Awwwwe. Pietro is a very beautiful name, please stop the Peter abuse!:D


ETA: Wow...pun totally unintentional, but extremely hilarious.:p

It's Verizon Online/Phone/DirecTV. We have the bundle package. To make a long story short, they double-charged us for several months, I finally had someone figure it out, I only paid what we were supposed to pay, and then 2 weeks ago we get a letter stating that we had a week to pay a $350 outstanding balance (of their fault, not ours) or our service would be cut. I was busy working all day when the billing center was open, so there was no one to talk to. The supervisor in India wasn't helpful at all. He promised to research it and call me back. This was two weeks ago, and not a peep. I went ahead and paid just because I didn't want to go through the hassle of getting things turned back on (plus, my husband needs internet at home for his business). But you'd better believe as soon as I have a block of free time next week, I'll be on the phone with them. And I won't be nice.

I definitely don't blame you! I'd be really pissed too. I hope you sort it out and they better give you your money back or a HUGE credit!!

I had Verizon Internet at home and my modem just stopped working. I sat on the phone for three hours and they agreed to send me a new modem. What arrived in three days? Yep, a wireless connection card for a laptop. :confused: WTF?

I think there may be a little bit of truth to that :D

When I was in undergrad, whenever I signed up for classes, I tried to pick classes that were taught by instructors who had "American" names. I once picked an 8am class over an 11am class because the latter was taught by a foreigner. I'm not a racist, but I do not have the patience to put up with the communication difficulties.

Just a tip: with some companies, if you ask the call center rep to elevate your problem to a "level 2" situation, you get to talk to someone in the U.S.
They are usually pretty surprised you know what that is, and not all companies handle it the same way, but maybe this will help some people.

Well, I did too, for the same reason. But this is a little different - I don't get a choice to press one for Susie or press two for Apu. I get who I get, and their using a fake American name isn't going to improve my experience if they can't speak English - nor is their using an Indian name going to make the experience worse for me if they do speak clearly.

Yep. And really, how many times when the person says, "Hello, my name is Joubion, can I help you today?" are you actually going to say, "Well, Joubion, my problem is...". I don't think I've EVER addressed a CSRep by their "name".

That sounds very government conspiracy... does that actually work??

I saw on 60 Minutes that you can press 2 for Spanish and you can usually cut your wait time a huge amount - they usually speak English just as well anyway.

This doesn't work everywhere, in my own company we have 3 levels of support & they all exist in the foreign callcenter. On the other hand, you can often request a callback by someone in the US, or at least someone from the US in the foreign callcenter. My company has a US management representative in our Bangalore callcenter every day of the year.


I know our agents are required to give their "names" because they don't have employee ID #'s. Customers often get upset & request ID #'s because "you can't be the ONLY Lisa in that WHOLE callcenter!" Even if I am the ONLY Lisa in the whole callcenter, we can easily look up who you were talking to with just the phone # you called in with, and I don't mean referencing a call log, I mean actually delving into our phone system to see who you were routed to. Giving their names is supposed to just be polite.

I had a lovely experience with a credit card call center in India. They were calling because I hadn't paid my bill and the man actually threatened to take away my car and my home (neither of which I owned at the time), that they would come to my house, blah blah blah. And I said, sir, do you realize that threatening me in this manner over the phone is illegal, and he proceeded to tell me that I didn't know the laws of the U.S. Oh boy... So I said, what country are you currently in at this moment? India. Ok, so, where the hell do you get off telling me what the laws are in MY country?? Yeah, he went silent for a minute... I had never gotten into an argument like that on the phone before. I ended up hanging up on him and he proceeded to immediatley call back 3 times before finally giving up. And the company?


AMERICAN Express.

You should actually start - I'm serious, too . . . it's the same reason why they call you by name (although they go way overboard), the more you can 'relate' to the agent and make them feel comfortable, the more likely you are to receive service above and beyond the 'normal' customer. It's natural, and it has decades of social science research to back it up - if you separate yourself from the unwashed masses while staying kind and understanding yet firm, you'll tend to get superior service from service workers (even in India).

It sounds lame, but with moderation it works beautifully - sorry for the aside, but it's been a great help for me when poop hits the fan.

I understand your point, and I agree to a point, however, I tend to call them "Sir" and "Ma'am", and say please and thank you A LOT, and it works for me. If I was using their REAL NAME, I think the psychology would work like a charm, but I just think the sentiment gets muddled when what you're calling them isn't really even their name.

I had a terrible time with Verizon Wireless about 18 months ago. Our plan changed slightly when we were due to get new phones. We got a tremendous bill for 1 month of service that was completely incorrect. It took multiple phone calls and many hours to finally reduce the bill to the original amount. All the customer service reps as well as their supervisors were American, yet they were still not skilled in customer service.

I don't know if I agree, but it my just be my own personal feelings.

When I worked at the grocery store, we were required to waer name tags. Most people didn't address my by first name, but when they did, it made me feel very uncomfortable.

Please and thank you always works well for me.