To hate Indian call centres

[Pakdooik]

I've been dealing with BT to sort out a billing problem. When you phone it's a lottery whether you get the UK or India. The Indian staff were extremely polite, extremely friendly and totally effin useless - politely telling me that I was mistaken, that I couldn't speak to a supervisor and that the computer was infallible. That's an hour of my time I won't get back.

The UK staff are reasonably polite, not too friendly and sorted the problem out in five minutes.

Is it to do with not losing face?

The virgin call centre is a nightmare. I am currently going through the complaints process due to their appalling customer service.

I was told by an agent that I hadn't paid my bill (I had, even checked with my bank who confirmed the payment had been received by them), that they didn't have a payments department and that I had lied to them.

I requested to speak to manager due to his attitude, was refused. Was told that I couldn't make a complaint.

I spent the good part of two days on the phone to them trying to get my service restored. Eventually struck gold when I got through to the Scottish call centre. The agent couldn't have been more helpful. She identified the issue and fixed everything during that call.

I now refuse to speak to the Indian call centre.

Lloyds TSB, on the other hand, are a dream to speak to as their call centre is in Glasgow (5miles from my house!) and are so nice and helpful.

Conversation between DH and BT call centre employee:

"Don't lie to me. You're not going to have my internet back up and running tonight are you? In fact there's more chance of Jeremy Beadle turning up in my living room telling me this is all a joke than there is of you getting my internet back up and running tonight, isn't there? And he's dead."

That was after 2 weeks and several hours on the phone trying to get the internet we'd had with them for 4 months up and running again after they cancelled our internet saying we didn't have an account with them.

They said we needed to contact our old provider to get the code with them.

They wouldn't have it that they were our old supplier!

Totally agree about the awful Aviva people and their Indian telephone operators.

Not only did they utterly fail to sort out my problem but the I lost count number of times I had to ask their people to repeat themselves because their accents were so difficult to understand.

Although, I have to admit one of them did say she could not cope with my accent!

My poor friend who lost her husband a few weeks ago is having an awful time with call centers.

She rings to say husband has passed away, can his card be cancelled, they insist on speaking to him......she's going what part of 'hes dead' don't you understand.

One even tried to get her to take on a credit card in her own name.

Not one offered any sympathy or condolences.. which is my view is pretty poor.

ITs so annoying I phone up my bank to talk about a direct debit (Indian Call centre) she didnt even sort it out but tried to sell me insurance I was on the phone 20 mins telling her 'No I dont want the bloody insurance'
In the end she put me thorugh to someone English to finalise the insurance (dont know why Im still on the phone at this point but feel harsh putting phone down)
When I get through to the English bank I tell them I dont want it and they accept it and put the phone down .
Its a nightmare I hate phoning my bank and I love the way if they want to sell you something you can speak to an English person but as soon as I want to talk about MY money I have to speak to a foreign person!

My husband had a recent problem with BT; bought one of those new Desire handset thingies, read the instructions carefully, switched it on and started using it. A month later almost £400 of charges for phone usage. Apparently, as soon as the thing is switched on it will default to every BT service going... weather, clock, the lot.

He was going to pay it when he couldn't get any sense from BT, just payment deands but I suggested Otello as the next stage. Six weeks later and it's all sorted, BT had to wipe the bill and pay compensation for loss of use. I've been through Otello before with a problem from O2, they really do seem to work for the consumer and put things right.

A little bit of good news for those of us hacked off with trying to deal with Indian call centres.

i work for an outsourcing company and we were one of the first outsourcers to have our own offshore (india) operation, which wasn't a separate indian company.

however, i DREAD calling our own IT helpdesk as it is based in india and is appalling. all the people who don't make the grade for customer facing desks end up on our internal desk. so you can just imagine what it's like.

and over and over again i go to see customers and they complain about the service from offshore. mostly that they can't understand the callers, but also that there is a cultural attitude that it is not the done thing to admit that you don't know. so they will sit on things rather than escalate or pass them on.

oh and - it is DEFINITELY not cost effective to have indians in the UK working in call centres, so to the poster who said that is what BT is doing - let me tell you, they won't be doing it as a matter of course. it is actually as expensive to have an offshore resource onshore as it is to pay an onshore resource to do the work... and you can only have them in the UK working for a set period of time and to do particular types of work. let me tell you, the whole work permit thing is a NIGHTMARE to organise, when you need people to come onshore to do knowledge transfer...

I DREAD calling BT. I can't hear them due to a bad phone line, I can't understand them due to their strong accents. They can't pronounce my name or address. They have to go through the same script even though I've rung them goodness knows how many times about the SAME THING. They won't deal with the problem, they won't pass you to someone who can, you go around and around in blardy circles, and still end up with the same UNRESOLVED problem. I like call centres with lovely clear speaking, happy and sensible staff....SMEG for example!

I love Indian call centres. THe Norton AntiVirus people have a lovely one. They are extremely knowledgeable and helpful and I always have lovely conversations about India with them as I spent 2 months there once

I just want to speak to someone who can help. I don't actually care where they are. India has much better customer service that the UK, ime...

I use the phrase "Indian Call Center" to simply mean a foreign one. They are usually over in the Indian part of the world and I'm not clever enough to work out exactly which country they are in from the faint accent the operatives have. It is not, for me, a reflection of the Indian race nor is it racist.

The fact remains that you do often get worse service from the foreign call centres than you do from a UK based one where they seem more able to refer your problem elsewhere if they can't deal with it.

For those of you with broadband problems, try this:

Internet Service Providers Association

ISPs seriously do not like getting the wrong side of the ISPA. I have a broadband/landline bundle. After two weeks without a land line and getting the runaround from the overseas call centre, including being lied to, I googled on (ISP) CRAP which turned up the organisation. Within two days I had my landline back (the problem was with the socket in my flat); an engineer called and fitted a new one.

As an ex techie I can sort out most problems myself but if I have to call the helpline I make sure they know this! As already stated, often the ISP will not pay for proper techies so you get poor sods working from a script, who aren't trained to do real first line support. I feel rather sorry for them.

Just heard on the news that Santander are closing their Indian call centres and moving them back to the UK because of customer complaints!

Jeely - I just opened this thread to write about my awful experience with Santander call centres and heard the same news.

In my case I found a totally different attitude to the problems I was having and I think it boiled down to the complete lack of empathy that the Indian staff displayed. The UK staff, whilst not able to offer anything additional to the Indian staff, could at least see why I was frustrated, they could admit that their system could be better and were sympathetic to my complaint.

Funnily enough my problem was finally sorted out by a staff member with an Indian name and a broad Yorkshire accent who I'm guessing wasn't based in Delhi.

Don't have time to read the whole thread but we've recently had loads of problems with BT broadband including Indian call centre workers telling complete lies in order to fob us off e.g. the people who we bought our house from had phoned in the last week to request keeping the line until June - they'd moved out in April and were in Bulgaria at the time of the alleged request! Anyway, my top tip is to get on Twitter (it does have a use) and whinge on there. You then end up dealing with a British team who were really helpful.

I had no broadband last week and rang them, one and a half hours later no joy and I was told that a tech person would ring me the next day. India/Suffolk rang next day, connected my laptop to David Wilson their tech guy supposedly in London, three hours, aggghh, later I thought great he has mended it .The next day no contact list and certain other things missing,so I rang again and was connected quite quickly through to my new friend David Wilson ,so I was on the phone to India and on the laptop you don`t actually talk, you message the tech guy on screen.As he is whizzing the curser around a voice said on the phone can you tell me where the problem is[An Indian voice]" I thought David Wilson in London was sorting it out",I said, he had to be the least possible person to be called David Wilson,it turned out that this guy was sorting it out,I wondered whether they think you will trust them more if they have an English name.
I have never had anyone be rude to me and they did sort out my problem ,but I do sometimes have a big problem understanding what they are saying. I feel awful asking them to keep repeating what they have said especially as you are often on the phone to them for an hour or more.excuse waffle.

Oh lord, BT and their call centre! At our old house our internet constantly dropped out, sometimes for a couple of days at a time. Given that we lived practically on top of one of the local servers we were supposed to have brilliant internet.

After the longest internet-less stint of a Friday to Monday I made the mistake of calling their call-centre. Some of the high points of the 54 minute conversation:

No I will not get a screwdriver and remove the socket.
No, I am really not going to do that.
Let's just imagine I don't have any screwdrivers in the house and move onto the next part of the script.
OK, fine. I don't know how what a screwdriver is. I am that stupid. Please now move on to the part of your script dealing with really stupid people because that is me.

Yes, I have turned it off and on again.

Yes, that is my baby crying. No it is not funny. Why are you laughing?

(47 minutes into the conversation). NO! I am not in bloody Northern Ireland! What part of the 0208 dialling code are you not noticing? If you think I am in Northern Ireland that might bloody well explain why I have no broadband - you are clearly sending it to the wrong bloody country!

After this particularly fun experience we did in fact establish that there was a fault with the local server. This did not stop them ringing me back for another stint the next day:

Hello, KFP, are you near your computer?
No, I am on a train.
So you are at home then.
No, I don't live on the train. Do you?

Arses!

It sounds like me trying to explain the situation that caused a three-way shunt to someone in Bangalore who clearly didn't understand that well how roads are set out in the UK. Years before, I had the same problem with explaining why I couldn't get at the meter box in our house - he would not have it that it was an old house, and for some reason, the box had been mounted right up on a wall out of my sight. I gave up and got DH to deal with it later in the end, as he could see the box if he stood on a chair.
There was a whole side-conversation about stepladders as well. I couldn't find ours (mainly because I was trying to talk on the phone at the same time) and I was not going to take the operator's suggestion of going and buying one.

I had to call BT (phone not broadband service) and the NE England accented lass I spoke to was very helpful. She didn't know the answer to one of the questions I asked but found out for me. I couldn't fault her.
I don't have BT broadband though and wouldn't change to them because of the negative publicity their customer service gets (and Marcus Brigstocke)

I hate useless callcenters wherever they are. I end up trying desparately to stop the red mist descending every time I have to ring the council, and they're only ten miles down the road. However, judging by the accent of their agents, my internet provider's tech support is very far away indeed but they're very helpful and knowledgeable and have so far fixed my problem every time. I think it's more of a training and company culture issue than a location one.

I used to find myself frustrated when I got through to an Indian call centre for many of the reasons cited, but then I watched Slumdog (I know - it's only a film, but people really do live like that!) That helps me to get things in perspective before I break out into frustrated arsey customer and I try harder to be patient and polite when things aren't being sorted out.

I have dealt with all manner of call centres for all manner of issues. Actually rarely India, usually UK. And they are all f*ing useless! They all sound very polite and helpful until you discover that they haven't actually done any of the things they told you and and there are all kinds of additional charges that weren't mentioned. And you only find out when the treatening letters still come, or by accident, or by some stupidly outrageous bill etc etc. On the list:
BT
Orange
British Gas
N Power
O2
Virgin

What is more frustrating is that you can't do anything about it! You can't boycott every useless company because they are all shit. And it when you move from one to another the problems get even worse!

moan moan moan

Sausagesarenottheonly THE BT CALL CENTRE IS NOT IN INDIA!!!
It is actually in Suffolk.

They may well have a single call centre in Suffolk but I can assure you that the call centre for BT Broadband is in India, in fact I even know the town, its called Tunai, not sure if this is spelled right though. I was on first name terms with "Jim" and "Bob" from there and all the rest of them giving fake British names to give you the impression the call centre was in the UK.

Callcentres for BT broadband were all based in India and call centres for Bt landlines are based in the UK. 4 years ago I had the misfortune of this taking over my life for months, as we had BT landline, broadband and home hub. Probles galore with reception, connection - landline phone went worse than useless and internet connection had a mind of its own, unfortunately this affected our phone using the internet phone line - if the connection went down, so did your phone call!!

It took the Tunai call centre 3 months to accept there was a problem as they kept insisting that when they tested it the line was "fine". It took another 3 months of calls, tears, cancelled engineer visits, useless engineer visists ( I hate the sight of Open Reach vans with a passion now) - all arranged from India before we got anywhere. And thats because someone somewhere in a British call centre that had nothing to do with BT broadband took pity on me sobbing down the phone and got their manager to get involved.

To cut a long story short after 8 months I had a phone and working broadband. Thanks to the ineptitude of the Indian call centre (far too many boring and horrendous details to detail here) I wrote a 10 page complaint letter and eventually received £500 compensation - every British call centre worker I spoke to said it was the worst case of customer service they had ever seen.

Not surprising I left BT and will never go back as long as they have their Broadband call centre in India. Its not racism, I couldnt face the stress we suffered due to it all thanks to the cheapskate managerial staff of BT thinking poorly trained but cheap workers who cant deviate from a script can possibly sort out anything.