While riding into Manhattan yesterday I was privy to a conversation between two, middle-aged, professional looking men who were talking about the frustration of dealing with outsourced Tech Support. The topic itself has become a hot one lately as several companies who originally switched to outsourcing to countries like India in an effort to reduce overheard are now frantically looking for domestic companies to provide support now in an effort to regain customer confidence and improve on customer service. Perhaps the conversation below is a familiar one?

Man on Train: Do you have a Dell?

Colleague: I do. I love it. Why?

Man on Train: I have one at home too and mine is pretty amazing. But I had to call their tech support last night because I got this strange email that I was pretty sure was SPAM but decided to call about just to be cautious. Seriously man, it was not a good experience. So, I call Dell Support and tell the guy on the other end that I got a fake Dell order confirmation from some d*#$ in Taiwan posing as someone from Dell and trying to get credit card information. Now, I knew it was going to be crazy so I had first gone to the website to report it. There was no way to do it though so I ended up calling. Anyway. So, tell the guy my problem and he says,

Agent: “Thank you for contacting Dell Customer Service Chat. My name is Shiva. How may I help you?”Man on Train: Now I had already told him my problem so I was already wondering why he wasn’t listening to me. Anyway. I spoke back, “I just received by e-mail a phony Dell order confirmation from a spammer. Would you like a copy of it? How should I send it in?”

Agent: “As I understand, you have received a confirmation mail. Correct?”

Man on Train: “Yes, and it’s not real. It is from a spammer from Taiwan, posing as Dell. Do you want a copy of it?”

Agent: “Sure, let me check what best can be done.”

Man on Train: “Thank you.”

Agent: “May I know if you have placed the order with Dell?”

Man on Train: “No, I have not. That’s how I know it is not genuine. It is not for a real order. It is from a spammer who is trying to get credit card account numbers by posing as Dell.”

Agent: “Sure, let me check.”

Agent: “I am sorry sir. I am from small and medium business for America, and do not have the excess to Taiwan order. Please get on our web site to get the number for customer care for Taiwan.”

Man on Train: “I’m sorry, but you are not understanding me. This is not a real order. It is an attempt by a criminal in Taiwan to pose as Dell to steal credit card numbers from customers in the United States.”

Agent: “Hope you understand why I am unable to help you and asking you to contact the Taiwan customer care department. I have excess to check only order numbers for America.”

Man on Train: “I don’t think the order number is genuine for Taiwan or for any other country. But thanks for your help. I will simply delete the false order confirmation.”

Agent: “I am really sorry for being helpless sir. Is there anything else I may help you with?”

Man on Train: “You’ve done enough.”

Agent: “Thank you for visiting Dell Small Business Customer Service online chat and allowing me the opportunity to assist you. Also, feel free to visit us again at support.dell.com.”

Agent: “Thank you and have a great day ahead. Bye!”

Windows is full of little surprises (the very reason why we’re around!). When digging deep into the Windows sound files and arranging them correctly, a pleasant surprise is to be had:

February’s issue of Wired features on it’s cover: Why things suck! with a photo of Sarah Silverman (from Comedy Central) wearing a t-shirt that reads “Tech Support.” The article goes on to list the top things that “suck,” and prominently in the list, one finds Customer Service.

So why does Tech Support suck? Sarah says it’s because support reps are unmotivated, they are helping up to four customers at the same time, and call centers rarely measure customer satisfaction.

Wired readers, do we have a surprise for you.

This month we joined the world’s finest IT service and support association: the Help Desk Institute. We take customer service very seriously and, as we type, are soon to release something that will change the tech support and customer service industry. Talk about incentives. Talk about passion, and talk about customer service. We are building a community offering that will change the perception of Tech Support as we know it. The Help Desk Institute will be a key part of our strengthening our devotion to change the way people understand tech support, and we’re delighted to be members.

It’s been a month now since I arrived in Paris to setup our offices in this great city. At first, I was concerned that spending much time away from Silicon Valley would detach me from the fast-paced, startup incubator that San Jose is. Everyone speaks the language, everyone gets technology—wifi is as available as Coca-Cola, technology events can keep your calendar booked solid if you so choose. It’s a great place to run a startup like MinuteFix. Any Starbucks barista can advise you on how to build a social network and everyone is buzzing to the same tune. People are not sending SMS messages, but rather Twittering, and blogging has become a house-hold term.

How refreshing it has been to come to Europe. And how healthy it has been for our business. When you are in the Silicon Valley, you tend to forget how the real world works. Things are simple, money flows easily, ideas get funded just from blog buzz. Powerful bloggers can make or break a company. People are young and energetic and tides shift with the wind. Revenue is a foreign word, and fads are fundable. We all want to become valley stars such as Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington and Loic Le Meur, who all have a ga-ga fan club maxing out their Facebook friends’ list.

This is not good for business. Entrepreneurs owe it to their investors and customers to not make decisions based on fashion, but must stand on their own two feet and do what’s best for the company’s financial health. Our companies are LLCs, S- and C-corps. They aren’t 501(c)s. In the end, a business must make money, and money is made in two ways: from revenue or through a liquidity event. And unfortunately when liquidity happens in the Valley, it shakes San Francisco harder than the San Andreas Fault. But we forget that to be acquired, it either takes tons of traffic, or the less common—a sound business model.

Getting away from the Valley for a while helps you understand this. Talking with traditional business people—I mean restaurant owners, small retail vendors, and most any entrepreneur who does not know what a blog is—you realize that we don’t run this world, they do. Evan Williams is not God, but the guy down the street sending his kids to school from the profit generated from a restaurant, is. We’re just spoiled and dazzled by the wine that flows at the TechCrunch parties. It’s all in the basics; a business should have more money coming in the door than going out. Venture Capital should not be the ultimate goal, staying away from it, should. Albeit, technology has changed the traditional business model, but at the end, any business runs the same.

Lenn Pryor and I discussed this topic a few months ago over lunch, and his description hit the target: The Valley is like a Vegas casino. Lots of noise, you can hear people winning, but most everyone loses. I do believe that without this type of environment we wouldn’t see the innovation that we do coming out of California. However, if we all thought more about running our startups like real businesses, we’d all be seeing more success.

Conversely, do you know why the French cannot replicate the Silicon Valley environment? Because they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.

It’s just a matter of finding the right balance.

Shortly after arriving in Paris to set up shop, my trusty Latitude D830 fell ill to USB food poisoning. Turns out that an external USB hub I had brought along with me, overpowered from the change in voltage and burnt out all USB ports on the computer. Luckily, Parham, at Booknolia, and an advisor to us on everything from shaving cream to hardware purchases, insisted on the Dell Total Care package when the laptop was purchased. It proved a life-saver in two ways. Meet Abdel. His nimble, long hands withdrew over 30 screws from my laptop, and changed the motherboard in an incredible, heart-pounding 5 minutes. Tempted by his talent, I inquired about his software skills. “I am Microsoft Certified”, he smiled and said along with his thick Parisian accent, “I can fix anysing.”

And there you have it, our first foreign technician recruit.