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and I am sorry I had to. I now understand the frustration so many write about in forums.
A client had a hard drive fail in her two and a half month old Hewlett Packard PC. I have purchased a new drive to install (time constraints), and will use the returned drive from HP as a backup.
So I called HP (India ) and went through what I had done to determine the drive had failed. Any tech worth their salt, hearing what I did, would agree: The drive failed.
But not these dimwits.
The first one had me run another diagnostic that gave the same result: The drive is not accessible. His next request was that I run the recovery software from the recovery partition, which is on the hard drive. I asked him how we were going to do this if the hard drive has failed and he told me it could be accessed. Can you spell stoopid?
So I did what he asked and, of course, it didn't work. After that he had me run the recovery software from the DVDs I made when I set up the computer. You all do that, right? Right? Again I asked him how this was supposed to work if the hard drive failed and he reiterated that I had to run it. Can you spell stoopid?
He told me to wait half and hour and call back for further instructions. A half hour later the same screen was on the monitor and the hard drive light was on solid. I called and talked to another Indian . He told me this was normal and that the process would take at least four hours. No amount of arguing would sway him from me having to wait those four hours. Can you spell stoopid?
So three hours later, after picking up Mrs. Tek from work I checked and the computer had rebooted and was sitting on the same error screen that was on it originally.
I called back and got sent to the printer tech support department. Can you spell stoopid? They transeferred me to the desktop department where I sat on hold for 20 minutes. I hung up and called again.
This time I got someone in the US! He asked what had gone on in my previous calls and about halfway through he interrupted me, apologizing for doing so. He asked about one of the tests I ran (Smartdisk if you are knowledgeable - and it reported servo and seek failure - this is the test I told the original tech about) and told me that I should have never been asked to do anything more after that information was given to the original tech in India.
He set me up with a drive coming, and I return the crashed one in the same box. Total cost to me zero.
Total cost to my client because of the idiots in India? More than the new drive I bought at Best Buy cost, but I'll be damned if I'll let these a$$holes win.
If anyone that frequents these forums works for HP here's an open message to them: I will no longer buy HP products (I have 2 HP and one Compaq laptops). I will no longer recommend your products to friends, clients, forum members, or anyone that asks my opinion. Jerk me around and I jerk back, as hard as I can.
So now I'm trying to decide what the deal is with tech support in India.
1. The people they hire truly are stupid
2. They have a problem with the discrepancy between what they get paid and what the techs in the US get paid for the same (not really ) work.
3. They are just jealous, in general, of Americans and this is their way of getting even.
4. They hate their lot in life and this is what they do to feel better about themselves.
I am now in the process of finding out if any computer manufacturers have their tech support exclusively in the US. If there is one that will be the only brand I will buy or recommend in the future. I will no longer submit myself to having to deal with a bunch of uninformed, unintelligent, losers in some other country for tech support.
I thought I read somewhere that Dell was moving some technical support back to the USA. Considering that we value a developer's time at about $250/hr, the price we pay for Dell premier support is worth it to reduce downtime. I can call up Dell premier support and often have a guy with spares in the office the same day.
My guess is that the Indian tech support is required to read from a script and is not allowed to go off-script. That cuts down on their costs, but makes them a lot less useful. I don't blame the Indians for this, to me this is the result of a company trying to cut support costs to the bone. You'd get the same result regardless of where the support center was located.
I thought I read somewhere that Dell was moving some technical support back to the USA. Considering that we value a developer's time at about $250/hr, the price we pay for Dell premier support is worth it to reduce downtime. I can call up Dell premier support and often have a guy with spares in the office the same day.
My guess is that the Indian tech support is required to read from a script and is not allowed to go off-script. That cuts down on their costs, but makes them a lot less useful. I don't blame the Indians for this, to me this is the result of a company trying to cut support costs to the bone. You'd get the same result regardless of where the support center was located.
But also (I'm guessing) the "script" will solve a majority of regular end user's problems.
I thought I read somewhere that Dell was moving some technical support back to the USA. Considering that we value a developer's time at about $250/hr, the price we pay for Dell premier support is worth it to reduce downtime. I can call up Dell premier support and often have a guy with spares in the office the same day.
My guess is that the Indian tech support is required to read from a script and is not allowed to go off-script. That cuts down on their costs, but makes them a lot less useful. I don't blame the Indians for this, to me this is the result of a company trying to cut support costs to the bone. You'd get the same result regardless of where the support center was located.
Not true. The gentleman from the US was actually embarrassed that they made me go through all that extra work...
I have a worse one... We have a separation between our company (development) and the control of the servers where our code runs. We have to get a technical representative from the Other Company Who Shall Remain Nameless But Is the Same As Another Company Mentioned In this Thread online and tell them what to do, because we aren't "qualified" to touch the servers.
Here is how the conversation went.
"Hello, I am Bob and I going to work your change request. This is for change request 664221?"
Yes it is.
"Okay, I am ready for you."
I need you to telnet to company.servername.com, port 1052.
"Okay. How do I do that?"
What?
"What is tel-net?"
Is this a joke?
"No sir. I am sorry. Can you tell me how to tel-net?"
....
Yup, the qualified technician, more qualified than me to touch the server, did not even know how to connect and log on to the server. I had to step him through it one character at a time, because, you know, I'm not qualified.
Not true. The gentleman from the US was actually embarrassed that they made me go through all that extra work...
It sounds to me like the support folks in the USA are given more leeway in going off-script, and that's what made the difference. If the folks in the USA were required to stay on-script (and maybe hiring smarter people in the US is what allows them to go off-script), or the India folks were allowed to go off-script, I think there would be less difference in the quality of support you received.
I know that with Dish Network technical support, the first-level, lowest paid flunkies, regardless of where they are located, aren't allowed to go off-script, and force you to go through all of their idiotic steps when troubleshooting. Get to a second-level tech, and you can just tell them what you think the problem is and what steps you've taken to diagnose the problem, and if they agree, they'll mail you the part you need without forcing you to go through any more troubleshooting.
I am now in the process of finding out if any computer manufacturers have their tech support exclusively in the US. If there is one that will be the only brand I will buy or recommend in the future. I will no longer submit myself to having to deal with a bunch of uninformed, unintelligent, losers in some other country for tech support.
Tried to rep you but I need to spread it around.
If you do find one, please let us know. I too refuse to deal with someone I can barely understand. Technical knowledge AND good command of the customers language used to be prerequisites to landing a job.
I blame the US companies for this situation. They trumpet "better customer experience" as the reason but really they just want to cut costs at the expense of customer service. The upper level executives of these companies should be required to call these overseas call centers everyday just to get into their buildings so they'll experience what their customers are going through.
I don't think the reps are truly stupid, just the process is. They've been given a script to follow and told to follow it come hell or highwater. Usually, escalating to a supervisor or some higher tier will get you better results. You just have to keep saying escalate and do not swear at 'em.
Believe it or not IBM tech support for business (I do not know about consumer support) is located in good old ATLANTA, GEORGIA.
They let you know it, too, when you call.
"We are now transferring your call to our tech support center IN ATLANTA GEORGIA!"
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) and went through what I had done to determine the drive had failed. Any tech worth their salt, hearing what I did, would agree: The drive failed. 
Can you spell stoopid? They transeferred me to the desktop department where I sat on hold for 20 minutes. I hung up and called again.
He asked what had gone on in my previous calls and about halfway through he interrupted me, apologizing for doing so. He asked about one of the tests I ran (Smartdisk if you are knowledgeable - and it reported servo and seek failure - this is the test I told the original tech about) and told me that I should have never been asked to do anything more after that information was given to the original tech in India. 
) work.
