I hate call centers in India/Pakistan
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From: Los Angeles, Miami
Originally Posted by thunderchicken,Aug 9 2005, 03:54 PM
You know what's nice? Undercutting people here slightly and using rent-a-coder to do the work.
You only do minor stuff and you get paid for hardly working.
You only do minor stuff and you get paid for hardly working.
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From: San Fran
Originally Posted by temin,Aug 9 2005, 10:23 PM
Living in the United States, I'd like the customer service facilities of the companies I use for whatever to have a better grasp of English. Not that I'm a grammar genius, but if the person on the other end of the phone is having a difficult time with communication as a CUSTOMER SERVICE agent then what is the point?
Cutting costs to stay afloat is fine. Cutting costs AND degrading your service is not. Without customers you have no business. You don't have to bend over backwards to satisfy every customer that calls, but you really should set a high standard to keep people happy unless you really think your business lines are strong enough to just blow people off and not care.
I don't care where my customer service is coming from. They can be in India. They can be in Nigeria. They can be on the feckin moon. But as a primarily English speaker, I'd like them to be the same if their business is catered towards the US market.
Cutting costs to stay afloat is fine. Cutting costs AND degrading your service is not. Without customers you have no business. You don't have to bend over backwards to satisfy every customer that calls, but you really should set a high standard to keep people happy unless you really think your business lines are strong enough to just blow people off and not care.
I don't care where my customer service is coming from. They can be in India. They can be in Nigeria. They can be on the feckin moon. But as a primarily English speaker, I'd like them to be the same if their business is catered towards the US market.
But, people expect dirt cheap prices, and that partly comes from outsourcing. The amount of time you are inconvenienced by talking to someone at a call center in India vs. the amount of time actually using the product , this case DSL, is negligible.
Frankly, I don't think tech support/call centers from the US are that much better to justfiy increased cost. Maybe I'm one of the few, but I can only remember talking to tech support once, and that was when I first set up my cable modem. Big deal.
My clients pay premium for premium work and service. It would be unethical for me to turn around and give it to some monkey in India to do it. I whether work more, earn less personally but have my staff of designers and developers do the work then outsource it.
From my experience, it takes more effort to manage work done in India, as the communication barrier is high, and scheduling is difficult, but if you have a strong connection to someone in India who is overseeing the work, then you can get great, quality work done, and have work done practically around the clock.
Anyway, my point is it's a small price to pay to have a difficult conversation with someone who's primary language isn't English, but the benefits are well worth it.
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[QUOTE=pantyraider,Aug 10 2005, 03:04 PM] The final product is what matters, if the work done by someone in India is just as good as someone here, who cares if you give it to some "monkey" in India.
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Hey time is money. The 15 minutes I wasted being on hold and talking to that "I not understand" Indian, I could have been doing something else, like surfing s2ki.com for instance. 
All things being equal, I whether deal with an English speaking tech support agent based in the US then a non-English speaking tech support agent based in India or some other foreign country.
I care because the quality of work is the exact point. I've seen the work performed by those web monkeys in India and it is no where as good as the work we can perform. I have yet to see one decent multimedia flash ecommerce website from India. They charge cheap because they use pre-built web templates with osCommerce (free ecommerce application that anyone can download), insert some text, change some colors and you're done. Hence I refer to them as monkeys because any monkey with half a brain can do it.
All things being equal, I whether deal with an English speaking tech support agent based in the US then a non-English speaking tech support agent based in India or some other foreign country.
I care because the quality of work is the exact point.
I've seen the work performed by those web monkeys in India and it is no where as good as the work we can perform. I have yet to see one decent multimedia flash ecommerce website from India. They charge cheap because they use pre-built web templates with osCommerce (free ecommerce application that anyone can download), insert some text, change some colors and you're done. Hence I refer to them as monkeys because any monkey with half a brain can do it.
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From: FCUK
Originally Posted by cyber_x,Aug 10 2005, 11:22 PM
Why would companies want to pay more for the same work when they have a less costly alternative available? Especially when their competitors are doing it? If you're the only one not doing it, then you risk being at a competitive disadvantage.Btw, since this thread is centered around India, you're talking specifically about offshoring, not outsourcing. Outsourcing could mean anything from hiring cheap labor in India to cheap labor in the rural Midwest to hiring consultants to write a particular module. In fact, some companies are staffing their call centers with cheap rural domestic labor, and despite better English skills, service quality is not necessarily better than what you're describing.
It sucks for the people whose jobs are being offshored, but this is how it goes in a free labor market. The way you compensate, as an employee, is by making yourself more important. Companies will often offshore peripheral, supporting functions, but they will almost never offshore core, critical functions. You're pretty safe if you're a core part of what your company does. Otherwise, your job is a commodity.
As for whether offshoring is about cutting costs or increasing profits, well, those are the same thing. By lowering costs, you're increasing your margins, and the only question is whether you decide to pass the savings on to your customers or pocket it as profit. Without cutting costs, you wouldn't even have the option of passing any savings on at all.
Nicely thought out reply
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From: FCUK
Originally Posted by mav,Aug 10 2005, 11:36 PM
All things being equal, I whether deal with an English speaking tech support agent based in the US then a non-English speaking tech support agent based in India or some other foreign country.
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All things being equal, I whether deal with an English speaking tech support agent based in the US then a non-English speaking tech support agent based in India or some other foreign country.
[QUOTE]I care because the quality of work is the exact point.
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From: Los Angeles, Miami
Originally Posted by tokyo_james,Aug 10 2005, 11:46 AM
Well Mav, if your spoken English is as bad as your written English, I'm not surprised the guy couldn't understand you
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Originally Posted by qball8001,Aug 8 2005, 06:27 PM
Hey I am indian... come on now.
It's just that... when you call tech support in Japan, the people don't speak english... If your offering phone support for something where the most popular language is english, then the support should be in english.... full english..
I understand that this will save the company money and in the end save the user money but that's all
and you know it.. it's all profit.. like it really costs the dsl/cable company 50, 45, 35, or even 20 per person to offer the service.. Sack up, pay minimum wage here, get some more americans jobs and make your customers happier.. Dell sucks on more levels than you know...
But again... we are not trying to offend you. At least I'm not..
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From: Elk Grove
Originally Posted by cyber_x,Aug 10 2005, 07:22 AM
Why would companies want to pay more for the same work when they have a less costly alternative available? Especially when their competitors are doing it? If you're the only one not doing it, then you risk being at a competitive disadvantage.