Dell really should start thinking about its customers

Here is a free bit of consultancy advice for Dell and anybody else that deals with older people via call centres. Some of your customers might be a tad hard of hearing – not deaf – but with their hearing not functioning as it did when they were 21 years old.

Yesterday, I needed to try and re-arrange a delivery of a computer. This required me to talk to Dell’s carriers and to my ‘customer care’ rep. One based in Ireland the other in India.

Both conversations were perfectly amicable and the operators were courteous and well briefed. The trouble was I found it next to impossible to hear either of them, so the conversation was a constant stream of “can you say that again” – “pardom me” – “you will have to speak louder”……

Needless to say that my problem was not resolved but that is par for the course but at least I would have liked have had a stress free conversation.

Mr Dell, this is what you need to do. Mystery shop your customer care, and any other phone based customer contact system, with people who have hearing levels that are average for their age. If, as I think you will find, people over the age of 50 find it difficult to hear what is going on then do something about it.

Maybe I should buy myself one of these phones (Amplicom) that have just been launched in the US. Dick Stroud