Call Centers, WHY?????

[HOGFAN]

I had a heck of a time trying to get reservations with United. I gave up trying to get the Indian guy to understand what I needed. I sent United a nasty email and refuse to do any more business with them.

This is going to backfire on the companies that outsource once people refuse to do business with them.

 

[bicker]

Well, I guess SOMEBODY has to naively trust that Big Business follows all laws and regulations.

And I guess someone has to be rude.

Apology accepted.

 

[raven69david]

I have an account with Citibank and they have most definitely outsourced their customer service number straight and directly to India. I can and have called the number late at night and someone always picks up the phone. Plus it's always a male with an indian accent. I can hear others in the background with a similar accent!

Citibank is cutting back on outsourcing, at least at the call center level. Saving money is not worth losing tens of thousands of customers who do not like the fact that they are taking jobs from U.S. citizens and that they are a 3rd party which has access to all of your personal account information. Remember, they are NOT Citibank employees...the employer that hires them is contracted by Citibank to service their clients.

If you call in the daytime you are most like to receive a U.S. rep. At night (India's daytime hours) the U.S. reps are mostly gone and the India reps pretty much take over. Heck, even the employees at the U.S. call center hate talking to them as they are VERY inefficient, hard to understand, and pretty much think they know everything - which they don't.

 

[schlepsnort]

I too despise calling and getting the outsourced people!
But now I have to wonder, if by pressing 1 to speak English we get Hindi Mindy...then what do the spanish speaking people get when they press 2 for spanish?
A Hindi talking with a spanish accent?

 

[LubsPoohBear]

lol just grrrrrrrrr is all i have ta say when this happens and hang up

 

[Planogirl]

Interesting all of these comments. I can say from experience that being on the other end of this is pretty awful too. By and large, the American public is a pretty verbally abusive bunch.

 

[Aidensmom]

Interesting all of these comments. I can say from experience that being on the other end of this is pretty awful too. By and large, the American public is a pretty verbally abusive bunch.

This is SO true. Where is that Indigo Child thread? Because I think that fits the definition of most of the callers I ever dealtt with.

 

[Honu]

Starting the call with "habla español?" gets me a agent that is bilingual in Spanish AND English 9 times out of 10.

 

[miss missy]

I am most likely going to get a ton of flames for saying this and I should know better because I am not good at message board "debates" ........but I suppose I just never learn.

Why is it that almost every call center, from computer companies to credit card companies are having there phones answered by people in another country??

I find it very frustrating to be on the phone with someone I do not understand.

This is a honest question, is it honestly cheaper to direct calls to India then here in the US??

Yes it is cheaper alright! And I work for a BIG telcom CO and we now have a lot of people from other countries doing work that used to be done here. It is filtering inside corporations not just call centers. Try to talk tech talk with someone with an accent as strong as India I have to ask them to use IM just to understand them Stinks!

 

[SplshMtn99]

As if not understanding accents isn't bad enough, I can't stand that they need to follow scripts -- in ANY language. It just shows that they really can't help. Ship me the stupid script (manual), I'll solve the problem myself.

I don't care WHERE someone is located. I just want to be able to communicate with them, and them communicate with me. But since I'm an American customer who speaks English, that means I probably need someone who can help me in English. I'm calling because I have a problem. Don't add ANOTHER problem by giving me someone who cannot communicate with me. Is that asking too much?

 

[Galahad]

I manage software development. We have team members in our offices that are Indian and we have team members in India that are Indian. Yesterday we were on a conference call and someone in another U.S. office said to a person in India, "could you spell your name?", the person on the other end, without missing a beat said, "Yes" and then went on saying whatever he was trying to say before. We had to suspend the conversation for several minutes as everybody was ROTFL, especially the Indian folks in the room with us.

 

[Galahad]

It is just a reflection of the general public's preference for low prices over service.

Or they expect low price AND service. I hear the complaint about Dell constantly that their call centers are terrible and they are off shore, etc.. But if you buy the onsite support plan with your PC, you always get an on shore call center AND you get quick service that comes right to you. The plan costs maybe $200 or $300 for 3 years. Then they say that's a rip-off. But they'll happily stay at the GF for more than that for one night. I think we've gotten to the point that we have some very bizarre ideas about the value of things.

 

[Jennasis]

Sorry you guys are inconvenienced by the accent barrier. Frankly, living in the south, I can't understand a word the people here drawl out...but I don't get all "burned up" over it.


The F/X show "30 Days" just had a great show about this. A guy who worked in a call center (computer help) had his job outsourced, so the show sent him to live with a family in India for 30 days to get his job back. he had to go to the Call Center place in New Delhi and reapply for his job (turned out he didn't have enough experience to qualify fim for his old job according to India standards....). They did get him a call center job and he went through trianing for it, including dialect training and such.

Working in a call center in India is the pinnacle of career success. They are Much sought after jobs and very hard to get (though it's a rapidly growing industry). They are paid well, by India standards, but less than minimum wage by American standards. It's a freaking 3rd world country, doing far worse than we are. America will survive without those jobs.

If it was an Indian company senidng THEIR call centers over to America, nobody would be complaining about Indians losing jobs or anything like that. Olus, i'd LOVE to see Americans have to spend their day with a fake accent on and try to work with the problems of someone they can't understand.

Oh, and according to the documentary (30 Days) if you call during normal US business hours, you will get India. The call centers there operate from 5pm-3am (the middle of the night) India time.

 

[3DisneyBuggs]

My DH asks to speak to someone in America and he usually gets transferred. This was calling Gateway or Microsoft.

 

[HappyLawyer]

I am most likely going to get a ton of flames for saying this and I should know better because I am not good at message board "debates" ........but I suppose I just never learn.

Why is it that almost every call center, from computer companies to credit card companies are having there phones answered by people in another country??

I find it very frustrating to be on the phone with someone I do not understand.

This is a honest question, is it honestly cheaper to direct calls to India then here in the US??

No flame here, it really gets on my nerves, i don't care where you are from or what color you are it does not matter, but if you are dealing with people whom speak english, then have the staff be able to communicate well in english.

 

[bexplosive]

I consult with businesses on structure and business practice. My main job is an attorney, but that's another story.

Anyway, I have the CORRECT answer on why businesses outsource and why India has gotten a lot of it, it's not just "because it's cheap labor"

In many industries, especially the IT and Software fields, business structure looks at Support and Customer Service as a "Cost of Doing Business" -- When they lay out their corporate structure, these types of "Services" are always looked at as a cost, in other words something they have to do because they sold their products and services. Because this is labeled as a cost, and not something that helps thier business or makes them money, they farm it out to somebody who can do it better without them having to mess with it. Enter India, the india companies figured this out and decided to jump on it.

The good news is that many businesses have a different way of thinking: They look at support and customer service as a "Profit Center" instead of a "cost of Business" -- These businesses have realized that talking to their customers and helping them can actually sell more products and services later on. The problem is the businesses that figured these things out are the small comapnies that can adapt faster than large companies or the large companies in the US that have forward thinking leaders who did not jump on the India bandwagon.

Now ALL businesses are looking at this model and trying to adapt. For example, how many times have you been on an Indian support call (Citibank, AT&T) and at the end of the call or during the call they tried to "Upsell" you or tell you they want to get you a better plan or something? This is a great example. The company is figuring out they can use this system, but they have already invested in foreign customer service, so they tried to get the Indians to do the selling. I dont think it's working. The only people this works for are the companies that did not make the switch.

There are lots of companies that still use American Only support and service, you just need to look for them. The major companies have all gone to it, so theres nothing we can do now for them. But you can call the local branches with questions instead of calling the main numbers in many cases.

And if you are looking for a company to do business with, just ask or check with them about their support and customer service. The ones that dont know or cant find out are the bad ones. There are even companies now that freely advertise that they have American Only support and customer service. Those are the goldmines!!

For instance, Pure Water 2GO, a company that sells portable water filter bottles proudly announces that you will ALWAYS get an american born english speaking person on the phone whenever you call. www.purewater2go.com

It's this type of thinking that we need more of. I think it's just going to be a slow road.

 

[bicker]

Or they expect low price AND service. I hear the complaint about Dell constantly that their call centers are terrible and they are off shore, etc.. But if you buy the onsite support plan with your PC, you always get an on shore call center AND you get quick service that comes right to you. The plan costs maybe $200 or $300 for 3 years. Then they say that's a rip-off. But they'll happily stay at the GF for more than that for one night. I think we've gotten to the point that we have some very bizarre ideas about the value of things.

Very good point. That's really it in a nutshell: When faced with a choice between high quality and a premium price, versus low quality and a low price, consumers are all-too-often making the latter choice.

 

[edcrbnsoul]

Thank God for my Union otherwise there would be alot of other unemployed customer service reps out there. I cant tell you how many companies that once I found out that their paying someone in another country to read a flow chart,I have called to tell them that I will no longer be using their product. I know its impossible to avoid it totally, but when I get a choice I'll go with someone who is keeping Americans employed.

 

[bicker]

If more people would actually do that things would change in this country.

 

[Galahad]

But even if everybody in America agree to do that and then followed through the globalization of the enonomy cannot be stopped. I fact, if we somehow found a way to "sit it out" while the rest of the world continued on its path, we would be left in the dust and no Union in the world will be able to save U.S. jobs.