Dell Services launches ProSupport

Dell Computers this week announced the availability of ProSupport in Namibia, a support service that offers access to Dell’s global technical support team. “Our commitment is that we are aggressively going to be establishing support services across Africa. This is important for our African customers as they grow their business, and for us as our journey continues to become an end to end submissions provider,” said Bradford McKenzie, Services Sales Director in Southern and Central Africa. The ProSupport package enables the Dell customers to access not only Dell’s technical support team but also Dell’s spare parts network certified field engineers in Namibia.
“Previously, the customer only had a parts warranty which would be driven and managed by Dell’s local partner from whom they may have made the purchase of the product. If a customer had a hardware problem, the local partner would have to order the part from Europe. This could take a couple of weeks and to some extent even months. With ProSupport the customer now has direct contact to us. We will manage any problem escalation, we will manage the parts with the parts hub that we have here in Windhoek or in Walvis Bay,” stated Mckenzie.
Mckenzie said three years ago they had ProSupport in five countries but by April next year they will increase the coverage to fourteen countries. He explained that placing ProSupport in a new market is an expensive investments but worthwhile to the customers. According to him, Africa is currently a continent with a stable growth rate therefore ushering this expansion seems befitting, “ Its all part of the global transformation that is taking place within Dell which has cost more that  US$16 billion.”
The ProSupport price varies depending on whether the product is a laptop, personal computer storage component or a server. According to Mckenzie, the ProSupport service package is calculated as a percentage of the price of the device that needs servicing. “It can range between 10% and 15 % of the price of a laptop if that is the product being serviced, or go as high as 17% for those who own servers.” he said.
“An important statistic that we have noted is this. When customers call in to us, 80% of the time we actually fix the issue over the phone when he or she engages our team at our experts centre. Only 20% of the time we have to send someone to assist. Previously 100% of the time the customer had to go physically to our partner who hopefully could diagnose the issue,” he concluded adding that this was the real value that ProSupport brings to the table.