Outsourcing Call Center Jobs To India Leads To Bad Customer Service
We live in an extremely politically correct country these days, which means anyone who even mentions anything negative about someone different (like negatively pointing out a foreign accent), or criticizes someone for their inability to speak the language properly, he or she is immediately labeled as prejudiced, racist, or somehow inciting hateful views. I’m truly none of those things, but I feel a personal finance blog platform is as good as any to express my own personal views about my own experiences on the matter. While I was born overseas, I came to the U.S. when I was only 2-3 years old, so I’ve pretty much grown up as an American and learned to identify strongly with the crux of American culture and its values. While a key component of American culture is the ability to embrace diversity and appreciate differences between different types of people, both foreign and domestic, there are some circumstances when I greatly prefer the services of a fellow American.
This preferential situation comes up whenever I call a live customer service help line. When I pick up the phone and make that affirmative decision to seek help via a toll free telephone number, my reasonable expectation is that I will reach someone who can communicate with me in an intelligible way, and help me resolve my consumer business problem quickly and efficiently, so that I can go along my merry way. It’s bad enough that I often have to spend 30 minutes or more waiting on hold before I can talk to a live technical support representative, but these days, it seems when I finally reach that live person, he or she turns out to be completely unable to communicate with me using comprehensible and discernible English.
I Can Deal With Difficult To Understand Accents In Real Life (By Using Hand Gestures), But When The Situations Happen Over The Phone, The Conversations Can Get Comically Tedious
I am terrible when it comes to understanding different accents. Even British English accents trip me up on occasion – but at least it is somewhat closer to American English in terms of speech and pronunciation, albeit a bit more deliberately pronounced I suppose. While I can understand the different types of American English accents such as a southern, Boston, and even accents that distinguish different races and ethnic groups prominent in this country, I still have frequent difficulty understanding the cultural nuances and accents that aren’t considered mainstream American English. This difficulty in understanding foreign accents is most pronounced and debilitating when it comes to conversations over the phone with someone from another land, especially when I find my phone call re-routed to some outsourced call center located overseas and wind up with a customer service rep who speaks with a thick accent that I simply cannot understand despite my best efforts.
While in a real life conversation and business work setting, heavy accents aren’t as significant a detriment as there are other methods of communication such as using writing and through natural hand gestures to punctuate one’s point, in the world of customer service telephone calls, this type of linguistic verbal diversity is a significant detriment and handicap. When it comes to customer and technical support help lines, communication and speed are two important elements to a quick and satisfactory resolution of the problem at hand. There are plenty of jobs where having a perfect American English accent is not crucial and one can get away with not having otherwise perfect American English, but a position as a customer service call representative that caters to Americans is not one of them. The job absolutely demands that the agent be able to communicate with the language of the target country. Is that really too much to ask? Oftentimes in such scenarios, time and patience are limited luxuries. In such situations, having a thick accent is a very undesired handicap to have, particularly when the issue needs to get resolved quickly over the phone in a short period of time without the benefit of time to get to know each other. This is the biggest problem many customers such as myself are having with companies that continue to outsource their customer service call center jobs overseas to English speaking, but heavily accented countries like India.
Facing An Indian Customer Service Representative With An Incredibly Thick Accent Is Like Talking To A Brick Wall – Nothing Gets Through, and Time Is Wasted
When American call center customer service jobs are outsourced to other countries, I think it’s reasonable to expect the call agents that will be handling the calls to be trained to speak in proper America English. However that is not always the case. Especially when it comes to Indian call centers, the accent is often an interesting mish mash of British English, local Indian dialect, and butchered American English. What often comes out is an unintelligible murmur, resulting in humorous and frequently embarrassing exchanges between the rep and the customer.
A few years ago, I bought a Linksys wireless Internet router, but had major trouble setting up my wireless connection. I kept losing my wireless internet signal and so I embarked on a customer service phone call quest to solve the problem. I dialed the company’s 1-800 number and was promptly connected to an agent. Little did I know, but my call from Maryland, USA was instantly routed thousands of miles across the planet to a different time zone to a call center in India. Immediately when I heard the agent’s accent, I knew it was going to be a long day. It started as soon as my phone rep introduced herself with a thick Indian accented “Hello”…followed by a …”my name is Mary”, a presumably English name moniker chosen by the Indian customer service rep for the convenience sake of their mostly American clientele instead of compelling them to remember a more difficult Indian name. For the next 60 minutes, I struggled valiantly to understand her words and sentences. I tried to remain polite and understanding, but I kept asking her to please repeat herself, much to my continued embarrassment. Every sentence on her part would be followed by a “What?” on my end, or would be followed by a momentary pause as I scratched my head and tried to figure out what she was trying to tell me.
After a while, I could tell she was getting fed up with having to repeat herself after every instruction, but then what was I supposed to do? I desperately tried to understand, and I really did try – but it was a constant guessing game on my end. I simply could not comprehend the Indian customer service representative’s thick Indian English accent. At the end, I got little accomplished because she and I were simply unable to communicate. I found myself spending more than an hour repeating her own words back in my vain attempt to make some linguistic sense. Eventually I had to give up and seek help from another customer service rep. The next rep’s Indian accent was just as thick and I ultimately had to call back several times before I finally found an agent who’s accent was more bearable. But the experience left me with a very negative view of the company and their irresponsible cost cutting efforts to send customer service jobs overseas when the work could be better handled here.
American Companies Who Cater To American Consumers Should Seriously Re-Consider Their Indian Outsourcing Strategy Or Face Consumer Backlash In The Long Run
This is a serious problem that many major American companies who choose to outsource their call center jobs to low cost foreign countries will ultimately have to face. Customers such as myself may eventually take our customer service frustration out on the company and defect to one of their competitors. Based on some news reports I’ve read, many companies that have attempted to outsource their customer service functions abroad have not realized the cost savings they expected, discovering that there are hidden costs that far outweighed the potential savings in labor expenses. Oftentimes, due to significant customer complaints about difficult to understand customer service representative accents and great differences in culture, companies have had to expend significant amounts of additional money to train the agents on proper American English and terminology. Ultimately some of these outsourcers have brought those type of jobs back in-house and back into the country.
Faced with backlash from customers like myself who have great difficulty understanding heavily accented Indian English, some companies are actually taking the next logical alternative step by shipping the work over to other moderately English speaking countries, like the Philippines. As a former U.S. controlled territory, the Philippines at least offers a more Americanized work force with a better understanding of American culture that can potentially offer employees with lighter accents. There will still be an annoying accent to deal with, but at least the twang, so to speak, will be significantly less painful to understand than that spoken in India.
There are currently also signs that the trend toward outsourcing call center jobs to low-wage countries like India or even the Philippines may be slowing down. Research shows that some call centers are most effective when staffed by Americans and there is at least some growing attempt to keep jobs here. I’ve noticed that many companies are now trying to keep the bulk of their daytime customer service call center jobs in the United States where the calls can be handled by American English speaking agents. For customer service lines that provide 24 hour coverage and take on evening calls however, some still get routed overseas to places like India, but many daytime calls are now being mercifully handled by call centers in the U.S. At least that’s what I noticed recently when I called my cable internet provider’s help line several times recently. When I called during normal daytime office hours, I got a service rep that spoke perfect English, but at night, I basically played the ole accent guessing game, doubling and even tripling the length of time spent trying to resolve my problem.
For those of you out there who are embarrassed to admit but also have difficulty understanding accents, I recommend making your 1-800 customer service and technical support phone calls during the day. Sure that means using up your precious anytime wireless phone minutes, but you stand a much better chance of reaching someone in this country than if you called after hours.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Crap…………. U really have a lot of time to waste (Look at the lengthy email u have typed in)………… U just have a mind block……. get over it…….. Grow up!!!
July 31st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Is this a spam comment? Sometimes I just can’t tell….but writing these articles, or “emails” as you put it, is my part time/full time job. I don’t see it as wasting my time thank you very much. And I’m already all grown up.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:57 am
When I called Verizon’s help line at my job last year, the whole thing was very unpleasant. First, despite being…Verizon…they had a very bad connection. There was literally static. Second, the rep had a very thick accent. And third, I have a very mild hearing impediment. It’s so small that I only have to ask “What” maybe 5 or 6 times a day. I don’t even need a hearing aid. But with the thick accent and bad connection, I could hardly tell what was going on.
I only have trouble communicating with accented patrons at work if they don’t speak much English at all…in that case it’s the English, not the accent. But over the phone it’s a nightmare.
It’s not something I need to “grow up” from, it’s just like if the customer support were offered in Spanish or Danish…I can’t understand. The onus is on the company providing support to provide support that the majority of customers can understand.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:59 am
Adding…just like I’d never provide Spanish telephone support, even if I became pretty fluent. My Spanish accent will never be easy and straightforward for a native-speaker to understand. It goes both ways but right now the focus is on India, since that’s where most of these call centers are.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
What a terrific and well-balanced article on something that it is indeed, difficult to talk about, without feeling horribly guilty and racist…but that genuinely IS a problem!
I work in IT…and have many Indian (and Russian and Irish and Thai and Iranian and Chinese and African and various other ethnic groups) working with me…and some speak beautiful English, with charming and musical accents…others speak English that is difficult to understand, but by watching them carefully, taking a few moments to process, and just guesswork, I can understand them…and still others speak English that is so heavily accented that I honestly can’t tell what they’re saying–but I always have the option of dealing with them through email, where the accent is mitigated. I admire their work ethics–I admire their intelligence and their drive and many other traits that I see are lacking in my easier-to-understand American co-workers. I am humbled that they speak another language as well as they do (with or without accents, they’re doing better than me, with my high school French and Spanish!), and fascinated by their bravery, in going to a foreign country to work.
I enjoy the diversity–BUT–I feel very strongly that ANYONE who works primarily on the phone (which certainly means call centers!) should speak the native language of their primary customer base clearly, and should have a decent understanding of the cultural expectations of the country they’re likely to be dealing with. (And I should point out that I do not actually think all Americans would qualify for the “speaks the language clearly” requirement…and just as I think that people who can’t dance shouldn’t be hired as members of a professional dance troupe, I don’t think people who can’t speak the language clearly should be hired as customer service reps.)
A call center, or anyone providing customer service via the phone should be able to provide good customer service, consistently–and be able to turn angry, frustrated customers into happy customers. Not understanding cultural expectations will lead to making the customer angrier. Not speaking the language of the customer clearly will make the customer angrier. *Even if the problem is ultimately resolved to the customer’s satisfaction, they are more likely to remember the frustration of getting to the resolution, than the positive resolution–and that’s bad news, for the company.*
As an example…as an American, I have a cultural expectation (based on years of experience, work in call centers myself, and advice from people with more experience than myself) that a customer service representative is only able to do basic functions–and that if my problem is complex, they a) might not be able to see all the data relating to my problem, and b) even if they *can* see all the data, they might not have the authority needed to solve it…and thus, after it’s clear that they can’t help me, that I should thank them for their help, and ask to speak to a supervisor. I know that the supervisor will have additional information available to them, and will have additional authority to solve problems.
I also expect that a really *good* customer service rep will listen to me as if my problem really matters, after getting the obligatory scripted responses out of the way, at the beginning of the call, and will sound *sincerely* sorry at my inconvenience…and even explain, “Well, I’m not able to see that on your account, but let me see if I can get someone else who can help us out”–and either go ask their supervisor for assistance, or transfer me. Courtesy is not enough (as Indian customer service reps seem to have almost super-human superficial courtesy, and keep it up long after an American rep would’ve gotten quite shirty, under the same circumstances!)–it is a combination of courtesy and sincerity–with sincerity being the most important of the two. (It might not be very courteous to say, “Man, that SUCKS! No wonder you’re ticked!”, but it sounds sincere, and will make me much happier than someone reading a script, far too fast, “I’msorryyoufeelthatwayMa’am”.)
Unfortunately, this does *not* mesh with my multiple experiences in Indian call centers. (I cannot speak about other types of call centers–as I’ve only once dealt with a center I think was in the Phillipines…it was a bad experience, due to language barriers, but I don’t think one experience is enough to make generalizations.
)
When I call an Indian call center, there is, first and foremost, the language issue–so my frustration at having to call anyplace at all, to solve a problem, is immediately increased. The overuse of scripts at these call centers is another issue–frequently, a rep will rattle off canned lines–the same lines–without any variation from it that acknowledges that they’ve already said the same thing…so not even the illusion of sincerity exists. I’m a number–not a person…and my frustration increases.
After explaining my problem, when it is clear that the rep cannot resolve it for me, I’ll thank them, and ask to speak to a supervisor–which seems to be a taken as an insult to their competency, rather than an acknowledgement that it’s time to move to the next step in the game…and I can count on having the rep to repeat the solution-that-I-do-not-accept-as-a-solution multiple times, ending it with, if I’m lucky, “…will that be acceptable, Miss?”, and if I’m not, ended with the infuriating, “…will that be acceptable, Sir?”, with me repeating each time, with increasing annoyance, “No, that will not be acceptable. Please let me speak with a supervisor!”
Finally…I will have to resort to raising my voice, and saying, “Look, I am not getting off the phone until I get what I want…and you are not able to give it to me. It is your JOB to let me speak to a supervisor, when I ask to speak to one, so PLEASE let me speak to a supervisor right NOW!”
This will result in my being put on hold for a good 8-10 minutes…whether as punishment, for being rude, or simply because it’s part of their call center training–expecting that most customers will simply hang up at that point, a supervisor will eventually come online, and I will explain all over again…and, if I’m fortunate, my problem will be resolved.
Since this is consistently the treatment I get from Indian call centers–and almost never what I get from American call centers, I chalk this up to either training differences (maybe they’re told not to let us talk to a supervisor until we get ugly), or cultural differences–I think I’m just following the next step in the game…and they perceive it as a personal affront–a sign that I am NOT playing the game correctly.
Regardless…the end result is frustration. I spent 30 minutes on the phone this morning, going through just that scenario–with the added annoyance of the rep insisting that I was NOT double charged for a service, while I insisted that I most definitely had TWO charges on my credit card statement…and then the rep insisting that I had NOT cancelled a service the previous evening, despite my reading her the email from the company that said, “Thank you for cancelling….”.
This time, there was a happy ending…the supervisor was the first person I’d ever spoken to in a foreign call center who was as easily understandable as an American…had mastered American intonations and conversational style, and was pleasant, polite, sincerely sympathetic, and agreed that yes, I had been charged twice, and that I had cancelled the service the previous night…and in 3 minutes, I was off the phone, after thanking him profusely for his help. I got what I wanted…but the pain of the phone call far outweighs the postive ending.
If outsourcing simply must happen…then I suggest that:
* all employees are carefully screened in complex situations over the phone, by Americans
* employees are properly trained in how to address their customers–understanding that excessive use of “Sir” and “Ma’am” is irritating, as are repeated attempts to pronounce a last name that they can’t pronounce–and that they are encouraged to simply acknowledge that they can’t pronounce, and go on from there
* employees are empowered to leave scripts behind, after the caller has been verified
* employees are taught what American expectations are, where they differ from their own cultural expectations,
* supervisors should be even better at all of the above than the reps–and, if possible, should be Americans themselves, or else individuals who can function as Americans
AND–the company who has chosen to outsource should post guidelines for customers who have to deal with these call centers, so that WE understand what sort of differences to expect, and can learn new strategies for dealing with them. (Ie, if there’s something I can say to a rep that makes it less offensive, that I’m asking for a supervisor, I’d be happy to say it…I don’t want to offend these people who, let’s face it, have a rotten job, nor do I wish to make their lives harder…I just want to solve my problem…and while I’ve had my share of bad customer service reps in American call centers, I’m a very nice, polite person–and I’m used to feeling like the person on the other end of the line is my friend, someone who’s there to help me…and most of the time, that’s what I get. I sympathize with them. When I hear they’re sounding tired and irritated, I say, “Gosh, it sounds like you’re having a rough day!” When they have a regional accent, I say, “Oh, where are you from?” and then ask how the weather is…or sympathize over how slow the computer is…or anything at all, to get them on my side, and willing to go the extra mile for me…but I don’t know how to do this with someone I can barely understand…or who is clearly racing through a script, and obviously not understanding the things I’m saying…so give me, the customer, some tools to achieve this!
(Ironically, I found this post, because I Googled, “how to deal with Indian call centers”–hoping that someone, somewhere, had “cracked the code”, so to speak, and could offer tips for getting the results I want. No such luck…but I enjoyed this article, nonetheless!)
August 1st, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Anti Outsourcers always find a reason to point their fingers out!!!!!! I know it makes no sense cribbin about it!!!
August 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
@Aurora, that sounds like a reasonable set of screening guidelines, if one has to outsource. For example, when I was working at a user testing company, I had to record all my sessions using screen and voice capture. Part of what they were concerned about was whether I spoke in a clear, easy-to-understand voice. It’s just part of the job, whether English is your native language or not. Of course, companies with fewer staffing needs can be more discerning.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Alright, here comes a view from an Indian with a very unbiased and free outlook. I had once joined an international call center during my college vacations 3 years ago in Gurgaon (near New Delhi, India). It was only for vacations to earn some quick buck…and this BPO that I joined catered to ambulance and healthcare services in a certain part of America. I expected that the company would train me in American accent and voice modulation, but nothing of the sort happened. I was just trained for a day on how, whom and what I had to talk about. The job involved calling up hospitals in the US and asking them about patients who had claimed medical insurance for their treatment..so I never really had to face angry customers. I did not have much of a problem bringing on an American accent thanks to years of watching Hollywood movies and endless episodes of “FRIENDS” and “The Wonder Years”. Neither did the voice at the other end ever have to ask “what” to understand what I was saying…
What I’m trying to point out is certain companies who outsource tend not to focus on voice and accent training to save on costs, which harms them in the long run. I can assure you that there are some companies that train their employees so well in American accents and modulation that you wouldn’t be able to find the difference! But a majority often lack in that department which results in poor customer service.
Having read so much in the media, I understand how miffed and frustrated many of the Americans feel about this issue, especially when it also results in job losses there. But thats how globalization runs. Many American companies have set base in India and are earning great profits from India’s vast market (we might still be a developing country but have the 2nd largest population in the world, and the 4th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity). And outsourcing is bound to grow as long as there is a vast difference between labor costs in US and developing countries.
August 9th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Here the problem is not our accent . Its the economy of the developed countries.
Have a look at this video before writing such craps.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4343898391323537541&ei=-7qdSPX2LYzQwgPY8Ygx&q=global+imbalance+and+dollar+crisis
Here is a speech from our Economist. Hope you understand his accent
August 11th, 2008 at 4:27 am
i currently work in a callcenter and i had this one horrible experience with someone who’s having difficulties pronuncing english words and constructing an english sentence.
I take escalation calls and so I did my opening spiel and that agent on the other line answered back ” AH A I’M SOWREE YOU’RE BRREAKING DA LINE” and i was like “”WHATTT????” ,pressed the mute button and laughted real hard…what she meant actually was that there’s too much static on the line.That agent is from somewhere in asia.
Imagine if you are the customer and needed help, how do you think an agent like that is going to address your concerns? You will end up calling back, crossing your fingers hoping you’ll get an agent with american accent.
I think it’s not with where you’re from, it’s with how you were trained. I think these companies should also provide their employees proper training, spend enough time training their people, monitoring their calls and providing them feedback.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:53 am
@Saarthak, you make an excellent point. We have classes in America about learning to reduce accent thickness (and video tapes) which I periodically see advertised in my immigrant-rich area. It doesn’t seem like there’s a dearth of resources or of people who will teach this kind of thing. But that might make outsourcing as expensive as “insourcing” (as it were).
September 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Hi i work in a call center in Panama, and i was taking US calls but the funny stuff is that people from the US complains about Oursourcing accent when they are a country of inmigrants!!! so please, be serious!!!
September 12th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Sorry for this delayed response. In-fact, I’ve heard when it comes to write the perfect gramatical English with the correct spellings, Americans are too weak. The persons weak in writing tends to pronounce the language wrong way. It is known by whole world how Americans have polluted this language. Dude, AnywayS, Color (and not colour), Cool and many such examples can be given. We should not beleive that what we do and what we speak is perfect. Sorry for the little strong language. But, you see, language and accent changes at every mile. Even my neighbouring locality will have different way of speaking. In-stead of saying Indians cannot speak, to put it more correctly, say, we don’t understand the way the Indians speak. This, any Indian can digest. This is because the Indians are used to clean use of the language. Indian languages don’t support to skip the words within the words. About, ‘Mary’, there exists Christain in India too.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I don’t believe that the person who wrote this blog had any intention of upsetting other ethnicities; he was simply discussing a subject that bothers many Americans. There is no need for people of Indian decent to become so enraged about this subject… and those who are angered obviously do not understand what he was attempting to say. He was not implying that Americans speak perfect English, nor was he implying that Indians “cannot speak”… he was simply stating that an American company who caters to American consumers should consider the possibility of having American customer service representatives. The entire aspect of “customer service and/or support” is to “provide service and/or support to the customer”. It is difficult for a customer to feel as if they are receiving satisfactory customer support if there is a language/accent barrier that is hindering the support part of it. Many of the Indian customer service reps that I have dealt with have just as difficult a time in trying to understand me as I do in trying to understand them. It’s not that one of us is speaking correctly and the other is speaking incorrectly… it’s simply that it is sometimes difficult to overcome that language/accent barrier and, therefore, it changes a simple customer support issue into a matter of inability to effectively communicate with one another. If I were of Indian decent, living in India, I would hope that I could call an Indian company with an issue that I had and be able to speak with someone who understood me and who I, in turn, could also understand.
September 18th, 2008 at 12:09 am
On a side note, perhaps I wouldn’t be so eager to criticize others’ speech if I myself didn’t use correct English grammar. I find it rather amusing that someone would make a statement like “Americans are weak when it comes to the perfect grammatical English with the correct spellings” and in the same sentence that person would spell “grammatical” incorrectly. I am more than happy to help you out. I believe that this is what Suhas meant to say: (I will, of course, use proper English grammar and spelling.)
Sorry for this delayed response. In-fact, I’ve heard that, when it comes to writing in perfect grammatical English with the correct spellings, Americans are too weak. People who are weak in writing tend to pronounce the language the wrong way. It is known by the whole world how Americans have polluted this language (this, of course, being an opinion and not a factual statement since no one person could possibly know what the “whole world” thinks). Words such as “dude”, “anyways”, “color” (and not colour), “cool” and many other examples can be given. (“Color”, of course, being the spelling used in the dictionary A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language which was published in 1806 by Noah Webster. He urged that needlessly confusing words be altered (‘plough’ became ‘plow’, for instance) and many silent letters (such as the U in ‘colour’) were to be dropped. This dictionary made the following changes in the English language: The orthography is, in some instances, corrected; change in the pronunciation marked by an accent or other suitable direction; and the definitions of many words were amended and improved. The original settlers to New England taught English Webster’s spelling-rules which omitted ‘U’ in words ending in ‘OUR’ (ex: honor/honour & color/colour, etc) and also promoted single consonants instead of double consonants in 2nd syllables, (ex: traveler/traveller, etc). The influence of multi-cultural immigrants to the U.S. has also meant that American spellings have gradually evolved over the centuries, becoming more phonetic than British spellings. American spellings are now becoming more universal as Microsoft software defaults to American spellings and often does not recognize British spellings. I’m sure that most of you already knew all of this though!). We should not believe (‘i’ comes before ‘e’ in believe, of course) that what we do or how we speak is perfect. I’m sorry for the slightly (not little) strong language, but, you see, language and accent change (not ‘changes’) at every mile. (I apologize, Mr. Bokare, but you cannot begin a sentence with the word “but”.) Even my neighboring locality will have a different way of speaking. Instead of saying that Indians cannot speak, to put it in more correct terms, you should say “We don’t understand the way that the Indians speak.” This would be a comment that any Indian can digest. This is because the Indians are used to clean use of the language. Indian languages don’t support to skip the words within the words. (Sorry everyone, I couldn’t correct that sentence because I don’t understand what Mr. Bokare was attempting to say.) In regards to ‘Mary’, Christianity does, in fact, exist in India as well.
I hope that this corrected version helps some people to better understand what Suhas was attempting to say. You know, since we Americans have polluted this language and may not understand what other, “more intelligent”, people are trying to say to us.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
To the Indians who are responding to this blog. Funny how the AMERICANS and our economy is fueling your prosperity in India. I worked for Infosys so I know the Indian culture. As a senior leader in the firm I was told on multiple accounts that the men will not work for a woman. What a progressive country you have.
Secondly, I pay hard earned money for services upon which I expect customer service from an agent who understands the venacular of the country of their customer. We pay the bills Mr. Indian so we can expect excellent service.
As for your disdain for America. How about taking your jobs out of our country today? How about we utilize other countries for our low cost labor pool. Your arrogance and inability to adapt to our culture means you do not need to partake in our wealth. We are not going to change for you so I recommend you leave. A country of Christian immigrants is what we are and we are proud of it. My father fought for our freedom and for who we are as a nation and there is a new generation of people who will continue to protect our beliefs and values.
It will be a delightful day when I can pick up the phone, dial an 800 # and get a fellow American. I will gladly pay more for their EXCELLENT service versus put money in an Indian’s pocket.
By the way, forget political correctness. Many (I mean many of us) are done with it.
October 12th, 2008 at 11:54 am
I have been a customer service rep(telephone) for over 20 years. I have also done quality assurance work and taught phone skills to new employees. Americans have to stand up and stop doing business with companies that are outsourcing to India. The bottom line is this America has made it possible for American corporations to do this becuase they don’t want to pay Americans to perform decent Customer Service; alot of these companies at one point were paying illiterates and people on some kind of work release and even in some cases actual prisoners to do this work. We all know that you get what you pay for. So, when these low paid Americans just weren’t cutting the customer service mustard, these businesses then had the ammunition to run over to India where they could get the Indian equivalent of a college graduate to do the work they should have been paying their own countrymen a minimum of $15-$20 per hour(trained professionals not prisoners), could now be had for just $2.00 and hour. Even more shocking you have Americans flying over there to India teaching these Indians American dialects to try to fool you. All you have to do is keep asking questions that deviate from their scripts which they have no rebuttal for to trip them up. The worse is that they really can’t help you, there purpose seems to be more to upsell you on some other feature or item. And to all you Indian rep responding to this site…get stuffed!!!
November 14th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
This is a serious matter that needs to be address. Sitting on the phone waiting for the next available customer service rep for 15-20 minutes while the call is actually being routed to India, is unacceptable. Don’t get me wrong…most are very courteous…but I am over 60 and hearing impaired. I cannot tell you the many times that I had to ask for them to repeat what they said or speak slowly. The reps with heavy accents, I ask immediately for a supervisor( another Indian-with a clearer voice). It is very frustrating for me and the rep when I know they are trying to do their job. When dealing with some credit accounts can be very tasking. Sometimes I give up and revert to email if possible or snail mail. Sigh…
November 27th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Hello,
First of all to Lena, learn the english language history, before responding to anyone with what you think is proper english, first of all Suha of course after all is of Indian origin or background, he will not know english as much as yourself, but you on the other hand should know that regardless of your argument, British english is the proper english language, you can argue and cry all you want about what micrsoft is following or not, but it doesn’t change the fact that british english is more proper, but as myself I am used to american english, which is much more comfortable for me, but I do realise the fact that american english is not perfect, its like saying ebonics is is english.
Let not critize each other, I myself work in a call center in Arizona, and do not have the thick Indian accent, and get complains from customer who may have talked with a rep in India, but like any other country, american english is hard to pick up and takes time to learn.
Anyways, the point is if american companies are getting so many complaints from customers, and american companies are all about “customer service” then why still keep outsourcing to India, we need jobs here. Why do american companies keep running to India, still knowing the problems?
MONEY RULES!
December 4th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Hello All (American and Indian)
I am Indian myself. I was in US for almost 7yrs and in that years i have had bad and good experiences with call center technicians.
First to talk to American friends…
Call center outsourcing is done by corporates to save on costs and make investors happy. That is what has made America as it is today. These are the days when the corporates had to be more agile, lean and yet provide rich services to their customers. Naturally outsourcing is the way to go. Today India is cheaper because of the obvious cost savings that it can provide. The day that equation changes, corporates are not going to have a second thought to move on to a more cost saving option. One person had said that he has to wait for 10-15min to get connected to a call service tech. Do you seriously think it is because of the time it takes to connect to a person across the globe? No. I have had experience of waiting for that much time to talk to a customer service agent who was an American. So please do not use that argument. About how the customer is made to wait for 5 – 10mins, it has nothing to do with treating you bad. Imagine, there may be only 1 supervisor for every 6 – 10 agents. And obviously that supervisor may be assisting another customer. About the thick accent. That i can accept. I myself have thick accent, but atleast i know to tone it down when the person on the other end could not understand me. I have had American call agents tell me that my accent is nice and where i am from. When said i am Indian, they were shocked and infact said to me, that i am not like some of the other Indians she had to deal with. In the same tone, i have has some agents who have confessed to not being able to understand me and put me on to another of their colleagues. I really appreciated that. India may be one country, but there are atleast 18 official languages and 1000’s of dialects. One person you talked to may not be from the same locality, language speaking as the other. FYI, just 100mi from my home is another state and i do not understand the language they talk there. naturally their use of english and pronounciation is going to be different and in some repect very bad. Also i agree to the excessive use of Sirs and Madam’s. That is a cultural thing. We were taught from our early ages to always use Salutations like Sir’s and madam’s. but some people tend to use it too much. that is because of improper training. I myself had a bitter experience with an Indian call center techie and had to stop him half way and tell him not to use too many Sir’s as it is annoying. Also i told him/her not to use too many “Sorry for your inconvenience” and “I understand your problem” etc. I told them to just fix it. If me, as a Indian myself could not bear this, i can understand the American’s situation. I will squarely blame this on the Call centers and the American companies who used their service. It is these (Call center and Corporates) companies responsibility to field the best to face the clients. So my request is please do not hate the call center community. Also their salary is low because the purchasing power parity (PPP) tends to favour them. And the thought that they were treated as prisoners and slaves is totally untrue.
Now to Indians….
Guys there is no need to spit fire on these guys (Americans). They have experienced what they do not otherwise have to. I feel their pain as i had been there and done that. I personally had dealt with customer svc techies, who are absolute crap. They do not deserve to be on that phone servicing anyone. Being and Indian, i myself could not bear to hear from these tech support folks, i am not surprised at these guys (Americans). Some may simply hate you, becuase they were on the receiving end (Lost jobs to outsourcing), but mostly a lot of them understand the situation. All they are asking is a decent english speaking support tech on the other end of the phone, who can cut the bullshit and get their issues solved and make them happy. What more simple help could they ask for.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Katherine, it is true men here do not like to work under women. Have you tried to know why? Women here have a tendency to think, that the men are trying to undermine them and will use all the excuses they can get to not do a work under them. This has forced them to be always secluded and very tight gripped and not lenient. True some turds (men) are and may-be like that, but not every one. But because men are generalized on this, they tend to stay away from a women boss. Its a catch 22 situation. Remember this is a country that had Women Presidents, Women Prime Minister, Women Chief Minister, Women Enterpreners etc etc. I remember reading, that America was just like this 60yrs back.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
So, let’s start a list of companies that outsource their call centers.
DirecTV
Best Buy
Anyone else?
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Er, I suspect almost all companies out there outsource their call center jobs and duties to India to some extent. Perhaps it might be easier to list companies that DON’T outsource their customer call center assignments to other foreign countries. Outsourced Indian call centers seem to be pretty much the established norm these days, much to the dismay of people like myself who have trouble understanding thick accents…
January 5th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I totally agree. I have nothing against Indian people but when I call up customer service help line, and speak to an Indian representative with a heavy Indian accent, I find very difficult to understand what their saying. You can only say, “Sorry can you repeat that?” so many times. It is frustrating, as much for them as it is for me. I don’t really care who answers the phone as long as I can understand what their saying and they help me.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I am seriously fed up with Indian customer service. I don’t care if I’m politically incorrect! I’m Indian, born and raised in the US and I find it even more unacceptable that these corporations would pass on these jobs to a country that cannot identify with our culture. These people are poor representives of the company and I refuse to do business with any company that would be careless enough to outsource to India.
I blame Bush for this!
February 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I am a British born Indian who agrees with everything this article says. I have had nightmares with Indian call centre workers. I either cannot understand the accent, or the idiot on the other side is too stupid and rude to do the work. My black British friend was so pissed with substandard service from an Indian call centre one day that he could not help loosing his temper, shouting back and throwing his mobile phone across the room, all right in front of his friends (which included me). Most of the times it is not racism but frustration at bad service. I would like all British companies to bring back their customer support services to the U.K and yes this is coming from a person of Indian ancestry.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
should outsource somewhere else other than india because they have a real thick accent.
March 26th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
It is true that some US companies have gone back to American call centers during regular business hours as stated in the article. However, many still cling to offshoring the jobs to India. I understand that it’s all about making money for the stockholders, but this is an area which they have taken too lightly, IMHO. Or maybe the hidden message is the fact that they really don’t want you to call customer service so they make it as frustrating as possible by hiring an Indian call center. I can also understand the situation of the call center workers. These jobs pay better and naturally they want them. That only makes sense. I just think the language barrier is the problem. If you compound that with the current economic situation in America it does cause more anger toward someone who many feel may have taken their job.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:23 am
These fucking freeloading Indians find anyway to get a job with a Western Company. Have of the time these slumdogs can’t even speak their own mangled languages which are not useful anywhere else in the world others their local fried SUBGEEE-stand. Which is really pronounced Subzi(vegetables) but this fucking ass snakes love to speak like elvis mixed with some other bullshit the concoct. I think we need to wash them from the face of this earth
April 15th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Albert,
I’m not sure where your anger is being derived from but there is no need for baseless name calling and racial slurs. Why do you have such a bone to pick with Indians?
Even my own personal gripe centers only on difficult to understand Indian accents in the very isolated context of outsourced customer support jobs. I have nothing against Indian people and consider them friends. I just have trouble understanding accents over the phone in general.
Even on controversial subjects, certainly we can all debate and discuss like civilized folks without resorting to fanatical attacks on someone’s ethnicity or racial background. Yes?
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Hi! i work for VERIZON in INDIA. as i have gone through the post i just want to tell that people should change the perception of looking into this outsourcing. every company wants to get the profit and wanted to be no. 1 by hook or crook. so most of the US companies are sending the job to INDIA as there r getting profit by good customer service(happy customers) and by saving money(cheap labour). i take daily around 50 calls per day and out of 50 around 45 are satisfied with my service.. and they knew that call has been routed to INDIA so its all abt perception and attitude which human can change. i completely agree with indians heavy accents however i cant under stand still millions of customers acknowledge our work. so this goes vis-a-versa, take a chill pill and enjoy your life. thanks
May 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I have nothing against India people. However, I am an American, and in these difficult economic times, my focus is on protecting America jobs. Therefore, I buy products built in the U.S. whenever possible and I do what I can to protest the outsourcing of jobs to other countries. That means when I get a call from India, I politely ask to be transferred to a representative in the U.S. I will continue to do this.
The language barrier is also a consideration, albeit a minor one. The aliases used by the people on the other end of the line are more upsetting to me than the thickness of the accent. Sorry, but to have someone call with a very thick Indian accent and tell me their name is Shawn Smith is at least as insulting and presumptuous as Americans’ complaints about the abilities of the representatives to speak English are.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Reading this blog post about Indian outsourcing jobs reminded me of this funny Youtube clip from The Onion news. It’s about the trend of More American Workers Outsourcing Their Own Jobs Overseas…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ&fmt=18
Funniest part is the scene in the empty conference where the conference call machines are all talking to each other…haha simply awesome
July 10th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I would have to say, I have some good experiences and some off the wall conversations with outsourced techs. I once had a problem installing Acrobat reader do to a computer Virus. The Gentleman from the call center walked me through it in record time and I was very thankful. His accent was slightly strong but his intellect was in tact.
Today I ran through a problem in the Banking sector. Received a outsourced call center rep who’s voice was somehow sent through a american accent synthesizer. I felt like I was speaking to a Female version of R2D2 from Star Wars fame. It became very annoying when her pitch would change(no fault of hers) and would totally lose my understanding of the conversation. I think this now new version of synthesizer voice correction is the ultimate future. If you don’t mind speaking to a computer , and all the male and female call center reps sound like cloans. Otherwise, I enjoyed the accent more. It gave some sense of a real time person. Correct the fake names and work on watching more american Movies or TV shows seem to be the solution. It would not hurt for the Companies to have an American at one of these Centers in case there is total communication breakdown. They might one day run across a customer that Raps.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
hey guys,
outsourcing is boon for businesses and curse for customers……by the way i am an indian however root of this problem(if we consider it as a problem ) lies in america itself…this is because of their capitalistic economy due to which they stand where they stand today….disliking people of indian origin will not help becauses businesses are still running…infact outsourcing to india helped many american companies from going bankrupt….technology has changed everything..blame the technology for all this…you americans cannot avoid us…people who think they will avoid indians are fooling themselves because this wont help them…if they seriously dont want this they should rather try changing the whole economic structure of america which i dont think they capable of…so rather showing off their incapability they should rather enjoy talking to foreigners….cheers
August 27th, 2009 at 11:58 am
This is shame for all of us who are proud of being americans….we dont have any right to be proud of something that we dont own…we dont own english language….we are land of immigrants,debtors and criminals………the fact is english used to send their prisoners to america who later created america and made it so powerful that america rules the world today(virtually) so we should behave properly and as developed citizens…the whole world is our community and we should not feel that something is being taken away by others… this is discrimination and we should deprive ourselves from doing so…NASA has almost 30% indians…we should appreciate their efforts for making america a proud nation……we need to take responsibility of the whole world….so lets live and let them live
August 27th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Hi guys,
I just came to know about this blog..hmm..its really interesting to see the hot conversation going around..people backfiring on each other. It seems like a cold war between 2 friendly countries. People from America & India and ,ofcourse, it got some attention of British people of Indian origin as well.Considering the matter of BPO’s in INDIA it seems like a few Americans can’t take it anymore..read ALBERT & KATHERIN..Well I really appreciate RAYMOND and i don’t have any grudges against him as being an INDIAN, and same goes for LENA as she might got hurt as being an American citizen .I know that the language barrier is a great problem across the world but if we can work together we can overcome it.Though I am an INDIAN, i have many friends across the world and believe me, neither of us ever faced any problem in communicating especially when it comes to english.Its just the matter of education, enviroment and the proper training.So instead of saying ,having BPO industry in INDIA is ruining its customer in America or in UK , we should probably think where we are lacking in the first place. Its really the accent or our frustration that we can’t accept to take help from someone who is from a Foreign country.Why to live in a false impression? I know INDIA is treated as third world’country and therefore its very hard for some people to swallow that they are getting help from some underdogs(as ALBERT says so) and they still think its a land of snakecharmers. Plz Guys Grow Up…we all are in 21st century now..look globally ,economically and with intellegence, U will find your answers.Look in SILICON VALLEY ,U have more INDIAN there than your own people and same goes with NASA and Are u familiar with the term “Brain Drain”,it only stands for INDIANS .What I believe,if we INDIANS can’t speak or don’t have caliber then brands like AMEX, METLIFE & many more would have never established their globallised centre here.It not only help them in making more profit ,they also provide decent customer service with excellent quality to their customers .I believe that they are more concerned of their business rather that U guys as a customer.For your knowledge, today, INDIA has the largest number of people who speak english.In this world nothing is perfect and of course there are loopholes every where.So we need to work together and stop passing comments on others. So plz guys stop blaming others who really work hard to help U. INDIA is great and the rest is history and if we have the caliber to communicate with U in your language then lets be fair enough and try to communicate with us in our mother tounge i.e.HINDI (DERIVED FROM DEVNAGIRI…THE ORIGINATOR OF ALL LANGUAGES).
And if u still don’t agree with us and want to continue living in fool’s paradise then i will suggest U to plz watch THE MOVIE ” SICKO”. Hope it might help u guys in comprehending the situation of your own country period regarding my “INDIAN ORIGIN BRITISH FRIEND” I would like to bring this into his attention that many of us in this world face hard time in undersatnding black people accent but we never pin-point them for having so thick accent ‘coz its in our blood to respect each and every religion and their language and in fact we are patience enough in trying to learn and understand new things even in case of foreigners. It does not mean that if somebody is from different origin and not from our own culture then start hating him or her.So plz stop cribbing about the changes and learn to adapt new things with open arms ‘coz ” CHANGE IS THE RULE OF NATURE”.And even after commenting on
this blog, Indeed,Americans were my friend in past and they will remain same in future.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Hey guys,
Few words to convey; first n frmst fr US citizens (as being one of them) we shld be grateful to Indians fr d vast amt of task(outsourced) executed by thm everyday fr global firms… n if u all (whosoever hs wrtn smthng ovr ths topic) r aware of, What d GLOBALISATION is, n hw is it helpful fr d enterprises running their businesses all over d wrld? thn u shld nt crap over such subjects… anyways let me infrm u all, the total volume of business, whch hs been outsrcng to India or other countries is sbstntlly very beneficial fr all of us, whether we r indian or american. The people running a business (whether it’s a small business unit or a large undertaking) knw hw to do d SWOT analysis, they knw wht r d cultural (including LANGUAGE barriers as well) n other barriers in running their business in any of d country, so don’t tell thm wht to do? n hw to do in business? n as far as d customer service is concerned, let me tell u all, d kind of gud customer service Indians can provide cldn’t be expected by americans. nw let me state some essential points which wld be beneficial fr u all to open ur eyes ( inasmuch exceptions r always there, so nt fr everyone) :
1. Indians r fast learners,
2. They r hard workers,
3. They r polite (nt everytime, nt everywhere)
4. They r helpful,
5. They r emotional also (nt emotional noody) n more n more n more….
don’t contmplte tht im in their favour.. im jst reckng u a very few n little gud points of them, if any of u hv ever been to India, thn u must hv a little idea wht sort of adverse situation they survive in bt still, they r most happy n daring people(ever met a ponjabi person or a place slightly called.. nt sure bt i thnk ‘utter pridash’) Remember guys we all americans r accustomed to our language as we’ve been using it since we opened our eyes, n who says tht americans don’t hv a thick accent… we infact hv a varieties of accents, accent varies places to places n in some cases person to person as well. Indians hv a land of pricelss possession i.e. their culture (ths part includes a lot mny thngs, cld nvr be expctd by a typical american)…
be careful to wht r u syng n why? Have u ever seen d knd of exertion put by an indian to help d customer, hlf of whch, is nvr expctd by an american!
Gosh.., d world is rckng twrds, r nt we sppsd to move? n hw can we, if we find ourslvs fghtng ovr such stpd issues like, accent n language… infact we shld rspct indians tht they hv brkn d barrier of ths englsh language n hv cm up wid hvng their pants on, to work fr us. had ths be d same situation with us, we cld nt expct us speaking in hindi to an indian persn over d phone, n tryng to trnsfrm our accent in t their instantly…. n possible… or is it ?
so u all hv some fraternity, nt fr aught, bt fr smone who is tryng to spk ur language. n plz u all don’t hoist such issues whch kgv brth to mny ngtve situations.. if u dont undrstnd their accent, hv u ever tld thm to spk in a neutral accent, whch is cnvenient fr u both. if nt thn do it hencefrth… don’t be so coxcomb tht someone at other end wud tke u wrngly.
N fr all d Indans (chiefly tuk prtcptn in ths wrtng cmpetition… hhh) as u all hv been doing great, so plz keep dng d same.. we all respect u wid hearts bt wnt d same in return. n also enjoy calling us.. sometimes we too do..
August 27th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
WELL, STEVE U MIGHT BE RIGHT BT THE MASSAGES CONVEYED BY THEM ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT N RELIABLE. I DON’T FIND ANY OF D ABSURDNESS HERE… ONE QUESTION FOR “JOSHUA” WHICH PART OF THE COUNTRY(US) U R FROM?
ANYWAYS GUYS JUST BE CHILL, BE CALM, N LOVE N RESPECT EACH OTHER’S LANGUAGE N CULTURE WHETHER IT’S HINDI OR ENGLISH.. AT LAST “NAMASTE”
August 28th, 2009 at 9:28 am
HEY STEVE I THNK UR FRM PAKISTAN OR SOMWHERE FRM INDIA… ABSURDNESS REFLECTS BY UR WRDS ..HHH
August 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
NAMASTE TO EVERYBODY …..GUYS OUTSOURCING IS A TASK WHICH CAN BE DONE FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES LIKE PHILLIPINES , MALAYSIA , PAKISTAN & ETC.WELL TAKING RELATIONS INTO CONSIDERATION….I WILL ASK A QUESTION , WHY DOES USA OUTSOURCE ITS BUISNESS TO INDIA …… I’LL EXPLAIN THIS IT IS
” BOLDNESS AND INTELLIGENCE ” , USA IS SO BOLD TO GV IT AND INDIA IS SO INTELLIGENT TO COMPLETE IT VID FULL SATISFACTION…SO GUYS N PALS SPREAD LOVE AND PEACE ALL AROUND THE GLOBE. CHEERS..
August 28th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Hi,
I really appreciate Mr. JENKINS and i do believe that what he says is absolutely correct…after reading so many conversation what i can comprehend that some of them are just vain talk.So friends we are not going to give up and we will rather take our chances.
August 28th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
bone of contention of outsourcing is not only communication barrier as there are other parts of businesses that are being outsourced ….indians cannot match american accent because american accent is different in different states…in every country accent changes geographically so one should not blame indians for that ,however as far as customer service is concerned indians are much more polite,calm & cutomer oriented…this was proved in survey done by GE and AMEX …this is the reason, though there are many other english speaking nations , india is a prefered destination because of inherent soft spoken skills and politness which americans are short of…americans are agressive and abusive so as far as customer service is concerned indians are the best option because of their tolerance and calmness…americans are experiencing excellent customer service by indians and language barrier is reducing day by day and americans know that they have to live with it because they are left with no other choice and this is the best that they can get..americans are lucky dogs, they get best of everything, be it food, clothing,technology etc. and customer service is one of them provided by indians…americans have been utilizing best of resources of the world and they will continue to do so and yet they will keep weeping….god bless them
August 28th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
MR.JENKINS I APPRECIATE UR WORDS BUT DONT RESPECT IT……..INDIANS ALWAYS DARE TO DREAM IT AND REST ALL DREAM TO DARE ABT IT……
August 28th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
HEY , U ALL (INCLUDING INDIANS N AMERICANS) PLEASE STOP THIS NASTY TALK, THIS IS SUCH AN IDLE TALK N IF UR INTELLIGENT ENOUGH STOP TALKING OVER SUCH LANGUAGES N ACCENTS ISSUES, I REALLY CN’T UNDERSTAND HOW U GUYS GET ENOUGH TIME TO CARRY A CONVERSATION OVER SUCH A DULL ISSUE… I DON’T BELIEVE THT D FOLKS FRM MY COUNTRY R ALSO PRATTLING OVER SUCH A BASELESS N F****** TOPIC… I MEAN REALLY IT’S SHAMEFUL FR US ALL… WELL, IF U DON’T UNDERSTAND D ACCENT OF INDIAN REPS SIMPLY JUST ASK THEM TO TALK IN THEIR NEUTRAL ACCENT, I MEAN “JAMES” IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, ASK INDIANS TO BE NEUTRAL, WHICH IS CONVENIENT FR US BOTH…. N ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING FR INDIAN REPS, ALWAYS USE SIMPLE N EASY ENGLISH WHICH IS RATHER GOOD THN D COMPLEX ONE.
WELL IF I TALK ABT MYSELF ONLY I FIND INDIANS VERY POLITE OVER D CALL, N THEY R INDEED… I NORMALLY DON’T RESPOND OVER SUCH TOPICS, BT I WS PRVKD BY MY COLLEGEMATE N NEIGHBOUR JAMES, THN I WENT THROUGH D ALL POSTS POSTED ON IT, N NW LEAVING MY OWN THOUGHT… WHT ALL I’VE FOUND THT IT’S BETTER TO NT TO DISCUSS ABT INTELLIGIBLE ACCENTS… BCZ APPARENTLY THERE IS NO PURE US ACCENT IN ENTIRE US… USA IS DIVIDED IN TO 6 TIME ZONES, I BELIEVE NT TO MENTION ALLL OF THEM… N THERE R A HELL NUMBER OF US ACCENTS USED BY IT”S CITIZENS… N NW, I PERSONALLY HAIL FRM “NY” WHCH I FEEL IS BETTER IN ACCENTS THN MANY OF D US STATES, FR INSTANCE, HAWAII… I PERSONALLY DON’T APPRECIATE THEIR ACCENT..
N NW, FR “SAURABH”.. I REALLY APPRECIATE UR WORDS.. BCZ U CLD COMPREHEND WHT MY CHUM WS TRYNG TO MAKE EVERONE UNDERSTAND.. BCZ I FOUND SOME OF D GUYS (STEVE) WERE SO S*****, THT THEY EVEN COULD NT GT A MEANING OUT OF D WHOLE WORDS TYPED BY “JAMES” N AT LAST FOUND TYPING D STATEMENTS LIKE …”HEY FRNDS , THIS IS A COMMON FRND OF ALL FROM PAKISTAN……..HOW YA DOIN ……THIS IS ALL ABSURD..” REALLY VERY STRANGE INLIEU OF GVNG A MEANINGFUL STATEMENT, U R TRYNG TO SHWNG UR SMARTNESS HERE.. ANYWAYS IT HAPPENS WITH SOME GUYS, SO U BETTER KEPP IT CONTINUE.. ‘NW GOTTA GO FR SOME SHOPPING WITH MY FRIEND..’ THNX U ALL
August 28th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
we americans are fighting hard with bad economy, we are jobless and homeless…today the whole world is suffering because of us…recession has hit every part of the world…time has come to change our culture , our tradition of incurring debts…living on credits…this is a competitive world and we need to compete with them but not by enforcing rules but rather enhancing our skills….this could be an eyeopener for many of us but lets accept the truth…we dont stand anywhere as far as intellegence, hard work and competency is concerned..OBAMA knows it , whole world knows it except most of us…we need to learn few things from indians and there is no harm in it because that will help us improve relationships and behaviour…respect for all…strong family relationships…savings…etc..the list is long but in todays environment , competency level has increased many folds…if we donot look into ourselves and improve , our future generation would face the music…so as proud americans lets not point out fingers at foreigners but try and improve ourselves so that america maintains its dignity…we have led to its downfall and i am sure we will not continue to push america into the slump.Regards
August 29th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
As this issue is drawing the attention of each n everyone visiting ths webpage, n so many of d visitors r keep on posting abt their experiences(IN EARLIER POSTS), their own thoughts, web results(PUSHPENDRA SONI), i found some of them goofing over here, N MUCH MORE… There are legion of consequences n thghts hv alrdy been posted to it, n so it hs alrdy put ths topic a period, which is supposed to put a period tranquility to ur agitation.. i conceive, the sort of comments added very earlier, to ths matter were decent to elicit fire to it, n were nt suppossed to be lent here, bcz i trust no one could hv found those comments, reliable to ths matter… fr instance, d master FANATICAL comments posted by d fellow (ALBERT) r really baseless n isolated from d centralized field of ” WANNING CUSTOMER SERVICE OF GLOBAL FIRMS, BCZ OF D ACCENTS USED BY INDIAN REPS OVER D PHONE” which is in general sometimes unintelligible fr many of us US folks.. Apart frm tht, MR Raymond didn’t even try to commove d issue like “WHY US FIRMS R OUTSOURCING JOBS TO INDIA”.. althgh I know d TOPIC is “Outsourcing Call Center Jobs To India Leads To Bad Customer Service” yet in my opinion despite of d title of topic, d issue hs nthng to do with d “why jobs being outsourced to india?” if everyone of u (ESPECIALLY FOR PUSHPENDRA SONI & MR SHARMA) have gone thrgh thoroughly with all d main matter compiled in here, thn u r nt supposed to post d material which hs nthng to do with d literal issue… guys we r nt here to paste or type whtever we thnk is correct, it is more important to provide some relevant n decent thoughts n consequences which r truly important n at d same time take d general issue in consideration. these frequently posts directs tht d issue couldn’t be brought to an end.. whch is quite black..
Well, well , well,, one utmost important recommendation fr MR STEVE WRIGHT… U better keep ur mouth shut frm talking rubbishly abt anyone.. wht do u mean by ur last comment? u better nt to type violently, to give birth to any racial issue…
N YES MR SHARMA AS PER U, ONE OF THE MAIN REASON WHY AMERICANS R NT HIRED FR CUSTOMER SERVICE JOBS N LOOSING THS DOMAIN IS, BCZ OF THEIR ARGOTS.. IS SLIGHTLY NT CORRECT.. AMERICANS BETTER KNW HW TO BALANCE D PERSONAL N PROFESSIONAL LIFE. N THS IS TRUE. THNK U ALL
August 29th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
James Jenkins,
The purpose of this article was simply to address my gripes of having to deal with foreign accents in the very limited setting of customer service support.
I have nothing against accents and foreign languages in general, and I myself am fluent in at least one other language apart from English. However, my main beef with Indian accents in particular is that I simply can’t understand them over the phone. If their written customer support were filled with as many abbreviations and unintelligible words as your writing entails – like “ur”, “n”, “d”, “tht”, “thghts” – I would have problems with that as well.
I understand why American companies are outsourcing such work overseas – I just think it leads to bad customer service results that are quite self defeating and alienating of one’s customers.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:45 am
hey,
thanx for commenting on my thoughts.Its not just the matter of comprehending the things going around rather than bringing them in action.I personally feels that there are some turd and shithead(sorry for the words) people all over and in every corner of the world and yes we do have same here in INDIA. There job is nothing but to create problem for others who are simply trying to do their work.So just forget about the comments and lets continue doing our job without giving it a second thought. Hey i am recalling a great song sung by legend LT. MICHAEL JACKSON “HEAL THE WORLD, MAKE IT BETTER PLACE, FOR U & FOR ME AND FOR ENTIRE UNIVERSE”.Nothing much to say as rest is understable and yes for James & Sandra…GREAT GOING GUYS…AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
August 31st, 2009 at 11:49 am
Raymond,
I am well cognizant of the aim of this clause, but perhaps some people couldn’t understand or they didn’t give it a heed to peruse the entire clause carefully, which afterward ensued of some inutile posts. I’ve already mentioned it in my last post.
Well, if i talk about the abbreviations & some words which were not intelligible. than let me state it clearly, my intention was not to mention the words in sort of an opaque abbreviations. But this is all because of my habbit of chatting on net, sending e-mails (in such a non articulated way of words) to my friends and the funniest part is that none of them has ever complained about it, and writing my daily diary, again in the similar way. Well there are many things, all of which can’t be explained here.
One thing more to be stated necessarily, and that is that i personally didn’t find any need for anyone to mention the significance of “Outsourcing the work to India” as each one of us has that little knowledge and a market exposure, so we ourself can better understand that all.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:17 pm
i am surprised to see in this comment section that there are few people who are so adament about their thoughts that they dont even refrain themselves from commenting, approving or disapproving other people’s thoughts and ideas…we are not here to give any judgement…respect ideas of all…atleast i dont expect this from americans…please be more generous and respect all…regards
August 31st, 2009 at 5:12 pm
JOSHUA,
This is something very important to know in order to know you very well, well in
every of your comment you just posted that you are an US citizen, but i can’t believe
it because of the way you write your comments and the way you use your
statements.. one of the most important thing i’ve found is that in your last comment
you just stated the name of Mr President without any title, which is not suppossed
to be done by an US citizen.. Well one can easily recognize you through all these
common fields of error… but i also can’t believe that you are an Indian apart… You
must be somewhere from, I HAVE THE NAMES IN MY MIND BUT DON’T WANT TO
SHARE THEM… Tell us all, being very true, Where are you from in real??? we all
will appreciate you for it.. as there is aught to hide all these realities.. and even you
should not.. if i were at your place, i would not IDENTIFY myself as the citizen of any
of the country other than my own country… Eventually WHO YOU ARE????
September 1st, 2009 at 10:35 am
First and Foremost, Whom this comment (your last comment) is reffered to? and
the second thing, you are not even somewhat clear with your words, this is
something which should be OBVIATED here AND STAY CLEAR… Joshua, you ought
to read all the comments carefully, and then you ought to clearly express your
words, that what in real you want to say?? Anyways, as we all are in doubt about
your identity, so there is no way any of us is going to be panicked because of your
disgusting comments… really .. i do mean, really it’s something very disgusting.. i
can’t believe people do this in such a way.. anyways… take it again JOSHUA… GIRD
UP YOUR LOINS! AND CONTINUE BEING A PORCH MONKEY.. (don’t cosider it a racial slur)..
LET ME SIMPLY STATE IT TO you… I ALWAYS POSTED THE MATERIAL ON THIS
BLOG,,, WHICH WAS USEFUL IN GENERAL.. BUT STILL IF ANYONE HAS ANY
ISSUE.. TELL ME ABOUT THAT, AS RAYMOND DID IT IN HIS RECENT COMMENT.
AND I PERSONALLY RESPECT THIS WAY.
JOSHUA, BEING A COLLEGEGOING STUDENT AND A MATURED I UNDERSTAND
THAT ALL, WHAT SOME GUYS TRY TO DO, BY POSTING SOME PHONEY
COMMENTS ON THE BLOG.. AND HOW THEY TRY TO DO IT AND TILL WHAT
EXTENT.. HOWEVER, HAVE I TO DO ANYTHING WITH ALL OF THIS? NO,
ABSOLUTELY NOT..
If you have any issue regarding my comments on this blog,, state it
clearly in your statements.. (contemplate your sentences framing part)
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I dont make personal comments…i can see that someone is very curious to know about my identity . Funniest part is, he is making n number of grammatical mistakes himself , (which i dont like to point out )as if he doesnt even belong to an english speaking nation yet he is commenting on my identity…anyways personally i dont like this and i refrain from involving in these kinds of immature talks…i am not interesed in identities of people in here and it hardly matters if they are indians or americans or citizens of any other part of the world.For a comment section, comments are important people are not.I posted a comment as i was expecting some matured and responsible comments from people of different backgrounds…but i got few who seem to be more interested in identity rather than thoughts. Anyways this world is full of jesters. Enjoy them.
NOW , coming back to the core issue. i dont know why few people
think that whatever they are posting is relevant and everything else is irrelevant.They dont understand a simple thing that India is a natural customer service hub of the world.America is not the only country cherishing indian customer service, there are other countries as well like Australia,The Great Britain,South Africa,Cannada…not only this non english speaking countries like Spain, Denmark are also outsourcing customer service to India.So i strongly disagree with the whole idea of outsourcing to india leads to bad customer service infact we, americans are enjoying customer service at par anywhere else in the world…few of us who dont like all this is because we feel insecure about our own capabilities…fools who are weak from within dont dare to accept the truth, can only satisfy themselves. This world is running because of intellegent and kind people not because of fools goofing around here. Last but not the least, as Obama sd , chinese & Indians are giving us tough competition in all departments…time to pull up our socks and we need to stop fiddling around these inferior baseless topics…we should talk about how to improve ourselves not about how & why we need to curb outsourcing……Regards
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
who is jenkins? who does he think he is? He is acting as if he is a leader over here. Look Mr jenkins donot represent yourself as a leader of people over here. You dont need to decide everything or anything. I dont appreciate the kind of language you are using and yes, americans are not suitable for customer service because of their casual behaviour and abusive nature.Look at yourself, you dont mind insulting people . You are just one example, you search one, you will find many in america. This might hurt but truth is always bitter.
Saurabh, you dont need to feel sorry for commiting mistakes that you are deliberately commiting otherwise we will feel sorry for you. Moreover you need a head to become a shithead.
Joshua, you will not feel proud enough for being an american once you interact with people like jenkins,Raymonds,Albert or Katherine. people like Sandra are very few.Moreover you dont know how third world looks at america and yes chinese would take over americans suprimacy sooner.
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Sharma,
Just where in the hell do you get off saying Americans aren’t suitable for customer service? We are the best choice for customer service for AMERICANS because most can understand our English and even though accents are different according to regions, most have no problem with them. The only reason you cow worshippers landed the jobs were due to American CEO’s stabbing their own countrymen in the back. They sold us out for profits and didn’t give a damn about good customer service. Someone else said we Americans should be grateful to you and your kind for providing “quality” customer service. Well listen Dothead, if you provided true quality, then maybe we would be grateful. Also add to the fact that our unemployment is very high now and the CEO’s don’t give a damn because they rake in the profits while sending OUR jobs to your shithole of a country. The most beautiful sight I can imagine is a nice mushroom cloud over India and I’d be the first to push the button if they needed volunteers. IMHO that would be a godsend to America and also the end to the worthless garbage that passes for your brand of customer service. No more “Kindly reboot your wodem” as the answer to every computer problem that comes over the lines to your third world rat infested shithole. Go worship a cow, Sandjay and shut the hell up.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Hi,
Mr. Sharma with all due respect can u plz specify your statement” you dont need to feel sorry for commiting mistakes that you are deliberately commiting otherwise we will feel sorry for you. Moreover you need a head to become a shithead. ” i am subtle by these lines. It seems like you are taking it as a war and you are ready to do anything within or outside your reach.Plz take it as a friendly advice and don’t show childish behaviour.If we will start reacting in the same way as the writer of last blog did (his name does the rest of the work itself)then there will be no difference at all.It seems like what i wrote in my last blog, anyhow has a connection with this saying that “TRUTH NEEDS NO WITNESS” and yes we all can see it.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
shithole=dothead=jenkins=hatedots. Hatedots has set up another example and a proof of american culture and behaviour. This is the reason they are jobless, homeless , hopeless and helpless.This is what they need to work upon.One thing missing is respect for others and they will loose their selfbelief because of people like like hatedots, jenkins and so on..list is endless.This is what i was trying to prove, you search one you will get many. thanx hateshitdots
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Hey ShitheadSharma, you are a prime example of why Americans hate losing their jobs to your kind along with dealing with your shitty English accent. You sound like you need to get some of that respect yourself, cow worshipper. Helpless? Come on over here Dothead Boy and we’ll show you just how helpless we are once you start popping off with your anti American rants. Your kind are nothing but verminous filth that should be exterminated from the face of the Earth.
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
No shame in my game whatsoever. We deserve those jobs because we can do them better than any dothead. We don’t ask people to “kindly” do something or how we can “be of service” to them. We also have a brain which is also a cut above the inhabitants of that third world dungheap.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Hey hatedots, were your you born like this or lack of sex changed your attitude to life? Seems you like to sleep with cows
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
hateshitdot,
find a suitable place for yourself and please shit somewhere else. and thanx for highlighting your capabilities. You are worth of nothing.Go find a suitable job for yourself first and then talk to me you petty unemployed useless people.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:17 pm
hey Saarthak, do you use toilet paper or still wipe your ass with your fingers? Your customer service skills are shit. Your English is shit. And your country is nothing but a shit pile that should be nuked into oblivion. Now kindly reboot your wodem and I’m most greatful to be of service to you today.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Can we please be a bit more civil here? I understand this outsourcing/diversity issue can be rather heated at times, but let’s not resort to petty bickering without actually addressing the subject matter.
If you wish to complain about foreigners, gripe about foreign accents, describe your personal experiences, or in the alternative, defend the outsourcing trends this country is facing – that’s fine. But please refrain from personal attacks or vulgar language. Thanks
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Hey SharmaShithead, How about learning how to use punctuation, boy? Your typed English is as bad as your spoken English. Now go pollute that rat infested sewer you love to call home.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Hatedots, I’ll try and be civil as per the wishes of the blog author. I have to agree with you, my customer service skills are crap, and thats because I’m not a customer service rep and neither did I claim to be one. Please don’t think that every Indian who comments on this blog post works in a call centre that serves America. Thats stupid.
Your dreams of having to see a mushroom cloud over India are so childish, that I wonder what sort of education you received at school or college (if you ever went to one). Perhaps you should become a vegetarian and have more mushrooms in your diet, and stop your obesession with cows. Will make you a more pleasant person.
Have a good day
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Saarthak, I have enough education to know that Americans are better than you and your kind when it comes to providing customer service for Americans. Get the picture, Sandjaya Goopta? Perhaps you should have lived closer to Union Carbide. Would have made you a very pleasant person.
Have a good day yourself and maybe take a bath for a change.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
jenkins, what you said is correct you never typed unncessary comments about Indians and i appreciate that you know your limits. Do not mess with Indians and you better know your limits.As far as disrespect or Insult goes, americans dont even respect their parents or elderly so expectations ant too much,thats in your blood and i dont mind that.Value addtion to a comment that makes sense is an inevitable phenomenon, moreover leaving turd material online is no big deal for you guys.So keep doing the good work and thats what you are known for.
Hateshitdots, do not teach something to someone if you yourself are a learner. Two or three electric shocks at the center might help you.if that doesnt solve the problem then donot eat what you shit. You seem to be overobsessed by cows shit.start eating it, that might change your configuration. You are a manufacturing defect, cure is difficult but nothing is impossible.Come to india and we will open up your pores.
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Hatedots, are you calling me Sandjay Goopta? Thats not my name by the way. I don’t know where you picked that from. And point taken. Go ahead and convince fellow Americans to get into customer service massively since u and ur kind are the best in it. I wish you all the best in your endeavour. But I do wish you the worst for your other wishes. You’re one sadistic American out here
September 4th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
This is to inform each and everyone involved here, please maintain dignity of this blog. I can see that people are fighting like kids, please refrain from using racial slurrs and abusing cultural integrity. Pointing out fingers at others is very easy but before doing that we should look into ourselves. there are people who have used foul language and then feel sorry for the same , this amazes me the most.I dont know what they are trying to prove about their own behaviour and culture which they cant hide properly. Moreover, people interested in deciding identities of others are fake themselves because they have accepted that americans are not good at verbal or written english and i feel sorry for them. also for people who are questioning faith of others should check their stories first.No practice is perfect in this world.I feel sorry for all those who are deviating from the topic just because of their personal interests.
coming back to topic… America has been dependent on talents of the outside world. Its time to nurture our own talent else we will starve for talented people and our dependency would increase infinitely. We are thankful to people of India and Phillipines for having absorbed most of that requirement. Our problem is our tradition of incurring debts due to which whole economic structure of our country has collapsed. Signs of improvement are there but we ought to change our lifestyle rather than giving marks to indians for their good work. American businessmen are not fools that even their own customer are suffering and they would continue offshoring their businesses. Customer satisfaction is of prime importance for any business anywhere in this world.So let us understand limitations of businesses first rather than commenting on their profit making endeavors. This world is a small community, lets not fight and feel jealous about indians and work together for the betterment of society and its people. Regards
September 9th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I think things have settled down now. There has been heated conversation between many of us and this comment section has attracted many. Let us now conclude from this comment section and end this topic with a positive note. I have concluded following important points from comments of all:
1. Indians are doing terrific job and we appreciate that whole heartedly.
2. Few of us who are arrogant need to change our attitude towards them. This marks a bad impression of our culture on them and on the whole world.
3. We need to be polite with them over the phone and should speak slowly as we have different accents at different locations.
4. We need to be more courteous.
5. We need to stop incur debts.
6.Indians are blessed with politeness, courtesy and kindness hence India is the customer service hub of the world.
7. We should not feel proud of english language as we dont own it and we have not mastered it yet.
8. We should refrain from racial slurrs because it just adds on to our blunt behaviour.
9. What we are today is because of their good work be it here in America or there in India. We should be thankful to them and should respect them.
10. We need to understand, our downfall is because of our own culture and tradition not because of them. Today the world is changing and our role as well. We should behave as matured citizens of a developed nation and develop our own skills rather than blaming others.
11. Outsourcing cannot be stopped but can only be improved if companies involved provides proper training to its employees.
12. Customer service is not our cup of tea, let them do the good work.
13. Abusing people over the phone or boycotting services is a stupid and puposeless attempt.
14. The whole world is blaming us for the economic recession, we ought to take responsibility and sort it out internally
15. Our policies have made our people useless , inefficient and unsuitable for jobs involving specified skillset…need to make needful changes.
September 9th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Joshua, James Jenkin, Mr Sharma –
I don’t know what you are trying to pull here but you aren’t fooling anyone. After having read the comments carefully and scrutinized the consistently sloppy English allegedly written by these three commentators, I have to conclude that it appears you are all the same person – one in the same. Are you some Indian guy trying to play pretend to stir up controversy and gather sympathy? Why do you pose as “Joshua” and “James Jenkins” and pretend to be an American? It’s quite clear you are not an American citizen and do not reside in the U.S., so please stop posing as one and stop pretending to espouse our views. You do not speak for us.
Americans don’t have anything against Indians, foreigners, or accents. We just resent having our jobs shipped overseas to low cost outsourced workers, and are angry to hear news of customer service jobs being taken over by people who we can’t linguistically understand.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
I’m with Jason on the post by Joshua. The typed English is not that of a regular English speaking person. I also agree on what was said about what Americans resent. At some point anytime we dialed a customer service line the person answering had a hard-to-understand accent but said his name was Bob. Our country has gone through one of the worst recessions in almost 70 years and we have a high unemployment rate. So many of us feel that these jobs should return to US to the people who originally worked them. My experiences with overseas call centers has been less than pleasant because of the language barriers. I hate having to repeat myself or ask the rep to repeat themselves. By the end of the call we have both repeated ourselves numerous times and the experience is nothing short of tedious. I understand corporations exist to make money for the shareholders and if it is profitable to hire within this country they will do so. I also understand that the desire to link the entire world with the internet has led to the technology that enabled overseas call centers. Outsourcing began within the country and soon spread overseas to India due to two things: cheaper labor force and a large English-speaking population. In some ways, the American people have brought this on themselves. We are a greedy nation who wants to get as much as we can for the least amount of money.
September 10th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Joshua, I have never heard as much bs in my life as your post. There’s enough bs in your latest ramblings to fertilize every garden in the world. Let’s look at these statements shall we?
1. Indians are doing terrific job and we appreciate that whole heartedly. – If you call mumbling unintelligbly and using “reboot your wodem” as terrific
2. Few of us who are arrogant need to change our attitude towards them. This marks a bad impression of our culture on them and on the whole world. – No arrogance here and really don’t care what a bunch of dotheads in a third world rathole think anyway. The rest of the English speaking world hates dealing with them same as the USA
3. We need to be polite with them over the phone and should speak slowly as we have different accents at different locations. – No we need to have AMERICANS who speak AMERICAN ENGLISH in customer service jobs instead of dotheads who can’t speak understandable English.
4. We need to be more courteous. – Courtesy goes out the door when you have to repeat stuff over and over or deal with a dothead who runs through the same line of stock answers rather than truly listening to the problem.
5. We need to stop incur debts. – Sound advice but if we had jobs here instead of being sent to a bunch of Sandjaya Goopta Dotheads we wouldn’t have high unemployment either.
6.Indians are blessed with politeness, courtesy and kindness hence India is the customer service hub of the world. – Bullshit, they work cheaper and CEOs don’t give a damn about anything but profits. It damn sure isn’t for your great customer service skills.
7. We should not feel proud of english language as we dont own it and we have not mastered it yet. – We understand English as spoken by Americans or even British, but the mumblings coming from you dotheads isn’t anything like OUR English.
8. We should refrain from racial slurrs because it just adds on to our blunt behaviour. -We don’t like dealing with you dotheads on the phone or anywhere else because your programming skills are shit and your customer service skills are shit. Got that Dothead Boy??
9. What we are today is because of their good work be it here in America or there in India. We should be thankful to them and should respect them. – We don’t owe shit to some third world, rat infested pisshole of a country like India. Thanks but NO THANKS for taking our jobs and doing a totally suck ass job at the ones you took.
10. We need to understand, our downfall is because of our own culture and tradition not because of them. Today the world is changing and our role as well. We should behave as matured citizens of a developed nation and develop our own skills rather than blaming others. – Downfall is due to CEOs who only care about profits and don’t give a damn about their own countrymen. We can do anything better than you dotheads when it comes to IT. You are verminous filth who are a pestilence on the world.
11. Outsourcing cannot be stopped but can only be improved if companies involved provides proper training to its employees. – The only way to improve it is to get rid of dotheads. They are the problem because no amount of training will ever produce quality work from them. They still suck.
12. Customer service is not our cup of tea, let them do the good work. – Bullshit. AMERICANS should be providing customer service for AMERICANS.
13. Abusing people over the phone or boycotting services is a stupid and puposeless attempt. – If you weren’t so damn incompetent you probably wouldn’t have to deal with the abuse.
14. The whole world is blaming us for the economic recession, we ought to take responsibility and sort it out internally – If they didn’t send the damn jobs to your shithole of a country, we probably wouldn’t have a recession. It damn sure would eliminate the high unemployment.
15. Our policies have made our people useless , inefficient and unsuitable for jobs involving specified skillset…need to make needful changes. – Once again, Sandjaya Goopta Dothead, it’s people more concerned with profits and stockholders who were making the decision to outsource. It sure wasn’t for your efficiency or whatever the hell you call it. Oh and what is “needful changes”? You sound more like dothead on that one.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
People as you are aware, i dont like pointing out fingers and referring names hence i will not reply to comments of few cow crazy shitheads, i dont know how many times that person slept with cows but anyways coming back to bone of contention, these CEOs are our own people so we need to take responsibility of their actions . As far as cheap workers and profit is concerned, this is the basics of any market, if you are getting services at par, you will go for the cheaper one, whats wrong in that. The problem is that these people are helpless as they can only show their frustration of loosing jobs because of their incapability. People are working and earning good , inefficient people are loosing jobs.Moreover as far as recession is concerned , stupid uneducated people still dont know the actual reason behind it and that is downfall of whole banking system as they were unable to recover huge debts that we american have owed. As banks are the backbone of the economy, all sectors suffered and led to recession. Obama rightly said, we need to stop living on credits , we need to compete with Bangalore and Beijing, there is noway to curb this competition …..plz stop blaming CEOs, Indians, Chinese etc..pull up your socks guys..this blamegame is worth of nothing and because of few people we are loosing our dignity.
We are not a greedy nation, we are a stupid nation if we realize it late that technology has brought world on the same page and competency level has increased so stop blaming foregners. Do you guys think that people like cow crazy shitheads are suitable for customer service, they cant think about anything else except shit.We have many of those and this is the reason we are loosing these jobs to foreigners apart from cost factor.And people who are claiming that Americans are very good at english need to know the facts. America is a land of immigrants, there are spanioles,chinese,and people of different languages. Actually problem is at the root level that is our culture and tradition.People are getting married at a very young age, getting divorced three to four times their lifetime and relying heavily on child benefits and social security. Young girls are getting attracted towards porn industry because there is no other industry that we are flourishing in.70% of Americans quit studying after high school. Crime rate is very high as compared to EU.We lack in highly educated people hence we recruit outsiders(scientists) for NASA, doctors, engineers etc. As i mentioned before we are highly dependent on outsiders and hence we should be thankful to them because what we are today is because of useful contribution by all of them.Historically all Americans are immigrants . English is just a language, talent surpasses everything so donot rely on english language rather enhance your skills buddies. Regards
September 10th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Joshua you are not an American so you need to shut your piehole, Dothead Boy. If you are in America then take your towelhead ass out back to that third world shithole you came from, boy. I know what shit is and it’s the stench that hangs over your country like a cloud. Too bad we can’t see a nice mushroom cloud over it and wipe you and the rest of you verminous filth into oblivion. Too bad that Union Carbide leak didn’t cover more territory as in the entire country. Come on over and pop off to an American face to face, Sandjaya Goopta, and you’ll get a quick lesson in how Americans take care of shit like you, boy. How about I enhance my Dothead Extermination skills starting with you? Sure would make the world a much better place. No more “kindly reboot your wodem” bullshit customer service from that pisshole you live in.
September 19th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Hatedots, never did I think I’d come across an American more contempible than you. You proved me right.
You said:
“No arrogance here and really don’t care what a bunch of dotheads in a third world rathole think anyway. ”
If that sentence does not show arrogance, racism and bigotry in every syllable, then you are a dickhead. If it does, you are still a bigger dickhead.
Be grateful that you were born in a country where you did not have to struggle to make ends meet. There are millions in Asia and Africa who live on the brink of starvation. You might call that living in ‘third world rathole’ conditions, and masturbate about it, throwing up orgasms of racist slurs and superiroity complexes, but I hope life teaches you a good lesson in humanity. Of course, why would anyone expect a person like you to even think of showing empathy to people who were born poor for no fault of theirs? What difference will it make to you if a child in Ethopia dies because his family couldn’t afford to buy food? Obviously nothing. But at least refrain from calling less endowed people various names and gloat about their living conditions.
I was just pointing out the contradiction in your sentence but ended up giving a lecture. Sigh.
October 17th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Joshua. You are a maggot and a traitor. You should feel shame. Saarthak you are an idiot. People starve in Asia, India and Africa because THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE !. Stop breeding like vermin and the problems will disappear.
February 7th, 2010 at 2:18 am
I am tired of getting call centers in Mumbai for every tech support or customer service call I make. They take forever to try to understand what I’m saying, almost always get it wrong, then simply refer me back to the website’s FAQs (which I consulted first). Been through this with everyone from Yahoo Professional to EA Games.
People keep talking about the loss of “manufacturing” jobs … well, add damn near everything else to that list. I end up speaking to someone who knows less than I do about systems, less than I do about the product I’m calling about … and barely speaks my language. If major companies paid someone local for these service jobs, they would keep more local (read American) customers. Then they’d make more money. Then they’d have to shed less jobs here in America. It’s pretty damned simple.
If you want to GROW your job base in India, you should GROW your customer base in India. How happy would you be if you were 57-years-old and found your job (of explaining how a product works) outsourced to someone here in America who barely understood Hindi?
Getr over your superiority complex. We’re NOT supid. We’re just sick of YOU taking OUR JOBS!
February 7th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Chris, the only reason these call centers exist is due to a cheap labor force. A lot of these corporations figure their product will still make a profit even with small losses due to the frustration of dealing with India. It is not the superiority of Indian workers over Americans, it is the fact that they can hire 4 Indians for the price of one American. I will say that most of the call center workers I have dealt with were very courteous and pleasant. The main problem is the language barrier and some appear to have less knowledge of the product than I do (as you mentioned in your post, Chris). A lot of the problem with American companies hiring American workers is the corporations feel the need to pacify the shareholders and make as much profit as they can. It is mostly the Machiavellian approach in that the end justifies the means. When technology improved to the point of making the whole world accessible, the corporations found new ways to circumvent what they deemed high labor costs. It is almost a return to the days of the robber barons where you have a small percentage at the top making sinful amounts of money and a large population of workers who make less and less and often find their jobs being shipped overseas.