Outsourcing Call Centres

[Drawweight]

My wife had cause to phone Budget this afternoon.

She was chatting to the call centre person and it came up that she was in South Africa.

First time I’ve heard of that, is it common?

[Ezra]

When I contacted BG last year, person I spoke to was in S. Africa too.

[Quhet]

Welcome to 2003

[rallye101]

Yeah,
It's the posh version of the out of hours secretary

[MissChief]

Quite a few companies are realising that South Africa is a far better idea than India. They speak the language far better, they work on similar time zones and while not quite as cheap as India, they're still much cheaper than the UK. One of our resellers at work has staff based in SA. I always find it amusing to ask about the weather and they say it's a bit chilly when it's 12 or 13'C while we had on some days a few months ago, -3 or -4.

[nails1979]

Microsoft use some where in South America when I've spoke to them, an absolute nightmare blend of their accent blended with a daytime american TV accent.
My recent experience with an Internet provided that likes to speakspeak I've found that are outright rude and don't give a damn.

[daqinggregg]

I’ve not had cause to use one recently, but my experiences in the past have always been positive, Norton Anti – Virus (remember them), call centres in India, HSBC, Philippines.

I found, the way you start the call sets the tone for the outcome you get, pleasant, polite and friendly, you’ll get a good outcome.

HSBC, a small £8 debt mushroomed into £180, not the fault of the service provider or myself, but rather a local postal service not good a delivering letters. All sorted out through the call centre in the Philippines, I just paid the original amount.

What surprised me, on every occasion the operatives would thank me for being polite and friendly, something I thought all people would be, when asking for help.

[cheesejunkie]

daqinggregg said:

I’ve not had cause to use one recently, but my experiences in the past have always been positive, Norton Anti – Virus (remember them), call centres in India, HSBC, Philippines.

I found, the way you start the call sets the tone for the outcome you get, pleasant, polite and friendly, you’ll get a good outcome.

HSBC, a small £8 debt mushroomed into £180, not the fault of the service provider or myself, but rather a local postal service not good a delivering letters. All sorted out through the call centre in the Philippines, I just paid the original amount.

What surprised me, on every occasion the operatives would thank me for being polite and friendly, something I thought all people would be, when asking for help.

Always be polite, that’s my view and approach too when dealing with call centres. It has even saved me some money as the call centre staff can be helpful.

I just laugh when I regularly get told by somebody with a Pakistani or Philipino accent that their name is Sean or similar because I’m ringing from an Irish number, I know the game.

[dirky dirk]

The trend of wfh and digital nomads will lead to most jobs overseas when bosses cotton on if they dont need them in the office thrn they dont need an office and then they dont need them in the uk,

Ive always prefeered to be in the office for this reason
Eventually unless its specialist or hands on itll be very common within ten years

[mike13]

daqinggregg said:

I’ve not had cause to use one recently, but my experiences in the past have always been positive, Norton Anti – Virus (remember them), call centres in India, HSBC, Philippines.

I found, the way you start the call sets the tone for the outcome you get, pleasant, polite and friendly, you’ll get a good outcome.

HSBC, a small £8 debt mushroomed into £180, not the fault of the service provider or myself, but rather a local postal service not good a delivering letters. All sorted out through the call centre in the Philippines, I just paid the original amount.

What surprised me, on every occasion the operatives would thank me for being polite and friendly, something I thought all people would be, when asking for help.

Being polite saved me I think £80 to change a rental car pick up point in USA last year, spoke to a chap in Newcastle area on the phone, explained it to him and was willing to pay the money, it was my request to change.

At the end of the conversation I asked him if he needed my credit card for the £80 fee, he said no need I'm not charging you as you've been pleasant to me, and willing to take responsibility, so you can have this change on me.

[Drawweight]

Just by asking if they could reduce the price any way she got 30 quid off so she was quite happy.

[Countdown]

There's a local taxi firm where the telephone people are based in Pakistan.

[KAgantua]

South African call centres tend to be pretty good in my limited experience,

[WPA]

Had to ring Nationwide the other day and was surprised that a lot of staff must still be working from home, I only noticed as I heard a child in the background saying Mum etc.

[edthefed]

Try getting through to anybody at Aviva

They are all either working from home or in an overseas call centre.

Dont answer emails, dont answer messages sent via "contact us" link on their website.

If you do by chance get to speak to a human being, eg a claims handler, they only give you a first name, not allowed to give a surname, not allowed to give an email address, not allowed to give a direct telephone number

[Turn7]

"Your call is important to us, but not important enough for us to actually employ more then 2 people...please ps off and use the website...."

[Baldchap]

A lot of companies with 24/7 'follow the sun' support will have call centres open wherever it is daytime. You'll get a different call centre location based on the time of day that you call. That's before we get to overflow call centres.

Someone already mentioned HSBC, I used to drive past their Bangalore call centre when I worked out there for a short time. Always freaks them out when you ask where they are and they say India and you ask if they're on Bannagatta Road.

[Mobile Chicane]

I called IT Support at work and got through to 'Jeff' in Manila who spoke perfect, if American accented, English.

I guess they're working from home, as in the background I could hear a dog barking and a baby crying.

Poor sod having to work in that din. Some things are just universal.

[BunkMoreland]

Turn7 said:

"Your call is important to us, but not important enough for us to actually employ more then 2 people...please ps off and use the website...."

No good when I'm not at home with my book of passwords for the trillion websites i seem to have registered on in my lifetime

[MissChief]

Baldchap said:

A lot of companies with 24/7 'follow the sun' support will have call centres open wherever it is daytime. You'll get a different call centre location based on the time of day that you call. That's before we get to overflow call centres.

Someone already mentioned HSBC, I used to drive past their Bangalore call centre when I worked out there for a short time. Always freaks them out when you ask where they are and they say India and you ask if they're on Bannagatta Road.

Many moons ago I called Xbox support for the dreaded 3 red lights error on my Xbox 360 and asked where they were based and the dude responded that they were barred from telling people. So I asked him what time it was there and he responded with about 8 hours ahead of us so likely Thailand or the Philippines. No issues with the accent, their English was good enough to understand.

We also deal with India a lot and while most of them are pretty good some have clearly only just scraped through the language test.