[Dark Helmet]

"While irate calls are a mainstay of customer service work in any country, many Indian call-center workers say they regularly face particular abuse from Americans, whose tantrums are sometimes racist and often inspired by anger over outsourcing."

Now lets save the comments on "learn to speak English". Blame the company, not the employee.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=tech

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Blame the company, not the employee.

Ok, but how ? I blame Amex. Ok, so what has that done ?

Mostly, I don't get irrate about their lack of language skills. It's their stupid behavior, which is probably mandetory.

After 5 minutes of trying to fix a problem, to no avail !!!, the guy ends the call with "Thank you Mr. Turtle. I hope we resolved your issue to your satisfaction."

NO, DUMMY ! YOU DIDN'T

It's not his fault that something got messed up, but it's his fault to stick religiously to that darned script. *sigh*

[/rant]

-t

[vinster]

I lay blame squarely on the companies doing the outsourcing. Not only does this practice defer the responsibility of telephone support away from the company, but I don't think the call centers themselves have a great deal of devotion to ensure the customers of some company half a world away are well taken care of.

I definitely don't have ill feelings for the individual on the other end of the phone. He/she is simply trying to make a living and should be treated with respect in handling what must be difficult situations at times.

[placebo1969]

Something like this just happened to me. My in-laws were having problems with their DSL. Verizon sent them a wireless router. I couldn’t get it to work, so I called their customer service. The first guy was very nice. He had me do a few things that ultimately didn’t work. He suggested one more thing that would cause me to hang up on him. So he told me to call Verizon back if that didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work, so I called back. I reached a very polite sounding woman, who did have a fairly think accent. No big deal. I tried to tell her that the previous guy told me to call back and they would send someone out to the house. Unfortunately, she kept asking me what type of computer, router, etc., I was using. She also kept trying to have me do the things that I just did. While she was very nice, she was clearly reading from a script. Eventually she sent to higher level support. Of course there was a 30 minute wait there, so I hung up.

I’d like to think I was pretty polite (although getting impatient) with her. Afterward I felt a little guilty for wishing I could have gotten the first guy again who sounded like he was in the States.

When you work in customer service, one of the most important aspects is being able to articulate the customer’s needs. With tech support over the phone, it is imperative that this happen. Unfortunately this didn’t happen in my case.

[nredman]

that kind of abuse should be saved for american call-center workers - i worked at a banks call center for about two weeks - worst job ever - nothing like having people yell at you all day

[olePigeon]

The call centers are hit and miss, depending on how thick their accent is.

Sometimes the accent is so thick and they pronounce things so differently, it makes it extremley difficult to understand them.

Then sometimes you get some guy or gal who you can understand perfectly.

It's just that most of the time it's the person you can't understand and it's really frustrating. Especially after paying $1,000+ on support for the software. Ahem.

*cough* Extensis Portfolio *cough*

Although I found out if you complain enough they'll transfer you to customer relations somewhere in the States and THEN you can troubleshoot the software.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by turtle777

Ok, but how ? I blame Amex. Ok, so what has that done ?
-t

Well did you call Amex to complain about the poor customer support or does making a racist remark to an overseas employee make things better?

[Yose]

Lexmark seems to have outsourced their call centre to India(assumption from accent) - to be honest I've never had a better experience on the phone. I think it's funny, they use very common English names like "Pete" and "Bob".

So, at least Lexmark did it well.

[::maroma::]

Definitely blame the companies doing the outsourcing. Like Placebo1969 said, when it comes to customer service clear communication is essential. When someone is calling a troubleshooting hotline they are most likely in a sour mood to begin with. Then they get someone on the phone who has a hard time communicating with them and they get even more frustrated. What is someone to do other than voice their frustrations to the person who is listening to them?

These companies know this. They outsource their call centers anyway. And when they find out that cheap wages to foreign customer service reps doesn't outweigh the loss in customers they will suffer in the long run, they'll bring the jobs back into the United States. Meanwhile we have to suffer through bad customer service. (not really suggesting the U.S. based customer service is all that much better, just bad in different ways)

[OldManMac]

Don't hold your breath, waiting for them to start realizing the error of their ways, and bring the call centers back. It won't happen. If you want to buy a printer, or most high tech items, you're very limited in the choices you have, and most of the companies selling these items realize that; they pretty much have a captive market. Also, if you want to bring the call centers back, then you can expect to pay double (or more) for the products that you demand excellent support for. Nothing's going to change.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by ::maroma::

Definitely blame the companies doing the outsourcing. Like Placebo1969 said, when it comes to customer service clear communication is essential. When someone is calling a troubleshooting hotline they are most likely in a sour mood to begin with. Then they get someone on the phone who has a hard time communicating with them and they get even more frustrated. What is someone to do other than voice their frustrations to the person who is listening to them?

I think many people confuse accents with not being able to speak english.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Well did you call Amex to complain about the poor customer support or does making a racist remark to an overseas employee make things better?

Who said I was making remarks to the employee ?

-t

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by turtle777

Who said I was making remarks to the employee ?

-t

I didn't I say you blame AMEX but didn't do anything about it. Others make racist remarks.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by KarlG

Don't hold your breath, waiting for them to start realizing the error of their ways, and bring the call centers back. It won't happen. If you want to buy a printer, or most high tech items, you're very limited in the choices you have, and most of the companies selling these items realize that; they pretty much have a captive market. Also, if you want to bring the call centers back, then you can expect to pay double (or more) for the products that you demand excellent support for. Nothing's going to change.

Yeah good point. I know that some companies have already made the decision to bring their customer service back to the states. But the majority isn't making that decision. I guess I'm just hoping they come to their senses. But money talks, so...

[Railroader]

If I have a problem with ANY call center I give them one more chance. After the second problem I simply take my business elsewhere.

I do have more problems with Indian call centers than I do with ones in English speaking countries. Not all of the time, but far more than English speaking countries.

I have also had problems with call centers in the USA who have employees who mangle the English language. In particular, those who use slag too much or have HORRIBLE grammar.

Charter Communications used to use a local call center when I was a customer of theirs and they had the best customer service in the call center industry. YMMV.