So I call my telephone company and someone picks up 15,000 miles away. I asked
rep where she's from. She said, “I am from Mary-Land sir. How may I give you excellent service today?” The accent was… American... in a high society 19th century ultra-polite sort of way. “Mary Land?” My brain's editing booth could not screen snickers in time.
“Yes sir… this is correct sir.” She pushed to next level. “Yes, Mary Land, sir, on thee eastern seaboard. How may I give you excellent service?”
“The eastern seaboard?” Now laughing out loud.
“Yes sir, on thee eastern seaboard of thee United States. May I give you excellent service today?”
The ‘broken record’ assertiveness technique broke my resolve and she proceeded to give me excellent service, in a deceptive kind of way, though experience left me queasy thinking about whole new class of jobs being shipped overseas.
When manufacturing left United States, tech sector was supposed to be new frontier. Americans rushed out to be retrained. Students set their sites on computer engineering. Our tech sector was so good, it created very systems that made it possible to replace itself. Corporations discovered that an Indian college graduate will work at a call center for 10,000 rupees a month, or just under $60.00 a week. I have no malice for our Indian friends, they only want to work. But our kids are going to have to become proficient at more than playing video games and watching movies to compete with this highly educated and driven mass of hungry labor! Math anyone?
I remember hearing that receptionist was "face and voice" of company and public would get their first and most lasting impression based on her attitude. (With that much on her shoulders, they should have raised her pay.) Now whole customer interface has been tossed to foreign nationals. Perhaps there will be a backlash in advertising. "Our tech support is Made in USA! If anecdotal evidence on Internet posting boards is any measure, many customers would rather be pierced with punji sticks rather than be taught one foreign language, (the computer) by someone with another foreign language! Written scripts are repeated ad nauseum with no ability to converse off-road and actually make customer feel understood. Below is a sample, your results may vary.
Reactions to Foreign Customer Service
“I called HP Cares. They didn't. I spoke with three or four representatives. They all had limited English and spoke with an accent. They all asked me same set of questions. Many asked same questions over and over and over again. They all refused to believe that sticker was not there. They all treated me like I was simply too stupid to find it or maybe I was just blind. And, they all put me on hold…”
“We could not understand each other. Even simplest English terms were incomprehensible to her. I said goodbye and went through tedious re-calling process, waiting another 20 minutes or so on hold. The second technician could also not understand English, and connection broke after a few minutes, so I called a third time, going through whole waiting drill…”
“I will never purchase another Dell product, ever again. And everyone I know will not purchase their products either…”
It appears that companies may also be outsourcing trust they've built in their brand, along with customer loyalty and retention. I think I'm on to something here. Let's go American business! Advertise your "Onshore" Calling Center!!!
The call centers are not only in India, they are coming online anywhere a building can put up some computers, chairs and get broadband. A Costa Rican tech support rep working for Toshiba complained in a posting that his job was outsourced to Turkey. Kencall of Kenya, provides its own generators and satellite uplink. I bet they don't have an employee snack room though.
