AOL outsource?

[tcar]

I use AOL and called customer service yesterday to check on DSL or cable at my address.

He was pushing comcast, I said there was no cable to the building where I have my office.

He said "Not a problem at all, I guarantee it will not cost you a single rupee to have it installed... oops, i meant dollar, I am so sorry".

He kept apologizing and apologizing, and I kept laughing and laughing... he was obviously embarrassed, huge faux pas. Like he could be in trouble for saying rupee.

[Joeaksa]

We have enough people out of work here in this country. Wish that they would bring the jobs back here where possible. Problem is that some of them here do not want to work. Do not know the middle ground but not real excited at talking to someone in India for customer service.

JoeA

[cashflyer]

He'll get docked a days pay (about $3) for saying 'rupee'.

Earthlink is also outsourced. I hate calling them for anything, because I know that I'll have to call at least twice more before any problem is corrected.

[masraum]

Cisco Systems used to have offices around the globe that they used to have 24hr service rather than require people to work the late shift. Another benefit is that language barriers are often fewer when the geographic separation is less.

They've outsourced work in the US for years, they then started outsourcing to those same companies, but overseas (Australia and England). Eventually they started openning outsourced support offices in non English speaking countries, India, Mexico, Costa Rica, Phillipines) They got a lot of grief from customers and actually pulled back from some of those offshore locations, but India, and I believe the Phillipines actually has 24 hour offices. It sucks.

When all of that started I remember reading that Dvorak from ZDNet called to ask about a credit card acct or bank acct and had the support person quote ruppees to him.

I've known lots of friends and colleagues who lost jobs because of the offshore outsourcing. It sucks.

Funny related Story

On the weekends there are fewer support calls to Cisco. One weekend a guy called in with an issue and couldn't understand the tech that he got in Mexico, so he called back and said he wanted to speak to a native English speaker in the US, so they called the Cisco office in San Jose. Funny thing is that no one in the office was a native English speaker, they all had accents, so he ended up calling us in Houston and talking to one of our techs.... our tech's last name was Nguyen and his first name was just as Vietnamese. It's OK, because he has no accent, sounds like a white boy, but I thought it was pretty darn amusing.

[mikester]

I heart Cisco....even if they won't hire me as an SE.

Cisco has pretty good support, I used to work for a nation wide cable operator and we would have issues all the time. Granted we paid for support but I never had language troubles and the fact is in the technology industry NOT EVERYONE IS A F'ING AMERICAN!

It's true, it's true...there are techno geeks in every culture and why shouldn't they be employed? Don't get me wrong I don't like 'outsourcing' but this is capitolism and the best way to handle it is to vote with your dollars.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

[alf]

The economy, like the world we live in, is global and outsourcing is capitalism at work. The quality of offshore phone support is sometimes spotty, the quality of on-shore support before it was outsourced was often just as bad. I used to own a Packard Bell PC and everytime i called with a problem they'd tell me to format the drive and reinstall everything.

That Rupee thing is pretty darn funny though.

[slodave]

SBC has level one tech support in India. They read from scripts. I think some of Microsnot tech support is out of India too.

Dave

[beepbeep]

[JeremyD]

The "in-country" support reads from scripts too. Oh - and I hate to tell you but not many people in this counry want to sit in a cube all day and answer tech support calls for $10 an hour.

[legion]

We have an outsourcing firm based here in Bloomington--AFNI. They have call centers all over the country and they pay minimum wage. My wife used to work there. My wife's job was to catch employees avoiding calls. She had her hands full. One of the most common techniques was to give someone a quick, incorrect answer and then put them on hold indefinitely.

The bottom line is that when you pay people poorly, you get low-quality work from them. I'd take an Indian call center any day over one outsourced to AFNI.

[legion]

I ammend my above statement. We're screwed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051229/lf_afp/afpentertainmentliteratureindiaoutsourcing

Meanwhile, an instructor preparing trainees for the job scribbles a golden rule on the blackboard for handling difficult customers: 10=35.

"Remember, a thirty-five-year-old American's brain and IQ is the same as a 10-year-old Indian's brain ... Americans are dumb, just accept it. I don't want anyone losing their cool during the calls..." the instructor tells a class.

My problem with outsourcing is that when you pay another company to do your work, they will put in the minimum effort to get the most money. They don't care about alienating your customers; they don't care about hittting on opportunities for new sales.

[JeremyD]

Originally posted by legion
My problem with outsourcing is that when you pay another company to do your work, they will put in the minimum effort to get the most money. They don't care about alienating your customers; they don't care about hittting on opportunities for new sales.

Not true - I have taken this bet several times in my career and always won.

Give me a shift / a team/ whatever within a company. Let me staff at equal experience/skills/whatever.

give me some training time. Let me incent and manage. My team of "outsiders" will be more productive than an an internal team. They don't get involved in the politics/posturing/crap, etc. You give them some clear defined goals and incent - and it's amazing. I've done this with 3-4 different companies over the past 10 years and always won the bet. (I run a temporary help company)

[NICKG]

so maybe that should change the name to Idia on line...I will never spend a dime with any company I find out does that outsourcing crap...and if I have one that does, I immediately cancel whatever it is they offer and take my buisness to a different company.

[NICKG]

perhaps a name change to India on line is in the future. I personally detest this outsourcing crap. I would never willing ly spend a dime with any company that I know doing this. I go so far as to cancel any and all services that i get from companies that outsurce to india....Nextel is a big one with this crap, Dell etc....

[NICKG]

yea i double posted..this subject makes me that mad that i had to say it twice

[JeremyD]

Originally posted by NICKG
so maybe that should change the name to Idia on line...I will never spend a dime with any company I find out does that outsourcing crap...and if I have one that does, I immediately cancel whatever it is they offer and take my buisness to a different company.

How do you access the internet - What computer do you use? what cell phone do you use? how about bank? Power company? Phone company? cable? Do you buy clothes? How about food? Water company? I recommend you buy a cabin in the boonies and get off "the grid".

[cstreit]

Bitterweet problem for me:

I work for a small software company. The market is SO brutal right now with the big 3 software firms (Microsoft, Oracle, SAP) making it virtually impossible to compete in any space they decide to work in.

Why? They make so much money from their base operations that when they want to penetrate a market (appropriate choice of words) they will give away their software for free for a few years. Now the niche players and small firms have a hell of a time competing against this. Costs must be reduced because while a superior product will sell against "free", it reduces your overal revenue considerably.

(Free is in quotes because if it was really good, it wouldn't be free. Most places that accept this offer end up paying more in implementation and management costs untill the product is ready.)

Not being able to outsource means we will be down to the "Big Three" in no time. Unfair pricing abounds.

Why Bittersweet? I'm a technology worker. I saw the writing on the wall years ago and got out of programming, etc.. before I was outsourced. Now work in sales. You can't sell with a thick accent over a phone from Bangalore and Chenai.

[NICKG]

Originally posted by JeremyD
How do you access the internet - What computer do you use? what cell phone do you use? how about bank? Power company? Phone company? cable? Do you buy clothes? How about food? Water company? I recommend you buy a cabin in the boonies and get off "the grid".

well I know things are made in other countries, i really don't have much issue with that. but my cable company is actually the first one in the US..and still american(i can see it from my window) my power comany is in ohio and has only US call centers(i bought my s2 from one of their big guys) Phone is all us...verizon actually doesn't have off shore cennters(i am related to one of their big shots) and know where the hq is...banished Nextel because of their offshoring. I have a well... how's that? my problem is with compannies that are taking jobs from here, and only gaining $ by selling oh, my ibm computer was made in Fishkill NY. I am not even remotely amerocentric...i have german cars and a toyota truck, I just don't feel that call center jobs are really effective if the people you talk to are unable to understand your language...

[JeremyD]

Verizon offshores their payment processing in Santa Domingo Dominican Republic.

[legion]

Originally posted by JeremyD
Verizon offshores their payment processing in Santa Domingo Dominican Republic.

They also outsource their cell phone call centers to AFNI...