Does It Bother You Calling An Overseas Call Centre?
Gadgetell had a bit of rant yesterday about overseas call centres, which it seems that most companies use these days. Gadgetell’s suggestion is that companies that have local call centres start publishing this, as they think it could be a good selling point.
I personally don’t have problems using overseas call centres, as I think most companies now make sure that all agents speak good English, which didn’t happen when some of the first outsourced call centres appeared. Some companies have acknowledged that when they first outsourced and were presented with a range of options, they’d mistakenly went for the cheapest option.
But, after these initial hiccups, I now find the level of technical support to be roughly the same as it was in the past. I think that if most people who claim to have had problems with outsourced call centres could filter out the accent of the person that they spoke to, they would grudgingly admit that the level of support is about the same.
What I do hate though, are the stupid scripts that the agents are given in an attempt to make the calls ‘pleasant’. Why are agents told to ask me ‘how are you doing today Everton?’ and to be overly polite? e.g. why are agents told to ask if they can put me on hold while they check something out? I just want my problems fixed quickly! I didn’t call to pass the time with someone thousands of miles away.
Do you agree, or have you had some shocking experiences with overseas call centres?
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Comment by Dennis Bjørn Petersen on 26 May 2007:
I’ve used Belkin support twice and I am never calling there again. I talk with a lot of customers every day, so I know how important it is to be nice and polite. You tend to be more helpful if the person you are speaking to is polite. Belkin’s support really tested my English. It was a really bad connection (audio quality), he put me on hold for 5 minutes, then I hung up and redialed and spoke with another one, who didn’t know anything about Belkin’s products.
Another example last year my wife and I went to the States on our honey moon and of course our luggage went missing between Chicago and San Francisco. We called United Airlines (in India apparently). The supporter didn’t even know how their own computer systems worked. Finally she told me to call the next day. After several phone calls, she could tell us that our luggage now was at the airport in S.F. We took the subway out there. Took around an hour to get there, only to learn it had been transferred back to our hotel.
I have yet to experience good customer server from outsourced call centres.
Comment by Mark from Bloglyne.com on 26 May 2007:
I simply hate having to call in, I will do everything I can to avoid it. Which is why it is so frustrating when I do call in and after waiting on hold for 15 - 30 minutes that I am faced with having to pay for the support with somebody that doesn’t speak English very well.
I know that you mention they have solved that issue, but some large companies like Dell have still not addressed the issue. But that is just my $0.02
Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 26 May 2007:
I’m with Mark on this one - Jennifer is very patient with support, etc, but I personally really dislike having to call support.
Really what I dislike about foreign call centers is that I often see a general lack of understanding of conversational English. It’s not enough to learn it in school, you have to speak it in your daily life, or many concepts will fly right over your head (no, not literally, but that’s a good example).
One thing we both truly love about blogging is that we’ve developed friendships with people literally all over the world… I don’t even know where half of our new friends live, because we all “live” online in a virtual world where we chat, collaborate, etc. That’s a major societal shift for our world and society, and it’s a great thing in my opinion. It will also have massive implications on our societal and nation-state concepts.
So, working and collaborating globally is fine, but pairing native speakers with non-native speakers has been a recipe for bad tech support and an alienation of customers by many, many companies.
Which is why you see some companies today building data centers in the middle or rural America, in places where there isn’t much industry to speak of… interesting development.
Have an awesome day!
Dan
Comment by Mark from Bloglyne.com on 26 May 2007:
Dan - drop me an email - admin at bloglyne dot com
Comment by Everton on 27 May 2007:
Maybe, the situation is worse in the US, but in the UK I think many companies have fixed the situation after getting a lot of bad press about call centres.
Comment by Mosey on 28 May 2007:
I don’t have a problem with it at all with OCCs. Usually the people are very well trained and resolve any problems quickly. Some of the bank call centres (which are local) do keep one waiting for a LONG time between calls though…