Indian call centre- laugh or cry ?

Tim_L

I've had extremely good and impressive service from Indian call centres. Sometimes there are problems with the quality of the phone line (presumably some sort of compressed VOIP), but I've certainly had far worse experiences ringing UK centres where you tend to get attempts to fob you off. I am thinking of Cahoot in particular here.

The big problem with any call centre is that if they're just reading from a FAQ and don't have any actual product knowledge or desire to help then it's impossible to get a good service wherever the centre is based. I think that where the Indian centres do tend to score better is that the people you talk to do seem to try quite hard to help as much as they can.

What I would like from a call centre is very simple: I would like someone who can take details of my problem or query, deal with it without me having to hang on the phone or pass it to someone who can deal with it, and get back to me when they say they will. This has happened probably about one time in the last 5 years, and to my utter astonishment it was BT that managed it (but the woman involved did say that she would probably get in trouble for taking ownership of the problem and spending too much time on one query).

pin

I guess it comes down to training. The companies don't want to spend money training their call centre staff, regardless of where they are. As a result the customer gets the poor service.

cath-w

I have had the opposite happen - overseas sales calls.

I work in a big city centre library. I once took a call from overseas tying to sell me a new electricity supplier. I explained they had called a Library. This made no difference and they again asked to speak to the person who pays the Electricity bills. I explain that the bills were paid by the local city council. They again asked to speak to the person who pays the bills. I explained that I had no idea who this would be. They then got really annoyed with me as they thought I was being rude and uncooperative and so they hung up!

C

nelly_2

pin wrote:

I guess it comes down to training. The companies don't want to spend money training their call centre staff, regardless of where they are. As a result the customer gets the poor service.

Of course, they dont want to pay people here on decent wage to do the job so they farm it out to the third world or basically they are saying

" We dont care about our service to you, so we've gone and got the cheapest people we can find who hardly even speak your language, and because these international calls all last an hour and a half at your cost, our sub standard service/product is making us even more money off you"

mike_the_bike_2

There is a simple solution to this (although I guess sometimes a choice doesn't exist)...Simply don't use companies that have shipped their call centres overseas and write to them to tell them thats the prime reason you are not using them..

I've stopped using Norwich Union, HSBC & British Gas & Scottish Amicable recently because of this

As replacements you still get

An nice English voice in Swindon from the Nationwide

Scottish voice from Scottish Power
...and long may it continue!

suekjw

Bargainbabe wrote:

Oh don't get me started on this subject. I'm with AOL who also have a delightful indian call centre. I refuse to speak to them now as I find it very fustrating and ultimately upsetting when I am constantly misunderstood. I now retry until I get Ireland. Bit extreme maybe, but I can't take the risk of another miserable converstation with someone who blatantly can't understand what I'm talking about.

Oh yes, I've had a few problems with AOL over the last few weeks and had to go through the Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 aol technical support line! As soon as my 12 months is up in May I'm saying 'bye' to AOL! What is really annoying is having to answer the same question time after time, especially about how the bloomin' leads go into my broadband modem! I know in reality its not the call-centres fault, they are just reasing from a script and have been poorly trained, but its so frustrating (especially when you know you're paying over the odds for AOL anyway!)

Sue

Bargainbabe_2

suekjw wrote:

Oh yes, I've had a few problems with AOL over the last few weeks and had to go through the Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 aol technical support line! As soon as my 12 months is up in May I'm saying 'bye' to AOL! What is really annoying is having to answer the same question time after time, especially about how the bloomin' leads go into my broadband modem! I know in reality its not the call-centres fault, they are just reasing from a script and have been poorly trained, but its so frustrating (especially when you know you're paying over the odds for AOL anyway!)

Sue

I've been with AOL for 5 years now and I do like it. I've never had any real problems but when I do have any minor probs, I dread it! I don't bother with the technical service anymore. Why? Because I can almost guarantee that if you're having problems with your Broadband they will say you need new (1) filters or (2) a new lead. I knew for a fact that it wasn't these 2 things when I had problems after a housemove and ended up figuring out the problem myself.

suekjw

Bargainbabe - yes, I've been with AOL for years too - it'll be 7 next year, but I really feel that I've just 'had enough' now!

I always shudder if I know I've got to report a fault! Agree with you that they think filters and leads are the answer to every problem!

Sue

PS The one thing in their favour at the mo, is that when the BT guy came to check my broadband line last week, he told me I'm on a 2Mbps band, not the .5Mbps I'm paying for! That is a big plus in their favour!

hjb123

I have just spoken to someone in India about a 'free football shirt' I should have received.

Could I make her understand? NO

football shirt? what that?
I replied a football shirt
yes but what that
i said a shirt you play football in
she said so what about it
i said i should have got it free with my phone
she said 3 footballs shirts? what do you want 3 for?

Ready to scream!

Eventually got passed onto an english speaker and sorted out

wolvesinwales

hjb123 wrote:

I have just spoken to someone in India about a 'free football shirt' I should have received.

Could I make her understand? NO

football shirt? what that?
I replied a football shirt
yes but what that
i said a shirt you play football in
she said so what about it
i said i should have got it free with my phone
she said 3 footballs shirts? what do you want 3 for?

Ready to scream!

Eventually got passed onto an english speaker and sorted out

Very good !