Dell, no, say it ain't so.

Let us travel back through time to one month ago, November 15th, when my mother asked me to order a computer as a surprise Christmas gift from my grandmother to my Aunt Annie, who has taken over the job of running the house and paying the bills since my grandfather died. "I will order it from Dell right now," I told her, and forthwith did, finding a very nice deal on a Dimension 3000 that set us back a little over $850 including shipping and tax. ... Keep in mind that I have been calling them every single day since we ordered the replacement, to make sure that the thing was actually percolating through the system. On Friday afternoon, five days after the replacement had been ordered, no one mentioned this little issue to me. Apparently, they stopped manufacturing the Dimension 3000 some time this weekend. Undoubtedly all the workers were in Hong Kong, protesting at the WTO. ... You would think, that with all the customer service problems they have been having, Dell would not want another customer out there saying "Dell strung me along for a month and then dumped me on the computer market five days before Christmas." You would think, in fact, that they would be falling all over themselves to FedEx me the closest thing they could find to what we ordered at no extra cost to myself. Or maybe you wouldn't think that. Maybe I'm some sort of woeful naif with an outsized sense of entitlement who believes that just because Dell's colossal screwups threaten to leave my family without a present under the tree for my much-put-upon Aunt come Christmas morning, that Dell should try to fix it. ... Update IV I seem to have inadvertently implied that Indians are incompetent and/or mean in the update above. The point was just that Indians presumably don't understand the cultural significance of Christmas, any more than I understand the cultural significance of . . . umm . . . that holiday where they throw colored powder all over each other. Although it looks like mad fun. I assume that Indians are just as compassionate and caring as Americans are. Although I have only met a small fraction of India's 900 billion people, my experience so far has been very pleasant. If we can generalize up from my small sample, Indians are lovely people indeed. Asymmetrical Information

I've had no problems with Dell support. I am, however, hearing nightmares all over the place. I've heard some stories from people at my work. I've heard stories from my friends. I may have to reconsider where I get my next machine. When I hear someone I know is a techy type tell me "They just don't care" (from a friend of mine) I have to stop and wonder if I should just build my own computers from now on.
I'm hearing these kinds of stories from different industries and from all over the place. It really sounds to me that the economy as a whole has decided that customer service is just not worth the money. It is an after the sale cost. Until there is some kind of shake-up nothing will change.
I'm sure there are just as many asshole Indian folks as anywhere else. The pay structure can still afford to pay people to be nice in India. That will change. Here in the states, I noticed many years ago the loss of "service with a smile" from just about every one. It happened in the mid 80s. Right about the time a huge recession came rolling through. The labor budget dropped and the first thing that went was the good nature.
I thought there were 1,080,264,388 Indians. Oh, look I'm right. =]