Sprint hangs up on a 1000 callers

[33girl]

Originally Posted by _Lisa_

I agree, most of our agents do have strong accents, a mix of hindi with british english makes for a very different sound than what we're used to. I also think that their inability to stray from the scripts they're given add to the frustration, but you gotta blame management for that, the agents are just doing what they're told to do then.

yeah, and it really needs to stop. The American name thing is absolutely insulting. It's trying to "trick" the customer into thinking the agent is in the US. As far as not straying from the script, you are so right. I asked a guy the other day a question about purchasing a ringtone and he goes "I'm sorry, I know this can be frustrating" - WHAT?? I'm not frustrated, I didn't speak to you in a stressed or frustrated manner, I just want you to tell me what the amount is I have to pay because I couldn't find the info on the phone's screen. I really don't appreciate being informed of what my emotions are.

If the companies who outsource don't get better at it, it'll cost them all the money they're saving doing it.

[_Lisa_]

Originally Posted by 33girl

The American name thing is absolutely insulting. It's trying to "trick" the customer into thinking the agent is in the US.

I think this is what it seems like, but I don't think that is the intention especially on the agent level. Maybe the management of the company sees the benefits of trying to "trick" the customer, but it also helps the customer to remember who they spoke to for the next time they call in, or it helps them feel like they can communicate with the agent a bit better because they know how to say their name. Amaranath, Srikanth, Sridhar, Amit, Anil, Balaji, Hema, Shunmugam, & Jitender would rather spend more time helping the customer with the problem then trying to tell the customer how to spell or say their name.

Originally Posted by 33girl

If the companies who outsource don't get better at it, it'll cost them all the money they're saving doing it.

The companies who outsource can't get better at accents & scripts, its the company that gets paid who handles those things. Its crazy how we'll send over training material to our outsourcing "partner" and they turn it into scripts for the agents. Its not the business practice of our company, but the business practice of their company. They do it for every campaign that uses their services. The agents get training, not just on the material & the products, but they do get training on the language as well. In fact, if the language trainer doesn't approve you for the phones, you don't get the job. The language trainer is usually someone from the US (the trainer for our campaign is some sassy dude from NYC, he yells all the time "Its WORK, NOT WARK"). And we do have people here, who used to the be in the callcenter before it was outsourced, that do call monitoring, or handle extreme issues from the customers.

[OneTimeSBX]

^^yes, i dont want to have to guess at how to spell your name, Balaji.

i do believe the script is the problem. they should be trained to handle each call individually...thats how i had to do it at Capital One. and unfortunately i would get calls from India where we outsourced to that went something like this...

"hi! my name is Linda from customer service i have a customer who is very upset i transfer them now thank you! (click)"

and then id have to field 100 questions and insults about why "some indian dude" was handling their account...half the time id lie and say they were in texas!!

[_Lisa_]

Originally Posted by OneTimeSBX

^^yes, i dont want to have to guess at how to spell your name, Balaji.

I'm sure your experience as an inbound callcenter agent is different from mine, but its not like we were taking calls from business professionals or even savvy home users. Savvy home users figured it out with the online manuals, or used email, or didn't care what the name of the agent was as long as they could fix the problem.

The type of customer that makes up the majority of our calls, the standard home users, are the kind want to know who they're talking to, and want to be able to say the name of that person. They couldn't get my name right, and its not really all that hard. Elisa, Lise, Lysa, Lesa, etc. I could go on for ages with all the variations of my name that I've heard.

And its not that its even the US companies asking the outsourced callcenters to change the names of the agents, its the the business practice of the outsourced callcenters because they found that it worked to help familiarize the customer with the agent, or it helped the customer feel more at ease, or something. Its so hard to explain what the US company really controls over the outsourced callcenters unless you've seen the inner workings for yourself.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by _Lisa_

I think this is what it seems like, but I don't think that is the intention especially on the agent level. Maybe the management of the company sees the benefits of trying to "trick" the customer, but it also helps the customer to remember who they spoke to for the next time they call in, or it helps them feel like they can communicate with the agent a bit better because they know how to say their name. Amaranath, Srikanth, Sridhar, Amit, Anil, Balaji, Hema, Shunmugam, & Jitender would rather spend more time helping the customer with the problem then trying to tell the customer how to spell or say their name.

I'm probably not going to say their name, unless they do something to piss me off, and in that case I'm going to ask for a spelling to write it down anyway. Hell, I know half the born and raised in America people can't spell my name (first OR last).

Everyone knows outsourcing to India & other places is happening, to pretend otherwise doesn't help the company.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I'm probably not going to say their name, unless they do something to piss me off, and in that case I'm going to ask for a spelling to write it down anyway. Hell, I know half the born and raised in America people can't spell my name (first OR last).

Everyone knows outsourcing to India & other places is happening, to pretend otherwise doesn't help the company.

I work for a company where we DO ask for names anytime we call customer service for another company (not my rule) - so I appreciate having to write Julie instead of Jubin or Joobun or however.

[_Lisa_]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Everyone knows outsourcing to India & other places is happening, to pretend otherwise doesn't help the company.

I know my company doesn't pretend, and I can't think of one that I've called who does?

[RACooper]

Good for them - when I worked in Consumer Relations back in the day we did develop a list of customers that were "cut-loose" or even blocked from calling the call centre because of their constant harassment and completely facetious complaints... ultimately it came down to the simple economic fact that these 'uber-troublesome' customers were negatively impacting customer service by eating up so much time and resources, time and resources that should have been going to customers with legitimate concerns or questions.

Funny thing was that some of these troublsome twits developed such a terrible reputation that even the compitetion refused to deal with them (and between Unilever and P&G that made up a huge block of the market).

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by _Lisa_

I know my company doesn't pretend, and I can't think of one that I've called who does?

Off the top of my head, Dell and Linksys. A couple years ago after a huge Earthquake in India, I was talking to Dell customer service. While we were waiting for some diagnostic to run, I had a nice chat with "Mike" or whatever the person's name was about his family and how they were doing and whether they were okay, etc. I don't mind it at all. As long as the person I'm talking to knows what they're doing, I'm happy. I've received excellent service from foreign call centers in the past. If they keep the price of the end-product low, I'm all for it.