- Feb 3, 2006
- 1,283
- 0
- 19,230
Yes DELL is my favorite competitor:
Last year, to discourage people from calling at all, Dell removed the toll-free service number from its Web site...
The following is a direct quote from BusinessWeek magazine, June 2006.
Dell's laser focus on cost efficiency has long been a core strategy. But like Home Depot, Dell's cost-cutting efforts have alienated its customers. The "direct" sales model of selling computers to consumers via phone and the Internet eliminates the costs of shipping to stores and tracking inventory. But outsiders say that mentality also leads to moves that almost seem designed to put customers last. Dell, for instance, sraffs some customer service call centers with fewer than 500 workers. A center that small is almost guaranteed to be frequently overwhelmed.
Enter Richard L. "Dick" Hunter, Dell's new head of customer service. If he has his way, workers in the company's call centers will soon have a colored flag to raise when they run into trouble helping a customer. When the flag goes up, a supervisor will come running to help out. It's an idea Hunter cribbed from Dell's computer factories, where an assembler can raise a similar alarm. "In the factory, if there's a problem, he flicks on a light and the next-level [builder] comes running," says Hunter. In the call center, "why not do the same?"
An eight-year veteran who made his reputation overseeing Dell's legendarily efficient assembly plants, Hunter is remarkably candid about how hard it will be to turn things around. In 2005, Dell's customer satisfaction rating fell 6.3% to a score of 74 in the Michigan ranking, the steepest decline in the industry. Analysts say poor service is complicating the $56 billion Round Rock (Tex.) giant's struggle to get back on the growth path. Competitors have matched its prices, rolled out aggressive marketing campaigns, and raised their own service levels. In the U.S. consumer market, Dell's first quarter share fell to 28% from 31% accord to researcher IDC. "Dell has to repair its reputational damage," says Jason Maxwell, an analyst at TCW Group, wich owns about 25 million Dell shares.
Hunter thinks the solution is to treat the call center like a factory. Now, many cell center reps are trained to solve only one type of problem--say, a hardware glitch on a Dimension desktop. That explains why it's so common for the agent who answers a call to have to transfer it in search of a techie with the right expertise. Hunter estimates that almost 45% of calls to Del require at least one transfer. "That's terrible," he says. "It's like delivering materials to the wrong factory 45% of the time." Last year, to discourage people from calling at all, Dell removed the toll-free service number from its Web site, a move that Hunter says "falls into the stupid category." It put the number back a couple weeks ago.
Last year, to discourage people from calling at all, Dell removed the toll-free service number from its Web site...
The following is a direct quote from BusinessWeek magazine, June 2006.
Dell's laser focus on cost efficiency has long been a core strategy. But like Home Depot, Dell's cost-cutting efforts have alienated its customers. The "direct" sales model of selling computers to consumers via phone and the Internet eliminates the costs of shipping to stores and tracking inventory. But outsiders say that mentality also leads to moves that almost seem designed to put customers last. Dell, for instance, sraffs some customer service call centers with fewer than 500 workers. A center that small is almost guaranteed to be frequently overwhelmed.
Enter Richard L. "Dick" Hunter, Dell's new head of customer service. If he has his way, workers in the company's call centers will soon have a colored flag to raise when they run into trouble helping a customer. When the flag goes up, a supervisor will come running to help out. It's an idea Hunter cribbed from Dell's computer factories, where an assembler can raise a similar alarm. "In the factory, if there's a problem, he flicks on a light and the next-level [builder] comes running," says Hunter. In the call center, "why not do the same?"
An eight-year veteran who made his reputation overseeing Dell's legendarily efficient assembly plants, Hunter is remarkably candid about how hard it will be to turn things around. In 2005, Dell's customer satisfaction rating fell 6.3% to a score of 74 in the Michigan ranking, the steepest decline in the industry. Analysts say poor service is complicating the $56 billion Round Rock (Tex.) giant's struggle to get back on the growth path. Competitors have matched its prices, rolled out aggressive marketing campaigns, and raised their own service levels. In the U.S. consumer market, Dell's first quarter share fell to 28% from 31% accord to researcher IDC. "Dell has to repair its reputational damage," says Jason Maxwell, an analyst at TCW Group, wich owns about 25 million Dell shares.
Hunter thinks the solution is to treat the call center like a factory. Now, many cell center reps are trained to solve only one type of problem--say, a hardware glitch on a Dimension desktop. That explains why it's so common for the agent who answers a call to have to transfer it in search of a techie with the right expertise. Hunter estimates that almost 45% of calls to Del require at least one transfer. "That's terrible," he says. "It's like delivering materials to the wrong factory 45% of the time." Last year, to discourage people from calling at all, Dell removed the toll-free service number from its Web site, a move that Hunter says "falls into the stupid category." It put the number back a couple weeks ago.
/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8800M-GTS.6934.0.html
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