One ed Off Monkey!

[mkepcotmgmak]

They have thick Indian accents because the companies have discovered it's cheaper to set up call centres in India where they can abuse the labour there for about one third the same as their British equivalent and I'm sure it's an even bigger "saving" on American employees as they get paid more than Britons.

One of the reasons I ditched AOL when broadband became available to me in my area is that their Indian based tech support is a joke. So is Dell's - they have lost a lot of sales because of it.

For what it's worth - I work for a software company and part of my job is....you guessed it...tech support

However I have been complimented on my ability to speak plain English to our customers.

From a tech support side of things, the biggest issue with customers is that most refuse to admit when they have messed up. If anyone has been fiddling with settings - please admit it as this makes our life soooooo much easier. Tech support folk will love you for admitting a mistake.

whoa whoa whoa...
you are telling me that when i call Dell tech service, that I'm actually calling india?
isn't that extremely expensive on their phone bill, i know some calls can last a very long time, and dell is footing the bill on that call.
i guess disney will be doing this soon to keep saving money...

 

[barnum42]

whoa whoa whoa...
you are telling me that when i call Dell tech service, that I'm actually calling india?
isn't that extremely expensive on their phone bill, i know some calls can last a very long time, and dell is footing the bill on that call.
i guess disney will be doing this soon to keep saving money...

You are indeed calling India, probably a place called Bangalore as that is where most of the call centres are located. It's cheaper for Dell to sort out their own phone routing and pay the Indian locals a pittance.

It's not just Dell that are doing it. Many British banks, insurance companies and other service sectors are farming the jobs out.

 

[Number_6]

whoa whoa whoa...
you are telling me that when i call Dell tech service, that I'm actually calling india?
isn't that extremely expensive on their phone bill, i know some calls can last a very long time, and dell is footing the bill on that call.
i guess disney will be doing this soon to keep saving money...

Yeah, I actually spoke to Dell tech support a couple of times. The first couple were a strange issue I was having with my computer that made it so I couldn't access the internet. We got that figured out and I can pretty much do it on my own now if I need to. The other time that I talked to them it was because of my new computer giving me problems with two games that I had from different manufacturers. I tried to explain to them that both worked fine on my old Dell, but my new Dell refuses to run them and instead tells me that I am using copies of discs and not the originals. They tried to tell me that it was a fault with the games and I should contact the company that made them. Didn't matter that it was two separate companies. They refused to admit that it could be something relating to the computer. I later came to find out that the new DVD-ROM drives had been having issues with certain copy protection programs and recognized them as copies and not originals as a result.

As far as them being in India, the people I spoke with admitted to being located there. I was reading an article last year that said they get paid less than they would if they worked in the US, but even then, they are getting paid a ton more than the average salary in India and they are practically living like kings. The monthly salary was, if I recall correctly, equivalent or slightly higher than the average yearly wage of most others in India. As a result, tech support in India live in some of the nicest houses and drive some of the nicest cars of anyone in that country. It's ridiculous really...

 

[mkepcotmgmak]

Yeah, I actually spoke to Dell tech support a couple of times. The first couple were a strange issue I was having with my computer that made it so I couldn't access the internet. We got that figured out and I can pretty much do it on my own now if I need to. The other time that I talked to them it was because of my new computer giving me problems with two games that I had from different manufacturers. I tried to explain to them that both worked fine on my old Dell, but my new Dell refuses to run them and instead tells me that I am using copies of discs and not the originals. They tried to tell me that it was a fault with the games and I should contact the company that made them. Didn't matter that it was two separate companies. They refused to admit that it could be something relating to the computer. I later came to find out that the new DVD-ROM drives had been having issues with certain copy protection programs and recognized them as copies and not originals as a result.

As far as them being in India, the people I spoke with admitted to being located there. I was reading an article last year that said they get paid less than they would if they worked in the US, but even then, they are getting paid a ton more than the average salary in India and they are practically living like kings. The monthly salary was, if I recall correctly, equivalent or slightly higher than the average yearly wage of most others in India. As a result, tech support in India live in some of the nicest houses and drive some of the nicest cars of anyone in that country. It's ridiculous really...

good for them. :snore: they should spend that money to learn to speak plain english.

 

[Not For Sale]

good for them. :snore: they should spend that money to learn to speak plain english.

I remember seeing some show on the call centers in India...They go to a school to learn how to speak like us A-Mer-E-Cans *spits*

 

[barnum42]

The monthly salary was, if I recall correctly, equivalent or slightly higher than the average yearly wage of most others in India. As a result, tech support in India live in some of the nicest houses and drive some of the nicest cars of anyone in that country. It's ridiculous really...

I saw a documentary showing the life of one of the Indians in Bangalore who works for a British corporation. He does not earn enough to afford a car and has to take a company bus to the office. There is a British manager there who teaches them small talk to use with the customers, including updates on the various soap operas in order to fake a friendly front with the customer. This tactic also includes assigning the operators fake British names I don't think the Indian operators are living in luxury, but you may be right that the pay is a lot better than other Indian jobs - each vacancy it is claimed has at least 100 applicants and the majority doing the jobs are over-qualified, having degree educations and doing simple order processing.

I think AOL must take on the rejects and pay them even less, I was astonished by how rude they were (and believe me, being British I'm used to poor and rude service) and the fact they refused to listen to the problem and kept repeating it was the computers fault that their network had ground to a halt! I tried to get them to admit where they were located, and it was not until the third call that they admitted it was in India.

My experience with the Dell order line in India was an operator who plain lied to try and sell an overpriced floppy drive saying that one pulled out of another PC would not fit. :fork:

 

[ogryn]

They also, from your phone number, can see where you are located. This brings up a weather map for your area so they can talk to you about the weather if so required.

For British facing Indian support, they also made them watch (poor them) UK Soap Operas, so they could say "did you see what happened on xxxxxxx last night?"

It really is crazy.

 

[barnum42]

Funniest call I had with an Indian call centre was when doing the annual phone around for car insurance.

Once company has an advert with the slogan "Let us quote you happy". And you see an image of happy motorists talking to happy English phone operators. However you get put through to India and it just does not work when you hear an Indian do the same script, they have been told to say "Let us quote you happy".

For what it's worth he did not know what type of car I had, A Rover 100/Metro. They are common as muck little cars. He wanted to put me through to the special cars division that handles high power sports cars - my car has a 1.1 litre engine :lol:

In the end he did not quote me happy - well over £100 over other quotes

 

[Woody13]

Back in 2003 was the last time I dealt with any of the technical support people. I had a month long exchange of email and telephone calls with "Naveen Kumar N." who was a Symantec Authorized Technical Support guy who was located in Bangalore. I was attempting to remove Norton Firewall but I couldn't get rid of it. All Norton products (I found out later) embed themselves very deeply into your registry. Even Symantec's SymClean, Rnav and Rnis removal utilities do not fully remove all traces of Norton products. Many of those stray Norton registry entries will come back to bite you later if you don't remove them.

Manual uninstallation of all Norton registry keys was (and still is) Symantec's only solution to the problem. If you have ever performed any manual registry editing, you know how tedious and dangerous the process can be. Delete the wrong string and all the information on your hard drive is history. Symantec knows that 98% of the population is not going to be able to successfully remove their Norton products manually. So, once you've installed it, you're stuck with it and that is just what Symantec wants!

After a little investigation, I found a much easier and very effective way to get rid of all Norton/Symantec registry entries. However, Symantec Technical Support was absolutely no help. I got the help I needed from a brainiac computer forum!

 

[mkt]

I do believe that Foamy put it best.

"Why am I paying for first rate tech support from a third world country?"

That having been said, you can add Citibank and American Express to the list of companies using Indian Call Centers.

 

[The_CEO]

Isn't there a DELL SUPPORT commercial where the guy keeps calling in bed laying down and talks to some middle age guy? I could of sworn I saw one like that.

" Are you here all the time?"

"365 days sir"

" How about leap year?"

AHHHH

 

[pinkrose]

Dateline had a show about the Dell tech supports one time. It was a while back (I believe it was actually about how companies are setting up in India and Dell was one of the ones they talked about).
They said they have English classes and choose and "American" name to use while working. I had to speak to them for 2 hrs the other night. I kept having to say "What????"

 

[The_CEO]

" Now plEze plUg your MoDEM BAK INTU D Sl0T."

" IZ D ProBLEEM FiXXD?"

 

[ogryn]

I'm not sure if Indian or Glasweigian call staff are harder to understand.

 

[mkt]

I'm not sure if Indian or Glasweigian call staff are harder to understand.

I had to call T-Mobile UK for a guest in my hotel... I had a Glaswegian call center. I couldn't understand him, and he couldn't understand me.

It was great

 

[mkepcotmgmak]

" Now plEze plUg your MoDEM BAK INTU D Sl0T."

" IZ D ProBLEEM FiXXD?"

the problem with that is i can understand it.

English: Now please plug your modem back into the slot.

Tech Support Translation: New police rug you are now and then buck into day slight.

 

[The_CEO]

Yeah that sounds correct! :lol: Plus rep for your troubles.

 

[Tim G]

whoa whoa whoa...
you are telling me that when i call Dell tech service, that I'm actually calling india?
isn't that extremely expensive on their phone bill, i know some calls can last a very long time, and dell is footing the bill on that call.
i guess disney will be doing this soon to keep saving money...

Nope, DELL Technical Service Support is located in Ireland.

 

[DMC-12]

Nope, DELL Technical Service Support is located in Ireland.

Dell also outsources inbound tech calls to India...

Kinko's also outsources most ..if not all ...of its graphic design to India now as well... (I know.. I was replaced by them) ...lol

 

[mkepcotmgmak]

Yeah that sounds correct! :lol: Plus rep for your troubles.

oh i'm suffering over this... only two things could help me... psychology OR... positive rep... :lookaroun bring it on!... LOL! :lol: