And, words (even when unintelligible) are better than being asked, “Is this 505-856-2551?” Uh, well, yes, but…so, now the telemarketers are simply calling and asking for me by my phone number? Gee, I can hardly wait to hear the pitch! “Yes, Ms. 2551, you too can save hundreds of dollars on…”

The truly insane part was that the cable company service department was the same for Earthlink, AOL and Time Warner … it’s the same cable just different “service” companies. I learned that it is best to find out who actually owns the cable in your area before signing up.

So may companies need you Mary!

Thanks for the perspective from India. I’m absolutely in awe of what the people there have done in just a few short years. And, I look forward to visiting the country some day.

I can certainly see why the call center jobs would be considered low-end there as well. It’s incredibly hard to balance satisfying customers with call closure (call centers literally live and die by the minute). The longer a call goes on, the more costly it is to the company (regardless of who is providing the service). So, the rep is under tremendous pressure (between the rock and the hard place as we say here in the U.S.) And, escalation costs yet more (to Jayesh’s point about having another group), so the rep is disincented to escalate (counts against their performance).

Back in the day I spent tense negotiating time fightlng over a penny (or even 1/2 a penny a minute). And, on more than one occasion, I had to pay premium salary/contract to have the ONE available Banyan Vines/IBM SNA/Novell NetWare guru ready, willing and able to provide Level Three Top Priority support. Then, I had to deal with how to keep the call center employees up-to-date on technology as well as happy. Burn out is a huge problem in the industry, even in the best of companies.

And, it’s not just the language or accent – it’s also the culture. That’s really a difficult challenge. That Texan could speak perfect Chinese, but have the wrong attitude and approach.

One last point, people would likely be much more accepting and forgiving of cultural and language differences if they weren’t made to jump through IVR hoops and sit on hold, be transferred multiple times, before they ever reach a live person, here or in India. We’re unhappy to start with, by the time the poor beleagued service rep picks up our call out of queue, we’re livid.

Well, whew! Can you tell this is one of my soap box issues?

I am a B school student studying in a top institute in india and have quite a few friends (who did not manage to get into 1) who have worked or are working in a call center.
Americans have a misconception. That customer support facilities are outsourced to India because they are low end.
Now here’s the surprise. Call center work is considered to be Low-end in India as well!! It is seen as a last resort option for thousands of graduates passing out who do not get a job thanks to India’s humongous population

Some facts:
- Most companies in india conduct English lang. tests before recruiting People
- Most companies give their new joinees ‘accent training’ . Alas American companies typically try to save costs wherever they can and expect People to pick up the accent after about 3hrs. of training!!!

The solution could be so simple. Simply include a process wherein if the caller is not understanding what the current staff is saying she should have the option of saying so within 2 mins after which she can be put onto some one else. The company can easily create a higher and smaller set of slightly higher paid staff who have picked up the accent better. Or provide incentives to employees to pick up the accent better by practising the accent in their free time. If only they were ready to part with their precious dollar! (No anti american bias:) . I luv the country. Just stating the facts. They are true for European companies as well)
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