Dell in India--too many calls, too soon

It appears that Dell overestimated the capacity of its Indian call center when it made the decision to divert U.S. customers to the new support service. A spokeswoman for the system manufacturer's Australian operation today revealed that for Bangalore it was a case of too many calls, too soon.

"A lot of [the customers] were moved in one go and that was where some of the complaints had arisen so what they've looked at doing is moving some back and then moving them off in smaller increments," she said.

Dell has eased the burden on it Bangalore operation and appeased its business customers by diverting U.S.-originating enquiries pertaining to its corporate OptiPlex desktop and Latitude laptop computers to a facility believed to be in Texas.

How the customers receive the return to an India-based service is yet to be known. While the problems with the center were isolated problem concerning the scale of U.S. Dell executives have been shy about revealing the nature of the complaints maintains.

Also, U.S.-based analyst with research firm Technology Business Research, Brooks Gray, said language problems and delays in escalating enquiries to senior technicians was the source of grief for many Dell customers.

For now, Dell's U.S. corporate customers are the only group to receive local service.

Dell Australia said there were no plans to make similar arrangements for its Australian corporate customers. The company insists that current service levels were "satisfactory" and the problems experienced by U.S. customers were isolated to the segment of the Bangalore operation covering that region.

"The U.S. situation is purely based around scale and the quantity of customers being moved over in one go and that's not an issue that we've had in Australia," said the spokeswoman.

Dell's Asian and European support lines will remain routed to Bangalore.

Dell's decision comes amidst allegations and grumblings that support operations outsourced to India are not performing as hoped.