Rant on Outsourced Customer Service
 

Normally I dont do this but after talking to 3 different people from Travelocity to try to change one flight I have lost all patience. I remember a while back someone posting a thread about Dell's customer service in India and how horrible it was. I dont know about you but nothing annoys me more than someone that is just reading off a script word for word with no concept of the question you are asking them. I almost want to slam down the phone and forget abotu the whole thing. And for chrissakes people, we know your name is not George or Kathleen, or Bob. Whatever happened to proper customer service with some intuitiveness?!?!

I want to start a list of well known companies, banks, etc people do business with that are using customer service outsourced to India where people have had horrible experiences.

So far I have:

Citibank
Dell
Travelocity
HP

Please add to the list and share your experience.

Ask to speak to supervisors right away, Dell is the worst and I can't understand half the english their support is speaking anyways. Just keep escalating it until they send you back to an American.
WG

Exactly.

Most of those companies DO have American support people. However it's at the 2nd or third tier. So you have to get it escalated from first level script readers back to U.S. support.

A lot of the companies are set up this way, so you just have to know this, and make sure you escalate it so you can get to American customer service support.

:2 cents:

Thanks for that tip. I will be sure to use that next time before I lose my mind and throw the phone. :)

More then welcome toots.

:winkwink:

Which seems to be getting harder and harder.

I think once the tax break is repealed for outsourcing, a lot of the companies will bring that stuff back to the US.

Wow I cant remember the last time I was called "toots". You know what... I think that may be a first. :winkwink:

To this list I'll add AOL- They started out sourcing all their inbound service before I quit. Now you are lucky to get an english speaking person no matter what you need. I have no problems with them having a job making a living as long as they can effectivly DO THIS JOB. Don't read me a script and pick up RIGHT where you left off when I ask a question. Thats really one of my most unfavorite things about calling major companies. Do you know why so many companies have decided to do this? George W Bush gave tax credits to all companies that out sourced their employees. Now how is that supposed to be good for our country? Dirty rotten bastard.

/end rant

I believe Sprint is the same way too.

I often call our own support just cause I love it when someone answers on the first ring!

Yeah, indian call centers make me loose faith in the company. Hate "talking" to those people

Sprint has both Indian and US, you just have to call the US support number.

Every single company out there with phone customer support are outsourced.

:2 cents:

The only bad experience in recent memory was with NON-outsourced customer support for Comcast. A neighbor's internet wasn't working, so I went over to have look and everything was setup correct, but just couldn't get any connection. So I called them they had me go thru a bunch of worthless hoops, then attempted to ping a website it failed which I had already tried, so sent me to someone else who could ping the modem from their end and said everything was fine and they only provide support to the modem and that if the computer won't connect to the modem they have no solution... haha

US Airways :disgust

And yes, ALWAYS, ask for a supervisor immediatley.

Hate to break it to you, but many companies that don't outsource, use scripted flow charts for their customer service.

I used to work for the phone company, and for a short while was placed in the service office where all the paperwork is done. In an effort to make sure I understood every facet of the operation I arranged to have myself trained for every department, including sitting in as a 611 repair clerk.

Having worked outside, actually fixing the problems people were calling in reporting to 611 I was astonished at the inaccuracies of the flowchart and the questions we were supposed to ask depending on the previous answer.

It made me at least understand why the repair ticket I got in the field had nothing to do with the actual problem the customer was reporting.

maybe in Brazil

OMG yes they are the worst IMO. Ive had horrible experiences while dealing with them. every phone call is at least 45 minutes, mainly repeating myself 8 times. They fucked up my tickets last november to fly home and see family and charged me $600 more for a flight, to which im still waiting for a refund (that ill probably never see)

the only way i have found to deal with someone that can understand english is to ask for someone in the "internet claims devision" or "accounting." they will be confused on why you were transfered there, but tell them you have been on the phone for over 2 hours and asked to speak to a manager about your problem... they will most likely help


back to the topic... in a corporate world, it saves a LOT of money. in most cases people call in for questions to things that they can most likely figure out on their own. Linksys customer support is probably the best outsourced support ive had to deal with