Call Center Outsourcing

[Ghogiel]

UK based call centres are a big selling point for me, for important things like banking I won't use a company that has overseas call centres.

I have stories. Basically to the point of literally having to go into the bank EVERY time you need some sort of assistance because the call center is less than useless...

[kvnchrist]

I love to talk with people from other countries. I just don't want to do it, when I need assistance on something that I'm interested in and might not be able to communicate my problem clearly.

[RZ1029]

Honestly, if I get a foreign call center, I'm probably going to hang up 99% of the time before my problem is solved, usually due to frustration.

 

Usually I have a problem understanding whoever I'm talking to, or I've been directed to a support-by-the-number guy who really doesn't know what he's doing any more than what the manual could tell me. That's my biggest issues with foreign call centers. I have to give props to Blizzard for a minute, as they're the only company I've had extensive contact with via customer support.

 

I used to/still occasionally do play World of Warcraft. Back when I was still actively playing it, my account was stolen and I actually had the same guy helping me out the whole time through. I had to make three or four calls over the course of two or three days to either send information, get information, find out the status, et cetera, and I spoke with the same guy each time and didn't have to spend 10 minutes on the phone re-explaining the situation.

 

On the other hand, support for another MMO I used to play called Mu Online (formerly a Korean-based game, now I believe only available in Korea) had terrible support I waited an hour and a half to speak to, then spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what they were even saying, due to the language barrier, and then really got no resolution in the end.

Edited July 7, 2011 by RZ1029

[evilneko]

I have a confession to make. I worked for a phone support outsourcer.

 

In Irving, TX.

 

Which is my way of noting somewhat pedantically that outsourcing does not necessarily mean offshoring. While I didn't lose my job to some poor sap in India or the Philippines, I do know that some of my former co-workers probably did not too long after my...departure. Some may have been moved to other contracts, but undoubtedly there were too many to transfer all of them.

 

Tech support from the other end of the phone is no picnic either, and with nine out of ten calls being resolved the exact same way, (seriously the job was mentally boring most of the time) I don't even need to take a business course to see the economic advantage in ISPs replacing many of us with barely-trained script readers from halfway across the world.

 

the concept of metrics as applied to tech support is entirely wrong. How many 3 minute calls you are able to handle in a shift is not a good way to evaluate the effectiveness of the support. Neither is a questionare after the call or how many upsells he makes.

 

Absolutely, completely, totally, and whole-heartedly agreed and I'm definitely thankful that last one never applied to me. I bet it would have if I had worked in billing, but the outsourcing firm I worked for didn't handle that--the customer handled it (poorly, hell we probably would've made less mistakes) themselves.

 

Actually my dissatisfaction with the metrics was the inspiration for a project I did in a systems design class...designing a replacement system. ;)

[diveinto]

If the Call Centers were that bad, they would have a negative impact on the companies revenue. Since a lot of them are outsourcing their contact centers, they can't be that bad.

I don't really know what my opinion is on the matter. I mean we have a liberal economy. You actually can do everything you want.

[HeyYou]

If the Call Centers were that bad, they would have a negative impact on the companies revenue. Since a lot of them are outsourcing their contact centers, they can't be that bad.

I don't really know what my opinion is on the matter. I mean we have a liberal economy. You actually can do everything you want.

 

Let's take Dell computers as an example here......

 

They moved their call center to India...... and received MANY MANY complaints. Business dropped off..... so, they moved the call center back to the states. They advertised that their call center was indeed right here in the good ol' US of A. Business perked back up. Complaints fell off sharply....... time passed...... and having the call center in the states was no longer having the positive effect on business that it once did, so, back overseas it went.......

 

It isn't about what is 'best', its about what COSTS LESS. If sending the call center overseas costs you some customers, but, saves you even more money in labor/benefits costs, what do you think the business is going to do? Not to mention the businesses get TAX BREAKS for moving those jobs overseas.......

[FavoredSoul]

One of my friends actually works at a call centre, so it would def' suck if his job got outsourced to another country simply cause the boss wanted some cheaper labor.

 

Meanwhile, I can't stand it, when and where it does occur.

 

 

Regretably, 6 months ago I made the wrong decision to call Microsoft to get my copy of Windows 7 reactivated, cause my hard drive went dead and I had to replace it (and thus reinstall windows). As you know, when you install windows on a PC these days, your computer's internal hardware is recorded and sent off to who knows where so they can ensure your copy of windows is only getting installed on one computer.

 

Unfortunately, I got hooked up to a call centre in India, and the guy on the other end of the line was a PITA. He basically denied my request from the getgo and told me I had to buy a new copy of windows. Quite frankly i wasn't about to go out and buy something I already own for that kind of BS. We got into a little argument about it, and somehow at one point during the "conversation" he "demanded" he speak to my parent/guardian. I got chided. LOL. WTF? I'm 25! I moved out of my parents house 5 years ago.

.

Edited July 19, 2011 by FavoredSoul

[Deleted472477User]

I lost a job that I loved (2010) when the ballet company here in Denver made the jerk move of shifting the tiny (5-10 people at the most) call center to flipping India. Basically, the board of directors got greedy and didn't want to pay us 8 dollars an hour (ooh, big money! NOT.) plus bonuses during Christmas for tickets to the Nutcracker so they outsourced to India. No one's bottom line was affected. The ballet wasn't losing money. They just didn't want to give up a new car or an extra piece of a--err eye candy or new house or whatever rich people do with their extra income, so they shafted us.

 

This especially pissed us off because we were told over and over how important it was for us to attend the performances ourselves as well, so that we could better sell tickets and subscription packages. Because you know some guy in Mumbai is totally going to know about our particular dancers, performances, etc.

 

I had some slight satisfaction in schaudenfreud last year when I'd heard attendance had dropped...

 

I'm still looking for a job, a year and a half later.

[marharth]

Also in case anyone cares, I voted for the job loss option. I personally don't care much about the accents or troubled speaking, I am rather good at understanding foreign accents. My issue is that companies will make people lose jobs from doing this.

 

People need to remember this is how capitalism works. The purpose of companies is to make maximum profit, if they make more money from screwing over Americans they will do that.

[Arthmoor]

One need only look to the fate of DSL Extreme after they made the decision to terminate all US based tech support back in March.

 

Prior to that, they used to be the #1 rated DSL company in the country. Radio stations around here in LA sung their praises, and they proudly displayed the fact that they had all-US support for years.

 

That all went to hell though. After the switch, the forums at dslreports.com filled up with nothing but complaint after complaint because people were calling the help lines and getting nowhere with everything from simple router reboots to complex issues. The techs were obviously reading from scripts and were clearly being instructed to avoid escalations to level 2 support.

 

Radio stations here in the LA area have nearly all dropped their ads. Nobody I know is recommending them to friends, and I've personally apologized to several of my own who acted on my recommendations back in Feb-Mar before I knew what was coming. It's had a profound effect on their business and their reviews have plummeted.

 

I get why it's been done, but the company that now owns DSL Extreme is utterly clueless as to how the empire was built. They've managed to destroy the company's reputation in a matter of weeks. Something it took them years to build up.