The transition from Alienware to Dell

I will use this thread to report on the moves being implemented by Dell in eliminating Alienware teams. French calls will from now on be dispatched to Casablanca in Morocco and English / German calls to Bratislva in Slovakia.

The way I would describe the process is... asleep at the wheel and worryingly unprepared.

When the decision came down on March 23 that there would be a 1-month transition period set in motion, we wondered how ready and able the new teams would be just a month later.

Training sessions were conducted over the phone, where our people instructed some trainers on the SALES processes of the company. The rest has been grossly neglected.

NOBODY from EMEA has personally gone over to these new call centers to get their brains picked about procedures or the way we do things at Alienware.

Up until yesterday morning, the new team handling French Tech Support and Customer Service was still completely clueless about all these things:

- No access to shared drives with SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and instruction manuals for the myriad of components that we've offered over the years in all our systems.

- No access to templates used for daily operations, such as cancellations of systems, refunds, reorders and replacement systems.

- No longer access to the previous technical team which ceased operation yesterday at 12:00 GMT. The previous Customer Service team has now become the new Billing team, but they are required to stay within the range of their new duty (aka not being able to help customers with CS issues)

So basically a switch will be flipped this weekend and all is magically going to work as before... right?

Don't get me wrong here, I am not placing the blame on the individual teams themselves. They are getting by with the means they were given. What really upsets me is management's decision to go at it in such a rushed manner while hardly making an effort to give these people a chance to succeed RIGHT AWAY. While discussing this with some colleagues, we came up to the conclusion that bad / lack of communication had always been our weak point as a company and this will go on unless someone rights this ship.

The team leader in Morocco has told me several times that she has asked for some of our people (in Ireland) to come over there and give them a seminar or proper training session. These demands have so far been ignored and stone-walled by Dell headquarters.

So what you have now is a team that is going to try to learn as they go along, while being provided with the adequate tools over the weekend (if they're lucky?)

Did I mention again that they are going live in 44 hours?

Please understand me when I say that this is not sour grapes. I am not out to destroy anybody's reputation here. But when the place where I poured my heart and soul for the last year gets trampled, just to save a few bucks, I feel in the end our team won't be the only one paying the price.

 

thats really sad and i feel for you sneakyFspy.
whats happened to Sean as he was the only one from CS ireland that actually managed to help me out and he was an asset to the AW Ireland team.

 

Funny you should mention him as he slept in the spare bedroom of my apartment after last night's tomfooleries.

Sean had moved to the Netherlands a few months ago and is currently working in the insurance industry I believe.

We also have a guest of honor coming straight from Costa Rica and visiting us, his name is Randall Gamez and he is the Level 2 agent for EMEA and occasional UK queue backup and escalation handler. He's an amazing technician, full of knowledge of obscure problems and great overall mind (though we've tried hard as heck to figure out a procedural fix for the M17 stutter, we've had success in some cases and others not really) but guess what his job may potentially be in jeopardy at some point past this summer too.

The Alienware family is getting together for one last time.

 

Now that is a shame as Randall sorted out replacing my old m9750 with my new M17 and I have to say he was superb from start to finish. Full of knowledge and such a pleasure to deal with from start to finish.

 

I'm also sorry to hear about all of this. This may be the beginning of a fall of a giant. I hope in a few years people aren't saying "Man! I remember when an Alienware was the cool thing to have!". Dell will find some way to screw it up, as it appears they already are.

 

so you was all out for a beer or 10 last night.i bet that was fun.
sorry to hear Sean has left the team. that man certainly helped me out a lot.
every time i was onto TS and they didnt know what else to try i asked to be put through to Sean at CS and he sorted it. he even got me a free tee shirt .

ive just been reading through my 34 page nightmare in my sig and it is very worrying to think what things are going to be like now if theve rushed all the tech support to other countrys without hardly any training.

as mentioned above, could this be the beginning of the end to AW

im just so glad after mine went back for a fried motherboard and they sent me someone elses second hand chassis with their name plate on it i finally decided to go for a £300 cheaper m860tu/Nexus from Kobalt and have not had one single problem with it.

good luck to whatever you all decide to do in the future.

 

Man, this really sucks to hear about all of this. I wish the best for you, your family, and fellow AW workers sneakyFspy.

 

Thank you all for your kind words. It's been a rough few weeks, but we shall prevail.

 

Thank you for your continued insight into this sad news. I almost pity the AW employees that will stay on after the transition more as it seems Dell has no concern with making sure they are in any way prepared.

I am occasionally put into situations where I have no info/prep by my own employer, and the helplessness I feel combined with the irritation of the customers I deal with can really wear on you.

I wish you all the best where ever you end up.

I think I'll go kill some zombies, and try to take my mind off all this calamity.

 

It's a very sad day indeed.

I worked with the tech team in Athlone for years but left before this transition. The team comprised of exceptionally enthusiastic individuals who were dynamic thinkers and passionate about their jobs. They were people with experience, personality and customer willing, would goto the nth degree to resolve problems as quickly and as effectively as possible. Technical support prided itself in giving personalized attention to customers, following up on issues, often going as far as "fighting" the customers cause. Customer service and sales worked in a similar manner.

I wish the whole team the best of luck in finding suitable positions in other companies.

rgds
X

 

fuuuuuuuuuu...or crying out loud. this sucks bigtime.