Dell to cut almost 900 jobs
Updated at 1:50 p.m. PST with comments from Dell.
More changes are afoot at Dell. The Texas PC maker plans to shut down a Canadian call center and lay off almost 900 workers.
The Edmonton, Alberta, center in Canada will close during the second quarter to consolidate customer service operations. Most of the nearly 900 employees will receive pink slips, while some will be reassigned elsewhere in the company. In addition, Dell has decided not to open a second Canadian customer service center planned for Ottawa. In all, the company has 25 call centers worldwide.
The cuts "are part of the series of changes being made across the company globally to enhance the efficiency of our business," said Dell spokesman David Frink.
It's part of a plan Dell announced in May in which the company would reduce its workforce by nearly 10 percent, or about 8,800 jobs.
The world's second-largest PC maker said just a day earlier it would close all 140 of its U.S. stores in favor of focusing on its new strategy of selling its products through retail outlets like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Staples.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. 
The people at that number would not help because the Computer had been bought in the USA. That computer was donated for parts for a worthy cause, namely the junk pile.
There will never be another Dell in my life.
The biz models that made them great dooes not work on a scale that will compete with the rest of the world computer makers.
And I wonder how many tax breaks they have gotten around the world for creating jobs only to have massive layoffs 3-5 years later.
The majority employees in HQ (Austin) do not speak highly of upper management and are always worried about their jobs. Once bitten, twice shy!
Imac is light and compact so that it can be easily taken to store for service.
suggest you buy a store service contract for your new PC, instead. or buy a Mac.
Dell is on the decline (how sad) by closing the Canadian Call Center, which I'm sure provides far, far better service than India ever has.
So, I spent 3 hours trying to fix it with a variety of email and phone support.
Secondly, The DFS guys asked me way to many stupid questions.
Like what did I order, ssn, zip, address, etc. Nobody even called me to tell me that they needed to do this before my order would be released! I think there is some joke at Dell as to how much they can put a customer through before I say keep it!
Plus, I spend some quality time talking to India.
I hope the computer makes up for the bad support I got!
Ok, so here is my solution to my complaints:
Open some more midwest call centers. Stop transferring people around. I spent 30+ minutes per call when one rep that was knowledgable could have helped me in about 2 minutes.
The issue is in the fact that offshored support doesn't understand the muck that is now American english. Full of slang etc that we use every day but totally will stop and Indian support rep in their tracks. Also, not saying its just India, it happens here but the rate of failed service when the support call drifts from their pre-made scripts is staggering. I don't know why but as soon as they have to think outside the box, a red light goes off and its deer in the head lights.
Yet our leaders don't understand why people don't go into engineering fields and such. Ohh geeez I don't know, maybe because that education isn't cheap, which means I will want some high dollar pay...which ....you know...I can't get because our "AMERICAN" companies off shored those jobs to save said dollars.....which ironically.....are slowly becoming just as good as rupees.
One (tech support country) I'm always experiencing problems with is actually a Latin American country that another major vendor uses.
I'm not even going to waste everybody's time describing it. It's horrible. If you think you don't have time for it with a desktop, you definitely don't have time for it with large, mission critical systems.
I've dealt with both near and offshore countries for support. Canada did/does a great job. I've also had great support from the few dealings I've had with people in China.
I believe Dell is making a big mistake in closing their Canadian facility.
Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com
When my Dell X50V Pocket PC Broke I could never get any one that could speak English!
I never got it fixed, they would just give me the run a round, and say some one would get back to me but no one ever did.
Buy A Dell and you Will Be in Hell!
I'm glad that the truth about Dell is slowly coming to light. When I was in Dell, senior management always boasted about how one day Dell would be number 1 in all markets worldwide and how Hp was on the decline - what a load of rubbish.
Hp's products and service are far better than Dell.
Go Hp!
I think they will continue to manufacture the OptiPlex and server lines.
Dell's downfall was when they started chasing after the low cost market when the perception of Dell was high quality & high reliability. They can no longer diferentiate themselves from eMachine or Gateway since they use sub-par low cost components which for a while made it up the supply chain into the OptiPlex lines which is their bread and butter.
Dell should seperate the consumer and enterprise products by different companies under the same corporation. At least that way their consumer "kick-back" won't affect their enterprise marketing efforts.
As far as Dell, I've had a couple of problems with my Dell but I've had it for several years. Their customer support was ok. My problems were resolved. My PC rocks but it's also a custom Dell/Gaming PC with top of the line components. Maybe that's the difference?
- Just Buy A Mac ;)
- by NRecob February 3, 2008 10:40 AM PST
- No International calls to India and no Blue Screens of Death ;)
- Reply to this comment
-
(28 Comments)And the best part is you spare yourself from that *ugly* *outdated*
system hog masquerading as an OS (Vista)!