Maybe an interesting question to ask but one I think is oh so important. If you in internet marketing and are going to outsource your support to anyone and/or anywhere you need to know that they are actually performing the job you have set out for them to do.

Being that you have progressed to the point of you not having to do it yourself anymore is a good thing. When you first get started you are usually cash strapped and to hire someone to handle support can be a chore. So to save money you might take on that task yourself. It can be time consuming and a lot of work. It is actually good practice to see just what kind of complaints and problems you might encounter.

But eventually, hopefully, you are able to give that job to someone else to do. Someone that you trust will do just as good a job as you did. After all these are your customers and you want them to be cared for as you had been doing.

I mention this because I just had a bad experience dealing with outsourced support. I recently bought a computer from a very respectible firm whose name I won’t mention (Dell). Now I really like using their computers as I find that they are very reliable and I have not had many problems with them. Now if I am like your customers, when you find something or someone that you like doing business with you will stick with them because you trust them.

I recently encountered a virus on my system and for anyone that really uses their computer you know what it is like not to have it available. So I called this company’s (Dell) support and was not surprised that the call was re-directed to another country. That has become quite typical for most of the bigger firms because of the cheap labor they can get. Hmm but why am I subsidizing them with my taxes, Oh sorry that is another article?

Anyway the virus problem was taken care of after about an hour and a half on the phone with them, system cleaned and everything working fine. I was told they would call me the next day to check and make sure everything was working fine. Next day comes and I have not received a call. And wouldn’t you know it, Murphy’s Law, I get the same virus back again.

So, of course I place another call. I am routed to the support department and they proceed to ask me the same questions as the day before, including name, phone number, computer ID, who I spoke with and on and on. Thought all of that would be on file. I was placed on hold while they looked up all of this information. But I remained calm and answered all of the questions.

I was then told I would need to speak with a supervisor who would assist me with the problem. I thought this to be odd but I went with it. Was eventually transferred and after a bit the phone was answered by someone who was now asking the same questions again. After a bit I determined that I was not speaking with the original company support (Dell) but to company they outsource work to, talk about irony, outsourced by the outsourcer. And I am not making this up.

Oh, and did I mention that I had to pay for that support call which was another surprise as I had paid for coverage for hardware and not software. Yeah, that was just icing on the cake.

Now can you imagine what your customer would be like if this was to happen to them? And how would you explain it to them? And would you even know about it? Very important questions that you want to ponder when or if you decide that outsourcing is the way to go. I was always taught to treat people as you would want to be treated. If that is not a reason to receive a complaint from a customer, I don’t know what would be.

Just remember you are in the service industry and supposedly the customer is always right. Of course you will always have customers that try to beat the system and they will always be there. You can just give them their money back and make note not to do business with them again. But your core customers are the source of your business.

You may not hear from them as often when things are going okay. But the times that things go wrong you will. This is not the exact saying but when I was in the hotel business, one good customer might let 100 people know how good you were but a customer with a complaint will let 1000 people know about you. The power of the internet. Something to think about and now my rant is done. What do you think?