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Gah!

This has really taken-off recently. Just about everything is outsourced now - product support, service support, banking, insurance... Dunno why but I was surprised to find my ISP helpline now sends calls to India.

It's a joke. Norwich Union (Aviva) have loads of their call centre staff out there, and I swear you cannot understand what they are talking about. When I worked for a rival insurance company, we'd frequently have to call NU to discuss liability on motor claims (because writing letters is so twentieth century and actively discouraged). So having waited over 40 minutes on hold whilst your productivity rating goes through the floor, you finally get thru to some dude with only a basic grasp of the English language and a thick Indian accent. Neither party can understand the other, and all he's been trained to say is "no comment" or "I cannot tell you under the terms of the Data Protection Act". It got so bad that we ended-up making big flashcards that we held up that said "CALLING INDIA" so that colleagues knew exactly why we were appearing to do sweet F.A!!

It really is a joke. People sometimes say that it's racist or politically incorrect to make such observations. But that's just what they are - observations, based on true experiences aka fact. The sole purpose of the telephone is for transmitting the spoken word. Surely therefore it is to everyone's advantage if all parties concerned can understand what's being said?

I'm beginning to wonder what we actually do in this country now. With all our call centres in India, all our goods coming from China, our cars coming from timbucktoo... Gah!!

Still, watcha gonna do?

tF

Last edited by tomfoolery (2005-07-10 9:56 am)

I try and make it a point to buy stuff from companies at least whose headquarters are located in the US. Maybe I should start boycotting companies with outsourced tech support.

I just went through that with a bad HP DVD drive. As soon as I heard the Indian accent, I thought "oh sh*t". It wasn't long before I just had to say "I'm sorry, I can't understand a word you're saying" and then hung up the phone. I did my support through e-mail, which was quite quick, but seemed a little canned. They did call me for my credit card info... and wouldn't you know it, India got the last laugh. But I did manage to get through it.

I recall something a while back about Dell getting rid of their Indian support. Wonder what happened with that.

Can I assume that Apple has people that you can understand? I've never had to call them.

Last edited by olbooker (2005-07-10 1:38 pm)

My husband is an electronic engineer for the VA hospital. They held a "vendor seminar" where reps from different medical equipment companies set up their wares and glad-handed the hospital staff. My husband was talking to a rep from General Electric. When my husband was asked how GE could provide better service my husband answered, "I hate f*&king India!"

Another guy from my husband's shop stepped up and was asked the same question to which he replied, "I hate f*&king India!"

When the third guy was asked and replied, "I hate f*&king India!", the rep told them that GE was aware of the problems and was working on moving the tech support out of India and back to the U.S.

Yeah, okay. Maybe, maybe not. But at least they're getting direct input that people hate dealing with "f*&king India!"

Last edited by lagamorph (2005-07-10 6:57 pm)

If the average consumer was more willing to pay a little extra for quality support and service, this would be less of a problem. You can bitch all you want, in the end all you can do is vote with your wallet.

That said, I'll bet there have been times when some of you called tech support and got "John" or "Marjorie" on the line, you might have thought it was a relief to have someone on the line who is not in a call center in India. Think again. They train people in all kinds of accents, make up names, etc. to make you feel like you have someone local on the phone.

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Alien wrote:

That said, I'll bet there have been times when some of you called tech support and got "John" or "Marjorie" on the line, you might have thought it was a relief to have someone on the line who is not in a call center in India. Think again. They train people in all kinds of accents, make up names, etc. to make you feel like you have someone local on the phone.

Hey, that's fine with me - if some dude from SW Asia has the language skills to sound like he's from Duluth, then the only thing I gotta worry about is his competence - and honestly, they got plenty of computers over there, and they don't breed them any dumber there than here. Incompetent tech support knows no racial or ethnic boundaries.

However, if your language skills are that advanced, maybe you should be working as an interpreter?

I really don't understand the problem with the accents. I can understand them just fine.

I called my credit card company today and I could tell the woman (who had a thick accent) was making every effort to enunciate and make sure I understood her.  It hasn't been that way in the past.  Progress, maybe?

My employer used to outsource tier 1 tech support and customer service to jamaica.  It lasted about a year before we brought everything back in house because the quality of work that our overseas 'friends' were doing was smurf, and we had a lot of complaints from customers not understanding what they were saying.

The only problem I've had with Indians is when they speak too softly, otherwise they have been great and knew their smurf. I should note though that I've never talked to generic consumer tech support, it was always more advanced stuff.

there is already a backlash over this... i looked but couldn't find the article... i think i saw it on BBC or CNN, but it was about international call center companies opening call centers in rural USA that were just as profitable as their indian counterparts, and had less customer complaints.