Indian Call Centres
Discussion
Phgoned my bank today. I was apparently speaking to George Wilson. At least thats what I think he was saying through a nearly unintelligble Asian?Indian accent.
When he asked my name, I told him that it was Mickey Mouse. Didn't bat an eyelid. Asked for my postcode, and funnily enough, couldn't match up my name to the postcode.
If he's going to lie about his name, well so can I !!!!!
Seriously though it really annoys me when I am paying for a phone call to have to speak slowly and literally have to spell everything out.
OK, if I am on holiday, I accept that you are going to have to speak with Johnny Foriegner (spelling?), but not when I am busy through the day and in a rush.
BANKS. HELLO! THATS NOT BLOODY SERVICE YOU MORONS.
Anyone listening? Thought not.
When he asked my name, I told him that it was Mickey Mouse. Didn't bat an eyelid. Asked for my postcode, and funnily enough, couldn't match up my name to the postcode.
If he's going to lie about his name, well so can I !!!!!
Seriously though it really annoys me when I am paying for a phone call to have to speak slowly and literally have to spell everything out.
OK, if I am on holiday, I accept that you are going to have to speak with Johnny Foriegner (spelling?), but not when I am busy through the day and in a rush.
BANKS. HELLO! THATS NOT BLOODY SERVICE YOU MORONS.
Anyone listening? Thought not.
I think there's a backup National Rail Enquiries call centre in Bangladesh. Somehow, if you don't get the English one, the phone rings a little longer, you get this callcentre, and none of their facts are right, and you have to spell out names of very well known English cities for them.
Still remember when I had to tell the guy on the other end of the phone where Manchester and Liverpool are and how to spell them.
Still remember when I had to tell the guy on the other end of the phone where Manchester and Liverpool are and how to spell them.
I had the 'Tucan talk' call centre calling me the other day from India...
The actual package they were selling seemed OK but having to listen to a heavily accented sales woman blindly following her script and having to go through everything five times because of the language barrier was enough to make me put the phone down half way through.
She called me back and I explained that I hung up because of her constantly repeating her script, and she immediately tried to pick up the conversation from the script:
"Ok, so Mr hedders as you appreciate as a special customer you will be saving 60% on your phone bill etc etc etc"
*Click*
She phones back again!!
I was ready to tell her to shove it, but she already had my details and would no doubt process them anyway so i just cut her short and told her to send me the paperwork and leave me alone.
I think we should boycott this stuff, but...i suppose the call centers will improve over time and we will forget all about it.
Or they will just all get to be as bad and we won't have any say in it.
The actual package they were selling seemed OK but having to listen to a heavily accented sales woman blindly following her script and having to go through everything five times because of the language barrier was enough to make me put the phone down half way through.
She called me back and I explained that I hung up because of her constantly repeating her script, and she immediately tried to pick up the conversation from the script:
"Ok, so Mr hedders as you appreciate as a special customer you will be saving 60% on your phone bill etc etc etc"
*Click*
She phones back again!!
I was ready to tell her to shove it, but she already had my details and would no doubt process them anyway so i just cut her short and told her to send me the paperwork and leave me alone.
I think we should boycott this stuff, but...i suppose the call centers will improve over time and we will forget all about it.
Or they will just all get to be as bad and we won't have any say in it.
My car insurer told me that there was no such thing as a porch.
I spelt it countless times "No sir, the car doesn't exist..."
"Well, it's in the garage so I guess it must"
It took a good 10 minutes or...
P .... o.....r......s......c.......h........e......
And then she tried telling me it must be an S as they couldn't find 'just' 944.
Then "That sounds nice sir"
"No, it's a shed"
A what sir........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...
I spelt it countless times "No sir, the car doesn't exist..."
"Well, it's in the garage so I guess it must"
It took a good 10 minutes or...
P .... o.....r......s......c.......h........e......
And then she tried telling me it must be an S as they couldn't find 'just' 944.
Then "That sounds nice sir"
"No, it's a shed"
A what sir........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...
silverback mike said:
My car insurer told me that there was no such thing as a porch.
I spelt it countless times "No sir, the car doesn't exist..."
"Well, it's in the garage so I guess it must"
It took a good 10 minutes or...
P .... o.....r......s......c.......h........e......
And then she tried telling me it must be an S as they couldn't find 'just' 944.
Then "That sounds nice sir"
"No, it's a shed"
A what sir........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...
What insurer was that with? Surely the Porsche would be under classic or specialist insurance and you'd be talking to someone in the know?
silverback mike said:
It's not a classic as far as I aware, it's a boggo 944 on a d plate.
The company is a large grey trunky thing.....
C plate? That would make it 84/85? ITIACIS that over 20 years old qualifies you for classic car insurance with most specialists. So you may just be OK.
t. 
Simple answer chaps - take your business elsewhere. Outsourcing is costing the UK an arm and a leg in lost jobs, so that banks/insurance co.s/etc can make yet more money. Lower cost to these firms im my experience leads to lower service levels for their customers. Anyone got any tales of exceptional service from 'Bob' or 'Jane' down in Bombay or wherever?
t1grm said:
It's not a classic as far as I aware, it's a boggo 944 on a d plate.
The company is a large grey trunky thing.....
C plate? That would make it 84/85? ITIACIS that over 20 years old qualifies you for classic car insurance with most specialists. So you may just be OK.
It's an 87, but will certainly have a look at that. Thanks.Having been tormented with overseas call centres, we closed all of our policies and bank acounts with centres overseas, and told them why we were doing it. Don't whinge,vote with your cheque book I say.
Had a nice letter from the man at Lloyds saying it was a global market, after all we bought cars and clothes from overseas. I pointed out that Audi and Next didn't require me to call Germany or Indonesia when I needed service or advice and that when it was his job which was being 'rationalised' overseas he might feel a little different. He wrote back saying since I had obviously made my mind up there was litle point in further communication.
My business epends on a strong UK labour market with decent wages being spent in UK shops and on UK services (and so on and so forth), so I for one will support businesses of any nationality that employ people here.
Had a nice letter from the man at Lloyds saying it was a global market, after all we bought cars and clothes from overseas. I pointed out that Audi and Next didn't require me to call Germany or Indonesia when I needed service or advice and that when it was his job which was being 'rationalised' overseas he might feel a little different. He wrote back saying since I had obviously made my mind up there was litle point in further communication.
My business epends on a strong UK labour market with decent wages being spent in UK shops and on UK services (and so on and so forth), so I for one will support businesses of any nationality that employ people here.
Ok i have some inside info as to how these call centres work. A nameless company wants to use indian centres to monitor a network. The call centres in Bangalore are hiring the first guy living in his self made shack on the outskirts of the city, give him a script to follow and sit him at a desk three to a terminal. Its like searles chinese room. These guys have no comprehension of what is going on with the IT infrastructure they are monitoring, They just read their script when they get an error, and follow it.
Router goes down, all the terminals fall off the network. The guy who actually knows how it all works is on holiday. The call centre guys get so many errors not in their script they respond by closing their terminals. Noone notices for three days that these guys are sitting there for 12 hours a day looking at blank screens but since they arnt getting errors, the script says everything is working. Cant blame them though, they werent to know as they have no training or knowledge.
These guys are only trying to make a living. Problem is with the companies who are outsourcing not understanding that some people are on a high wage for a good reason, and will know what to do if an odd-ball screwup occurs that the company have no contingency for.
Router goes down, all the terminals fall off the network. The guy who actually knows how it all works is on holiday. The call centre guys get so many errors not in their script they respond by closing their terminals. Noone notices for three days that these guys are sitting there for 12 hours a day looking at blank screens but since they arnt getting errors, the script says everything is working. Cant blame them though, they werent to know as they have no training or knowledge.
These guys are only trying to make a living. Problem is with the companies who are outsourcing not understanding that some people are on a high wage for a good reason, and will know what to do if an odd-ball screwup occurs that the company have no contingency for.
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