Worked as outsourced tech support...

I worked in India for a 2-bit company to whom COMPAQ (when it was still COMPAQ) had outsourced its personal tech support to, and I know exactly what gets done and how.

A firm that gets the contract gets paid (in this case) for each call they get, not each issue they fix, which led to gross injustice being done to COMPAQ's customers. I knew this one guy who sent out a new keyboard for every customer who reported their keyboard wasn't working where the real reason could've been anywhere from an improperly connected PS/2 cable to the drivers not being installed correctly.

That guy gt promoted to tech lead and I left the company, and swore never to buy a COMPAQ product.

At the same time Dell kept their tech support in-house and I have heard tales of how thorough their support was and thereby how satisfied their customer base was.

Bottom line - outsource if you want to end up with a bigger bank balance and want to compromise on quality. Lower cost only usually means lower quality...