Call Centers, WHY?????

[Glenn]

I recently read an article that the pay in an idian call center starts at $200/month and thats considered middle class. Thats why our jobs go over seas. Until we live at 3rd world levels it will continue. What we know as the middle class is disappearing with people under the poverty level growing.

 

[agnes!]

A previous poster mentioned calling a company and just about falling over when a PERSON actually answered the phone. That's one of the main reasons I *love* Nordstrom's. You call one of their store and you don't have to negotiate through an everlasting phone mail limbo.

And another thing-
"Please listen to the complete message as our menu options have changed."
Oh REALLY?!? Just why do all phone mail messages start out with this?
And then... "Press 1 for...., press 2 for..., press 3..." ack.

agnes!

 

[aprilgail2]

I end up just hanging up on the person adn keep calling until I get someone without an accent or asking to speak with someone that speaks english without and accent. Usually one of those 2 things works. I refuse to have to keep saying "excuse me, excuse me" over and over when I can't understand what they are saying.

 

[Aidensmom]

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.

You know, I AM one of those techs. Luckily, our software is developed for sectors of the American government to use, so it is really unlikely we will be outsourced. Maybe America would survive without my job, but I wouldn't. You really think that if the companies were Indian owned and were outsourced to Americans, Indians would not complain?

And BTW, where I work it is not easy to be "qualified". Believe me, any company I have ever called for support, I have ended the conversation within 5 minutes, because I realize they can't help me. They are following pre-written scripts, and have no idea what they are talking about. When you try to point out the obvious (i.e. if my internet provider was down, the computer in the next room would NOT be online) they have no idea what to say. (Maybe there are some that do, but none of the ones I have encountered). I only call because I am hoping they can save me some time troubleshooting myself, which I know I can do because I am required to be able to figure out stuff on my own with no scripts at my job. I have often ended up telling the support people for the companies I have called how to solve the problem caused by them because all they can suggest is to run disk cleanup and reboot.

To me it is not the accent. As a professional in my field I have learned how to communicate with representatives of other companies who may have outsourced...be it using email rather than speaking on the phone, or learning to look at/hear words at a very base level to figure out what someone is trying to say. It is the fact that many employees of call centers do nothing but press a key on their keyboard in response to what you are asking, and give you a canned answer.

Maybe the F/X show should come see what an American person working in this type of environment goes through, seeing how there are companies that require us to be able to know something. Kudos to those people in India working in the middle of the night for 8 hours, I'll be sure to think about that the next time I have worked 18 hours straight because a customer had an urgent problem. And if I can't understand my customer, that is nothing to be applauding me for.

 

[Planogirl]

Pre-written scripts actually exist for many reasons. Our company is extremely heavily regulated and the script was developed to cover some legal bases. Once we get beyond that we can actually talk like human beings. Which unfortunately often means we get verbally abused for a while.

 

[spazzyjazzy]

I hate calling Dell for this same reason. When I do have to call them. It is very hard to understand. I try not to call them for anything.
Orchard Bank is another one. I did not want to call them because I knew that there call center was overseas. At the time I did not have the patience for it at that moment. So, I decided to email them. BIG mistake. That experience was exactly the same. It seemed like I was getting a scripted response. The first email I thanked them for reminding me about my contract with them and what it said. But, it did not answer my question. They sent me another email telling me the same thing again. I thanked them again for telling me the same thing once more and repeated my question. Next response from them was basically the same thing but, there was no thanking from me this time and I went off. I told them that I did not appreciate their scripted response and that I would like an answer to my question. That if they could not do it than my email needed to be forwarded to someone "local" to me who did not have a script. I also made it aware that it was the worse customer service and that if an answer was not given that I would close the account, my husbands account and persuade my mother to close her account. My question was answered very quickly afterwards. But, why did it have to go that far?
Next, is Mervyns. Last summer, I was on my fabulous Disneyland vacation and I needed to pay my Mervyns bill. I tried to go online but, I forgot my account number. I no longer use my card there and tore up the card. I called to see if I could get my account number to make my payment. Oh goodness, 45 minutes later I got my card number. I had to speak to 4 different people to get it. All four of them were telling me that they did not have access to my account but, were willing to take my payment for a 10 dollar fee. I asked them if you don't access to my account how are you going to take my payment? No answer. I had to call them the other day and to my shock and surprise a person from the states answered my call. Woo Hoo!

 

[Jennasis]

You know, I AM one of those techs. Luckily, our software is developed for sectors of the American government to use, so it is really unlikely we will be outsourced. Maybe America would survive without my job, but I wouldn't. You really think that if the companies were Indian owned and were outsourced to Americans, Indians would not complain?

And BTW, where I work it is not easy to be "qualified". Believe me, any company I have ever called for support, I have ended the conversation within 5 minutes, because I realize they can't help me. They are following pre-written scripts, and have no idea what they are talking about. When you try to point out the obvious (i.e. if my internet provider was down, the computer in the next room would NOT be online) they have no idea what to say. (Maybe there are some that do, but none of the ones I have encountered). I only call because I am hoping they can save me some time troubleshooting myself, which I know I can do because I am required to be able to figure out stuff on my own with no scripts at my job. I have often ended up telling the support people for the companies I have called how to solve the problem caused by them because all they can suggest is to run disk cleanup and reboot.

To me it is not the accent. As a professional in my field I have learned how to communicate with representatives of other companies who may have outsourced...be it using email rather than speaking on the phone, or learning to look at/hear words at a very base level to figure out what someone is trying to say. It is the fact that many employees of call centers do nothing but press a key on their keyboard in response to what you are asking, and give you a canned answer.

Maybe the F/X show should come see what an American person working in this type of environment goes through, seeing how there are companies that require us to be able to know something. Kudos to those people in India working in the middle of the night for 8 hours, I'll be sure to think about that the next time I have worked 18 hours straight because a customer had an urgent problem. And if I can't understand my customer, that is nothing to be applauding me for.

Cry me a river...I can't stand the whining from Americans anymore. Since you obviously did not see the show, please don't feel free to comment on it. BTW, 5pm-3am is 10 hours, not 8. Apparently "knowing something" doesn't include basic math.

 

[bicker]

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.

This is so true. The reality is that we have benefited greatly from a lot of advantages over the decades, and what is happening now is that the rest of the world is "catching up". Where we've been able to exploit our advantages until now we'll have to come to grips with the fact that we can no longer do so.

 

[bicker]

You really think that if the companies were Indian owned and were outsourced to Americans, Indians would not complain?

I think the issue isn't so much that Americans complain, but rather it is the nature of the complaints. There is a difference between simply being unhappy about a decreasing standard of living, and being suspicious that someone or something is at fault.

Believe me, any company I have ever called for support, I have ended the conversation within 5 minutes, because I realize they can't help me. They are following pre-written scripts, and have no idea what they are talking about.

That's really only the case where customers are unwilling to pay for better support. Even Dell, who is often maligned in threads like this, offers better support for a price. If we choose not to pay it, then that's our decision.