Aarrrrrggghhhh!!!!! Indian Call Centres!

aliasojo

I think you are splitting hairs a bit InsuranceLiability.

In answer to your question:

'What if someone had answered with a different 'funny' accent?'

I would not have written Indian Call Centre in the post title, I would have written Foreign Call Centre.

However the person who answered my call did without doubt have an Indian accent. Having previously been told that work was being farmed out, I assumed it was to an Indian Call Centre.

Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that. I don't believe I was, however.


Regardless of how nice the service advisors are, the fact remains that there is usually difficulty in hearing/understanding what is being said (from both sides).

The call centres work from scripts. This is usually a policy for any call centre in any place, but it seems to me that the foreign call centres use their scripts as a rule rather than a guide, which is why problems creep in.

I have had to call Aol 3 times lately with a problem, each time I have either not been helped or I've had to go through a saga first. My time is valuable and although I appreciate politeness, I do not appreciate continual, repetitive polite comments when all I want to do is to find out the answer to my query....efficiently. I call for help, not for a chat!

During one particular call to find out why I couldn't connect, I was told I should get broadband as I could connect more easily. ??? After 20 minutes of rubbish, (always very polite rubbish, I should point out) I very politely told the advisor that we weren't getting anywhere and I asked to be put through to a senior advisor.

I got transferred to a chap with an English accent who got to the bottom of my problem in literally 2 minutes. It turned out that BT had done something to the line accidentally.

My experience is exactly the opposite of worldtraveller above me. I have never had my problems dealt with in an efficient manner and none have come to a satisfactory conclusion.

A call to Bt was routed through a call centre (Indian again) and the chap couldn't process my call unless I gave him another contact number. (There was a fault with the landline). I explained my mobile was broken and I didn't have an alternative. I couldn't believe it when he insisted he HAD to have another number. Eventually I made one up and he was happy.

Again, classic case of sticking to the script, regardless.

Mumstheword

A friend had a call to what she knows to be an Indian call centre today. There was trouble with language, although she doesn't have a strong accent. The guy asked her to call back later because he couldnt understand her ;D ;D

BruceLee_2

I am currently using AOL and I am having the same problems as you guys. The most annoying being lost connections which seem to be happening more frequently lately.

I normally use the Live web chat for any customer related problems and I have found it quite useful. I did however ring through once and I was apparently transferred to the Indian call centre and I found it very difficult to understand the person on the other end of the phone. A call which should have taken a couple of minutes took well over twenty and I still had to call back.

One thing I will say though is that I have had other experiences of Indian Call centres which were absolutely
brilliant and the staff were second to none.

bridiej

I think it's a shame that so many of our call centres are going abroad, another case of cost cutting at the expense of UK jobs! :-/

Bargainbabe_2

Bargain Babe
If you guys think you have problems you should try communicating with an indian call centre using a Northern Ireland accent.  They can't understand us and we can't understand them (the entire conversation consists of them saying 'I am sorry but could you repeat that please?' and us saying 'what?' - although I must point out that their english is infinitely better than my Hindi. ;D

Ivan

I totally sympathise with you, i have one of the stongest accents in the UK- I'm from Birmingham originally!

m_i

I wrote to cancel my AOL and i did not receive a reply so i cancelled my payments.
I thought that was the end of it.
I received a letter 2 months later telling me that AOL will be passing my details onto a debt collection agency if i did not pay within 2 weeks.
I phoned to speak with a rep (got through to an English call centre - no funny accents) - she refused to speak to me because i could not give her my payment details so she put me through to another department.
This time the rep gave me details: I was in breach of contrat having not paid for 2 months, they had sent me various e-mails to get me to pay and i owed them 3 months worth of payments - one of which was an admin fee for non payment. I refused to pay and asked to be put through to a manager. The manager refused to speak to me.
I wrote a letter to a manager asking why they were charging for an extra month + a question about why i receive so much spam when i have never given out my AOL e-mail address and also why i received e-mails about payment instead of a letter.

Result - I received a reply telling me that my subscription has been cancelled.

metro_gnome

I phoned Norwich Union Directto enquire about putting my son on the car insurance. It was before his 17th birthday but I wanted an idea of how it would affect the premium. I was told he couldn't drive at the age of 17!!! I'd already suspected I was talking to someone not from this country as the greeting was wrong for the time of day (ie 'Good Evening' when it was afternoon) When I finally established that what I was requesting wasn't illegal, I was told I couldn't get a quote because he was too young to drive at 16 and so the system wouldn't be able to accept him until his birthday. Funnily enough we did go with Norwich Union Direct the following year, but took out a new policy online 'cos it was cheaper than renewing.....

Furniture_man

Rang Norwich Union with problem on wifeys car policy.
Indian gentlemen answered the phone.
Besides having trouble understanding him, the line connection was not clear. I put the phone down, redialled...................and guess what, the call was connected in this country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Problem solved straightaway.
;D ;D ;D ;D

aliasojo

You're not going to believe this, but after all my hassle of trying to find out when I had to cancel my Aol subscription by............I've missed the flaming date, it was yesterday! >:(

I will now have the service for another month because of my forgetfulness. This time, however the 25th January will be written on a post-it note and stuck to my computer screen!!

raeble

Can't you cancel it early? Tell them you are giving them notice that you would like it cancelled by this date?

I just got off the phone with another indian call centre - Capital One.

I thought that they had brought the call centres back to the uk because of security. ??? I was trying to get my statement minus a certain amount because I had misplaced my statement - that was fun. Eventually just tell me the full amount and I will take out the bit that I'm not paying. Then I asked for a chargeback form, she went on about how I couldn't get one of those forms and I had to contact boots. I told her that I'd had one before she finally twigged to what I meant.

I'm not saying a british person might have understood me but I'm very worried about farming out confidential financial information to a country where my £3000 credit limit is a bloody fortunue.

Then there was the changing address with my Debenhams card - GE Capital - are they a relation of capital one? I suspect that was an indian call centre as well. Yes we shouldn't assume but it can't be a coincidence that I phone up two companies and get women with heavily accented english which sounds suspiciously like an indian accent.