Tech Support Experience

So I had chance today to experience Dell's home tech support. I've dealt with their business side support and it is fantastic. However, my trial with the home support side was quite a bit different. The tech's Indian accent was hardly noticeable, but it got quite annoying having to repeat everything three or four times and then finally resort to spelling everything using Army code. I thought my head was going to explode when he read back whatever I said in the same code.

The call should have been simple: I have a failing keyboard. It doesn't work, and I would like a replacement since it is still under warranty. I told the tech I have gone through all sorts of troubleshooting and narrowed the problem down to the keyboard. He tried three times to get me to go through the exact same troubleshooting steps that I explained to him. Had he listened to me instead of hearing only "keyboard bad" the call would have been 10 minutes shorter. I knew I was home free once he said, "Yes, it indeed sounds like your keyboard has become inoperable. Would you like to replace it?" The final steps weren't without issue as I once again had to use Army code to spell out my address and city.

It eventually turned out to be a training call. The tech I was talking to was a trainee. Gee, ya think?