Letting The Customers Decide Over Offshoring
from the your-choice dept
John writes in with an article about an interesting strategy from E-loan concerning the whole offshoring debate. Realizing that some customers are really concerned about this, when you call in to E-loan's call center, you are given a choice: press 1 for a call center in India, press 2 for a call center in the US. However, there are tradeoffs for those who want to keep the call in the US, which are clearly explained. If the call goes to India, it's more likely that the loan request will get processed that day. With the US center, it may take two or more days. It should be interesting to see how this experiment works out, and whether or not it provides some statistics on how American callers really feel about offshoring call center work.
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No Subject Given
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No Subject Given
Ultimately, I don't think this is about American jobs. It's about weather or not I will ever spend my money on anything from hp again. The answer there... no way in hell.
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Re: No Subject Given
This obviously is a " sign of the times " and a blatant wake up call to American businesses that American consumers want to speak to American Customer service representatives.
Off shoring jobs like customer service that require the ability to communicate in English is backfiring.
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Re: No Subject Given
Its not the job that needs protecting.
Its the consumer getting less than adequate service.
I guess this business in question is seeing that they really aren't " saving " so much money when they are losing customers.
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Re: No Subject Given
I will often times hang up and re-dial the number in hopes of getting someone who can help me and can speak clear English.
I don't mind accents, but when I can only understand every other word they say and I have to repeat myself and speak slowly and enunciate words to get my point across, I get impatient.
I called a company recently to turn off a service that I no longer wanted. I had to explain myself 4 times to the support person what I wanted, they finally pretended to understand me and told me it would be taken care of. 30 days later I check my bank account and find out that they are still taking money from my account and I call them back. This time I get someone who speaks with an accent but understands English and find out that I have to go to their website and discontinue the service from there - they can't do it over the phone.
It was only $7.99, but it ticks me off that after carefully explaining what I wanted I was told "OK, I'll take care of that for you" and then nothing was done. Chances are good that the person still didn't understand what I wanted and was just saying that to get rid of me.
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Customer Serive Representatives
They didn't understand you and thats exactly what the " customer service " representative was doing ... getting you off the phone as quickly as possible.
I regularly have to transfer non-technically related calls to our " customer service " department which is located two states away. I have had so many angry callers state that they can not get an English speaking person that I have resorted to calling over myself. If I get someone who does not speak English, I immediately hang up and redial. Once I get someone who speaks English I transfer the call only after introducing the caller & making sure the " customer service rep " can actually assist the caller.
It boils down to " customer service ".
If the " customer service rep " doesn't speak the language of the customer, then they can not assist them properly.
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Re: Customer Serive Representatives
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No Subject Given
ANY MANUFACTURER OF HARDWARE OR PUBLISHER OF SOFTWARE WITH CALL CENTERS OFFSHORE (most notably) AOL and Dell.
There are two reasons for this
(1) I will not willing support either the companies who use foreign labor, and
(2) It just takes too much of my time in the event that I have to use one of these call centers.
In the event that I inadvertently run into one of these operations I simply inform the responding individual that I do not do business with people that flunk their accent reduction course. The same thing holds true for the occasional call center in California that hires Asians right off the boat.
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Re: No Subject Given
The USA is a country of immigrants, yet I have noticed an increasing anti-foreigner attitude by US citizens over the last 10 to 15 years.
Complain about the poor customer service not the foreign workers (of US companies!)
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Re: No Subject Given
(by the way, I am a foreign born american too and english is not my first language, so this is NOT racist, it is about being treated right as American consumers!)
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Re: No Subject Given
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I lost my job to India
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it is very sad that America gives to other countries that don't give us anything back. I have been transformed from a person who used to care about tsunami's and terrorist activity in that part of the world and now... well I really don't give a shit! I actually get excited when there is "breaking news" in that part of the world and i hope for bad things. I just want my job back! I just want a job! stop telling me how great america is when that is only true if you are rich or poor. If you are in the middle, this country sucks!
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