I’ve never had a problem when calling up to ask a question about my credit card until today. Seems recently they decided to outsource the customer service to India. So i call to ask them a question about my credit card and get some indian guy who i can hardly understand. I go to ask him my question and he says one word (no clue what it was, could have been yes, no, hold, etc.) then goes on to tell me he is looking at the balance on my credit card and then starts to try and sell me insurance for my credit card to defer my payments if i lose my job. Seriously wtf? try solving my problem before you try to sell me crap. So i hung up on him and tried calling again hoping to get someone in America to answer. Nope another indian guy. So i hung up again. Looks like i wont be using customer service anymore.
I seriously dont see how companies can send all their customer service overseas to some country where none of their customers will be able to understand the operators and never get answers they need.
I used to get people down in the South. Not deep South, but you could tell where they were from. I could actually understand them and they always answered my questions. Now that was the biggest waste of my time.
It’s a double edged sword, if people don’t call then they will think the outsourced agents are doing an excellent job. Which means better bottom line, the average business doesn’t give a shit about you as long as you keep paying money.
I’ve never had a problem. Veronica and Robert always handle my calls well.
They’re difficult to understand at times, but they seem to be improving. When they first started to take calls in India, Veronica and Robert had very thick accents. I like to believe I’m fairly good with understanding people who have very thick accents (at least this is what I’m told). I’ve talked to quite a few people with thick accents, so that helps.
I’m sure it’s not walk in the park for them either. I’m sure my accent is probably North East thick.
They’re just trying to earn an honest living. If you take the time and listen carefully they aren’t that difficult to understand. Oh, right, it’s not easy, but it’s doable. And they are always super polite.
I cant fucking stand it. There are one or two programmers from India in town that we can understand as they talk slow and you can see them speaking, but if I ever end up on another international conference call again, it will be too soon.
Remember when we were told, “Don’t worry about manufacturing jobs leaving the country because there will be plenty of service jobs available”?
Where are the a-holes that said that now?
Speaking of India, I have heard of Americans going there and getting paid big money because they speak English.
They live like kings on $4.00 per hour over there.
Oops, I meant to hit the edit button not the quote button.
Im all for good customer service, in fact, I have left companies over it.
However, reality is reality.
Because customer service telephone centers are divisions that hemorhage funds.
Customer service centers do not make money for companies. But they do COST ALOT of money. In technology, infrastructure, human resources, and salary. Not too mention ancilliary costs.
If the customer service rep CANNOT SELL YOU SOMETHING -or- TRANSFER YOU TO SALES, then the company is losing anywhere from $0.18 to $1.48 on Your call. Those figures are taken from a local Telephone Center for reference.
One WNY tele-rep taking 148 calls/shift @ ~$0.70/call = $103.60/day.
$103/Day LOST. Consider there were ~380 tele-reps at the time. And the center was fully open / staffed at least 358 days/year.
In India, the cost per call can drop to an astonishing $0.38 average.
You do the math, and then start thinking about Why India WILL BE the next great economy. Well, that involves the education systems as well.
Customer service is kind of like quality control.
If I got rid of my quality department I could save $1xx,xxx.xx a year but I am pretty sure I would loose customers at the same time because customers would not be happy with the lack of quality.
For the quick buck it may be effective but in the long run a company will suffer.
But thats not what all companies live by, as You’ll notice by Jeeve’s post… or by dialing many 1-800 Numbers. And, we are talking Seven figures here, not six.
For some Acme Co.'s, the INTERNET customer service “revolution” justifies the “Customer Disservice” and great benefits. Especially depending on what kind of Widgets Acme Co. is offering. But this is only one ‘means to an end’.
The call center that I mentioned… it ended up going to Delaware. Similar cost of living, lower corporate & maintenance costs. The decision was for fear of alienating the customers. It was not a horribly large company that sold a service that wasn’t necessarily Greater then / Less then it’s competitors.
On a Side Note, You’ll notice that Dell and a few others with notoriously bad experiances, have brought their long belied Cust Service back to American Speaking countries.