Indian smurfing Call Centres

[Cuchulainn]

My tinternet broked last night and I had to call B smurfing T to ask WTF they're at. It goes through to a certain 'Mr Andrew Baines' who's real smurfing name is actually 'Mr Obviously smurfingindian'. He can't understand me as my Belfast accent is fast and barely a language and I can't understand him as his English is only slightly better than mine. After 1 hour of 'can you repeat that sir' and 'please do not swear at me sir' I shouted 'smurf', hung up and broke my phone against the wall. I woke up this morning and everything was fine except my lingering regret of insulting a nice man and breaking a phone.

Anyway do Americans get this or all your call centres in the US? Or is this strictly a Irish/British thing? Do Swedish people get Russians? To the French get Algerians? WHO DO INDIANS GET????? BANGLEDESHIS? HELP ME WHAT THE smurf IS GOING ON???

[NorthernChaosGod]

Everyone outsources their call centers to India.

Oh, Cuch, you slay me.

[Peegee]

I laugh at your pain. And to add to injury the prevalent state of the world:

A lot of companies with call centers are switching over to India with record levels of lulz as a result. The bottom line is slashed by a significant amount (I don't even know what they get paid but it's hilarious compared to our already low-paid call takers here).

Let's take an example. IBM made a bid to be the sole provider of AT&T USA's HD support 6-7 years ago. I forget. It's been a while. From what I recall, IBM gets about a million dollars a month for the contract, and there's a penalty if the performance is not up to par. But the penalty is nothing compared to the contract price. Hohoho you can see what is going to happen.

First of all a million dollars is very little when it comes down to what the cost ends up being. Usually it's paid to wages which is higher than the one time set-up cost for the system and the access and the etc. For example let's say a Canadian agent makes 37,000$ a year. And a manager makes 60,000$ a year to be simple. By the time I was promoted the call center taking 75% of the calls (canadian agents) were 10 agents.

so 10 = 75%

13 = 100%, give or take.

13*37000+60000 = 541 000$

holy crap that's half of one MONTH of service fees. WHAT THE HELL SO BLOATED THE PROFIT ALREADY

But wait there's more. Making ~22x the cost of running the actual service (ignoring the service managers who deal with the fine print and the big picture,which would probably add 1-200 000$ to the cost per year; they handle multiple accounts and their pay is split between all of the contracts) is not enough profit margin. So they offshore everything to India. The savings shoots up to like 44x profilt and thus allows for more room for bloat.

The result is lowered customer relations and satisfaction.

As for the countries used. It's usually India or in rare cases the Philippines. Both very cheap places to live. I often joke that I want to live in India while telecommuting for my Canada-based job. Oh God I would be a god in that country.

The moar you know.mp3

[Alive-Cat]

It's worse when call centres come to YOU. ADVERTISING THINGS. Also can be pretty funny though when you say funny stuff to them.
You always know though, because when you pick up the phone and say hello there's silence for like 4 seconds. If I'm not in the mood and I pick up the phone to silence, I slam it down.

[Clo]

Everyone, American, British, Irish alike, has experienced this.

The Indians are usually really nice to me though. We have nice chats.

[Psychotic]

I choose to take the thread title literally, to sexy results.

[Bunny]

From dealing with my internet customer service, I have learned that the great majority of Idaho is Mexican.

[Shlup]

Everyone, American, British, Irish alike, has experienced this.

The Indians are usually really nice to me though. We have nice chats.

This.

Except that, you're right, it is frustrating when you don't understand someone. Like, I get that you need a job and I don't want to be a dick to you, Other Country Person, but if I can't smurfing understand you then this call isn't going to be very helpful or efficient now, is it?

[Peegee]

I watched on one of those learning channel shows that in india there's 'accent' training programs that lets them learn how to speak like a westerner. Apparently such courses are expensive or people don't bother.

I was in sears the other day buying socks and one of the people on the intercom was advertising a cheap something..I couldn't figure out what it was they were selling. A tv maybe? Either way if he spoke with a western accent I would understand him.

It's not racist if race doesn't exist. Accents exist though. And I hate accents.

[Rebellious Eagle]

Yeah, I had to call a center in India to port my old cell phone number to my new cell phone. It took me twenty minutes to give him all the information he needed because I couldn't understand him. Dx But at least it worked!

[Mirage]

It's india because those guys aren't too bad at english compared to other low cost countries.

and stop hating on those poor guys over there, they're just trying make ends meet!

[Peegee]

It's india because those guys aren't too bad at english compared to other low cost countries.

and stop hating on those poor guys over there, they're just trying make ends meet!

nop.

[TyphoonThaReapa]

From dealing with my internet customer service, I have learned that the great majority of Idaho is Mexican.

This

[Psychotic]

and stop hating on those poor guys over there, they're just trying make ends meet!

Look man, all I'm saying is that if they can't speak English they should just get the hell out of my country!

[Rye]

I actually understand their English very well. Rather speak to them than some person from Charleston who pronounces "Dawn" like "Don" and ends up getting me embarrassed by the entire company.