Outsourcing to India-grrrrr
 

A few weeks ago, I ordered a personalized Disney shirt for my son. When I got it today, instead of the child's XL navy polo with his name we had a man's XL navy fleece with his name! I was furious so I called Disney and got a woman with an Indian accent--oh, crap.

Now I teach ESOL and can understand an Indian accent pretty well but this woman did not get it. She kept saying that they couldn't make him a new shirt because I must have messed up the order. I finally lost it and let her know much too loudly that *they* screwed up, I had the order sheet that came with the shirt, and they could just jolly well do a new shirt. She was hard to understand and she wasn't understanding me either.

I am sooo tired of corporations that outsource their phone work to India! A couple of years ago, my oldest almost went to the wrong place for her GRE because the Indian who was manning the phones couldn't pronounce the name of the building in Savannah where it was being given. Ooohhh! Disney had better get that polo to us in time for Christmas!

@@@###!!!

I had the same experience when I ordered something from Amazon for my niece's birthday. Three weeks later it still hadn't been shipped so I called to cancel the order and had to speak to customer service. I could barely understand the man who had a very heavy Indian accent, so I asked for a supervisor. I couldn't understand him either. It was very frustrating.

I love how everyone in Bangalore is suddenly named "Matt" or "Katie". Uh, no.

My husband had a problem with a credit card he recently got. It worked everywhere except Walmart. ?? When he called the customer service number, it went straight to "Leslie" and there wasn't anything she could do except keep sending him new cards that still didn't (and still don't) work at Walmart. Thanks guys!

At my company, the outsourcing is for late night/early morning hours (this division is 24 hours). No one that I've spoken to within the company has shown any interest in staying at work past 5/6pm, so it makes good business sense for a company to outsource to someone who will.

I have gotten frustrated once or twice, but my anger usually isn't with the person and not being able to understand him/her; it's with the company itself.

I don't think companies realize how much they're losing by outsourcing--not just money from frustrated customers but also good will. They seem to be taking the word of these people that they speak understandable English.

I'm normally a calm person but when this woman asked me if she could call me by my first name and then used it every 10 words, I was close to a meltdown.

I hate this. Such a pet peeve of mine. There's no need to keep saying my name, I know who I am!!!

This is something I hate more than anything!!!

After my luggage went missing, I had to speak to a zillion Katies who sounded very very Indian...I got so exasperated that whenever I heard an Indian accent, I just requested that I speak to their supervisor--eventually I got an American-based emplyee. Grrrr on Delta! :mad:

It's not just the accents that bother me. It's the cultural differences as well that make the experience frustrating.

Years ago, before the days of online bill pay, I sent off a rent check to my roommate parents (they were the landlords) and then I sent off a check to Burdines (now Macy's) to pay my bill. I put the checks in the wrong envelope and didn't realize it until my roomie's parents called me and told me that they got a check written out to Burdines. Oops.

I called my bank and they told me that I didn't need to void the check since there was no way Burdines would be able to cash a check that wasn't written out to them. Of course, my bank was incorrect and that's a story in itself. Burdines ended up cashing my $550 rent check.

Of course, I wanted that $550 back. I called Burdines and asked for a refund. Their call centers are in India. The woman just did not understand my story. I'm not sure that they have checks in India so I don't think she could have even begun to understand what was going on. I kept telling her that I needed the refund from Burdines immediately since $550 is a lot and it wasn't even their money to begin with. She was not very nice and told me that Burdines wouldn't be able to issue me a refund until 30 days. What? I said to her, "I want the money back now! You all cashed a check that didn't belong to you." She snaps at me, "That's not possible. It couldn't have happened." Oh boy.....

I lost it on her. I'm not exactly sure what I said to her because I was in such a blind rage but it was something like, "Are you calling me a liar?! I have proof. I have a copy of the check with the 'To' line to my landlords and the Burdines stamp on the back of the same check. You want me to fax that over to you to prove that it is possible and that it did happen?! Don't you ever call me a liar! And put your manager on the phone. I want your manager to know you just called me a liar." Not one of my finer moments but I was pissed. She put me on hold and came back a minute later to let me know that they'd be cutting me a check that day for $550. At least I got my way....

I just don't think someone at an American call center would have flat out said to me that what happened with my check couldn't have happened. Someone in a US call center would know that it definitely could happen.

I always feel terrible for our perfectly capable IT department/support team when they have to pass calls off to someone not even in their department because some asshole won't believe they're not sitting in an Indian call center :(

I hate that as well, especially considering those agents are usually contracted to use those names when they're hired & are not allowed to use any other names while even in the building! Just keep in mind, some people in India are Christians with "Christian names". Two agents I've met are Jasen & Sam, both Indians but are Baptist.

My company outsources to India, and I've been to the callcenter there twice now. I love the agents, they're so gracious & thankful to have those jobs, and believe it or not they do take English classes! (In fact, most callcenter agents in Banglore specifically have college degrees & have been taught in English since grade school!) Their English is more Britain-influenced rather than American-influenced so its still hard to understand them even in person (at least it was for me!)

So far I've been to 4 callcenters that my company outsources to-they're all owned by Sitel. The same theme has been common amongst Canada (outsourced from America), Germany (they're outsourced from Austria), Morocco (outsourced from France), and India (outsourced from America/Canada)...and thats been that the agents are always hard to understand-but not just because of the language barrier. The agents are taught one or two "happy path" scripts & are told not to deviate from it, and then the company screws up & the agents don't know how to deal with or what to say to the customer without getting in trouble for deviating from their script.

I don't disagree with outsourcing, even though it was my job originally outsourced (although my old department is now in Canada instead of India), but I do disagree with how the companies handle our outsourced callcenters.

I've had major beef with Verizon for the past year (don't even get me started), and since I can't call during the day and spend 2 hours on the phone with them, I have to call at night and always get someone I can't understand who also can't understand me. A year later and after many seething letters to Verizon, our problems still aren't fixed. Sometimes I've just flat out told them that I can't understand them and I need to speak to someone with a better grasp of the English language. When you can't understand every other sentence, you can't help me.

That's so ridiculous, and so offensive to us. It's implying that 1) we will only talk to people with "American" names 2) we wouldn't be able to understand their Indian names. There was a kid named Pradeep at my high school, and he sure as hell didn't go around calling himself "Pete." Don't lie to me - and it IS a lie - use your real name, or at least your real nickname!!

The over-niceness makes me nuts. I called Cingular once asking a question about ringtones and the guy fell over himself saying "I am so sorry you are distressed" and I was like no, I'm NOT distressed, I just want you to answer a simple question that I don't know.

Tangent alert: My husband's brother's name is Pedro. As in "Vote for Pedro", and yet my stepsister-in-law insisted on calling him Peter. WTF? Oh, and then she named her youngest kids Carlos Daniel and Alberto Alejandro. CRAZY. CRAZY.

Really? is it verizon wireless or the other services? I have verizon wireless and I have always had great customer service, they even let me postdate a check so I can get my service turned back on (I tend to carry a balance, and then can't pay it until i get paid..)... sure my bill is $100+ but that's my own fault, not theirs lol


I HATE THIS. I hate it when people use my name in conversation in general, it really irks me for some reason, and this is the ultimate. It is a surefire way to make me freak the f*ck out.

I'm with you on this one. My nephew's name is Pietro... Italian for Peter. Everyone calls him Pietro... it's what my brother and sister in law prefer since he is named after my father. Her very Irish/Polish family calls him Peter. I can't STAND it. The only one allowed to call him that is his 3 year old girlfriend and she calls him Petie cuz she can't say Pietro and it's cute.

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.

i'm with you. When a salesman or "customer service representative" I don't know from Adam calls me by name it makes me feel uncomfortable and even a little like they're trying to manipulate me. Call me an outlier on the decades of social science research, but I think it's forced and unnatural -- they're trying to talk to me like we're friends when we're not. That's especially the case if they use my first name. A "Mr. MysticCat" at the beginning and end of the conversation is okay. Anything beyond that is annoying at best.

True, but I always make a note of the rep's name, so that if there is a problem later I can identify who I've talked with. That, as far as I'm concerned, is the only valuable reason for knowing the rep's name.

As far as your first paragraph, I completely agree. This insistence on using first names at all, not to mention repeating it over and over, is very offensive to many older people (I mean senior citizens, not me). And don't get me started on people who keep calling me "Mrs" when I've made it VERY clear that it's "Miss." That just shows me you aren't listening to me at all.

If I'm calling on something that I feel the name to write the rep's name down, I'll probably ask them to spell it, no matter what nationality it is, just so I'm clear. Those call centers are noisy and someone can be speaking perfect English and not be heard clearly.

I love you dearly, S, but you set yourself up too perfectly for this one.

What's the difference?:p:D


http://dl.glitter-graphics.net/pub/4...zzgeo7klld.gif

I love calling for tech help and getting someone with a different speaking voice.

Their name is Joe, George, Harry, Bob, Bill, etc.

Hi, where are you located?

Ah, New Delhei! (SIC).

Just to clarify - the whole issue isn't "first name"-oriented; it's using their actual name or title, rather than an indirect pronoun. "Sir" or "Ma'am" works great for those who prefer those, but "Mr. _____" is actually the 'preferred' way according to the theory in many business situations until you develop a rapport with someone.

However, over the phone, they usually give a first name, so most of the time that's all you have to go by . . . YMMV.

I do agree that the support personnel should be referring to you by Mr/Ms and last name, because that's business etiquette and there is a definite "power divide" there. That's a whole different sort of nerdery, though.

Also it is incredibly off-putting when the first name is used four hundred times on the phone - that's what happens when HR douches read a little and understand even less. Garbage in/garbage out and all that.

It is nothing new and it is just the beginning. IBM outsourced 10,000 programming jobs to China.

I dont have the source in front of me but I think the Dept of Labor estimated that as many as 50% of the jobs in accounting, banking, engineering, computer science could be outsourced.

IBM, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, DELL...the list is endless.

A few friends lost their jobs earlier this year at Hawaiian Airlines once the company decided to close their local office and use workers in India. :mad:

I used to work at the UAL call center here, and it was a pain in the ass trying to calm down a customer that just got off the phone with Linda in India. Senior managers from the Honolulu office were frequently sent to Mumbai for 6 weeks to teach these new hires the Apollo/FastRes system. They all said that these people were some of the kindest and nicest individuals they've ever met.

My brother & I originally had "Rinky Dink.Com" as our ISP, and we were forever getting a dialect-challenged Indian for service. My brother once sent me the following email:

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...9/Mujambar.jpg


Mujibar was trying to get a job in India. The Personnel Manager said, "Mujibar, you have passed all the tests, except one. Unless you pass it you cannot qualify for this job."

Mujibar said, "I am ready."

The manager said, "Make a sentence using the words Yellow, Pink, and Green ."

Mujibar thought for a few minutes and said,

"Mister manager, I am ready."

The manager said, "Go ahead."

Mujibar said, "The telephone goes green, green, and I pink it up, and say, 'Yellow, this is Mujibar.'"

Mujibar now works as a technician at a call center for computer problems .

No doubt you have spoken to him.

***
I don't usually have trouble with accents, but I did have one techie who was absolutely impossible to understand. When I told "Rob" that I was terribly sorry, but I needed to speak to someone else. He hung up on me! So, now we're both on different systems.

This quote is so apropos for so many situations.

Ouch. :(