pay up. I was once fired by a company and less than two weeks later was asked if I wanted to freelance for them. I said sure and charged a weekly rate 50% higher than my old salary. Did 3 months of that, had a month's holiday and then started another job.