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?

I know verylittlecarott has left this thread no but accusing people of racism
just becuase they have problems with Indian call centres and are complaining is not really helpful.

Yes you get bad service from UK based customer service depts, however bad service is made so much worse if the person you are speaking to does not speak good English, and most dont, and not only that have very little understanding of the UK and its geography (try trying to explain where the sodding Isle of Wight is to someone who has never even BEEN to the UK)

My Dad was barred by his bank from calling them as they said he had been rude to their call centre, he wasnt (I was in the same room as him when he rang) but he is elderly and deaf and does not speak to many Indians so did not understand what was being said and got upset and frustrated, argue with some of these people and they yell racism and you get banned its just not on. Took me a few phone calls and the promise of media attention to get his bank to lift the ban.

This thread has been on my mind for days so I wanted to return for one last attempt to explain my position.

Here is what I said "I dislike the current trend that makes it acceptable for otherwise completely non-racist people to declare "I hate Indian call centres". Sweeping generalisations are prone to be very unfair."

I stand by that. A person may be non-racist. They may have had exclusively crap service from every Indian call centre they have dealt with. But if they conclude that EVERY INDIAN call centre is crap, then they are being unfair.

I too have had dreadful service from various call centres, some in India, some at my local council. I am not immune from frustration.

But ALL Indian call centres are NOT crap. And the idea that they are poor quality and cheap is nasty and ignorant. The ones I worked with were incredible. The companies cared for and looked after their people. The buildings were state of the art, the technology surpassed British standards, the teams were nurtured and developed, they had intensive ongoing training, amazing facilities, they went on team-building weekends, shared lunchtimes together in the fantastic rooftop company restaurant, they were transported to their doors by the company minibus at the end of each shift, which was a big factor in parents supporting their sons and daughters in working there. There was tremendous pride and ambition, and salaries were very competitive. They did not engage in practices such as lying about where the call centre was, and did not pretend to be British citizens with British names.
These companies were working to achieve six sigma accreditation, an international recognition of quality.

They wanted, more than anything to be part of a process improving the fate and status of India, to make it a global player, to make their lives better and to make India a better place. They were proud of their achievements, rightfully so.
I was humbled to work with these people and these companies. There was a huge amount I learned about how we could do business better.
So, yes, when I hear that programmes such as these have shut down, and brilliant people have lost jobs, not because of poor performance, but because the popular British consensus is that "ALL Indian call centres are crap" and British clients are too nervous to do business with ANY Indian call centre, BECAUSE THEY ARE INDIAN, I am more than upset.

Maybe the vast majority of our experiences have been negative. Fine, I can accept that.

But to generalise and add to the climate of negativity around the call centres of an entire nationality is unfair. Good people have probably lost jobs, because of this general negativity.

I have had some good experiences with foreign call-centres but, mostly, I have had crap customer service. They tend to be very polite, well educated but pretty useless and unable/unwilling to solve the problem.

If a company has call centres based in the UK then I am much more likely to use them.

I agree it's a bit crap to say 'I hate Indian call centres' - how could you say all of them are bad without being racist?

I do think, though, that some stupid mistakes are made with customer training - a problem both my mum and I have had is when we try to explain that we are trying to sort out phone problems and the phone bill is paid from a joint account, we were both told that only our husbands could deal with the problem. Neither of us could manage to get across what the principle of a joint account is - they just kept repeating that the account was in Mr So-and-so's name and he had to call. This is despite the fact I'm first-named account holder on mine and DH has never had anything to do with setting up the phone direct debit.

I would guess that might be a cultural issue (I'm not sure?), but certainly it was an issue with that specific call centre in India.

I tried to cancel my nearly ending contract with 3 I got through to an Indian Call centre and I got so wound up I told them to fuck off.

They are rude, and not at all knowledgeable. When I ring again tomorrow night I am going to insist on speaking to someone in the UK.

Sausages , there are multiple BT contact centres all over the UK, in India and the Philippines.

Non-uk call centres do make stressful situations worse, especially if you have a strong regional accent yourself. If you call BT / Sky et al, always choose either the option to move home or to leave. This will get you to a UK call centre.
The biggest issue with call centres, (I have worked in them) is the lack of proper training and unreasonable targets and rules put in place that do not actually benefit the customer. Example: Vodafone call centre, the team leaders will NEVER come on the phone it's always 'request a call back'. Vodafone also like to keep calls to the shortest possible time, they are more interested in that than helping the customer. I made the mistae of working for them, and always got frustrated customers because the technical help option usually took them through to Egypt, and complicated the situation further.
It's not about race, it's about meeting customer needs. Being able to communicate easily with customers is a must, and confusion generally reigns supreme wherever there is a language barrier. Having Uk call centres still allows for problems, but they tend to be easier to resolve in my experience. If it were the other way around, and you lived abroad, you would not expect the same level of English from the call centre in that country.

While we're on a rant though... customer stupidity can take some beating! Have had some classics.
Them: "Do you have any offers on accommodation at the moment?"
Me: "The only current offer is 3 nights for the price of 2. So a 3 night stay will cost X"
Them: "So how much is it for 2 nights then?"

When I worked for a bank call centre, one guy said he wouldn't need to bring ID to withdraw £5k, as he had his name written in his coat ( I kid you not!)

"I am at the airport, and my tickets say Arrecife on them, but I want to go to Alicante. You've made a mistake"
me:"But you made the booking yourself online sir?"
"Yes, but you've sent me the wrong tickets"
He had booked them himself incorrectly, and had the tickets in his possession for THREE weeks without noticing what he had done.

Just a couple of examples... and all without a non-uk call centre in sight!

Sorry I havent read the whole thread so this may have already been mentioned, but do any of you use say no to 0870? There are direct dial UK numbers for many companies to be found. I've found it really useful....

Don't blame the poor staff, blame the ridiculous scripts! Try this Sky loop my poor DH found himself in last week:

SKY call centre, India: yes Mr F, I can see you have problem with your HD that we have not resolved (after more than 10 calls). I am referring you to the backhand team who will call you within 72 hours and sort you out.

DH backhand team?
SKY yes Sir, Backhand Team.
DH (suspiciously) and they will sort the problem?
SKY guaranteed, sir. The backhand team will call you in 72 hours and they will sort your problem out, ok.
DH what if they don't call?
SKY the backhand team will call in 72 hours sir.
dH But what if they DON'T call?
SKY the team will call you in 72 hours...

...this is repeated a few more times, until SKY understands the question....

SKY If no one has called you within 72 hours then call us here please and we will sort it out.
DH what will you do?
SKY you call us if no one calls, and we can refer you to the backhand team who will call you within 72 hours.

I kid you not.

Sounds like the HSBC one. Lots of repetition.

Going back to my car insurance claim nightmare, I do not think it is wise to have claim handlers dealing with people who might be angry, stressed or frightened, when the handlers' understanding of a) spelling and b) idiomatic English is limited.

Yeah, scripts are a problem. According to friends who're Indian, they're not allowed to change language either, so if you can't understand their accent and ask to switch to Hindi or whatever, they're not allowed to say yes. Seems daft to me.

I really hate it when I can't understand an accent - there's not a lot you can do. I had a really long conversation with a man where I kept saying 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch that ... no, I'm sorry, I can't understand you ... sorry, can you pass me over to someone else'. I could hear he was repeating the same phrase back to me, getting more and more annoyed, but I honestly couldn't work out what it was. Eventually I worked out he was saying 'My English is excellent'.

He must've thought I was taking the piss - crap situation for him but crap for me too, really!

I had poor service from the BT Broadband call centre and it was the reason I left.

However the most frustrating call centre experience I've had is with Student Finance England. In Darlington or Glasgow depending where your call gets directed. It's bloody horrendous, there's no alternative and they seriously piss me off pretty much every time I pick up the phone to them.

Sorry verylittlecarrot

I dont care what facilities they have I dont care where they eat and how they get to work, I just want them to help me with a query, with enough English to understand what I am asking about.

I want to ask them if they deliver to the Isle of Wight and if so is it extra without having to spend 20 minutes explaining where the IOW is and the fact that their courier will have to get a boat to go over the water to deliver to me and no for the 4th time I am not in IRELAND I am on an ISLAND.

And as for people losing their jobs because of the BRITISH conception that all Indian centres are crap thats total and utter rubbish and YOU speak about unfairness jeeez.

I know people who live in the USA and Australia who have to deal with Indian call centres and who also have the same concerns as people in the UK.

I have a Polish friend who speaks good English enough to live and work over here but she detests Indian call centres she cant understand a word they say.

I am assuming that you are British yourself, if not you have made an incredibly racist comment by saying only British people have these misconceptions and have caused these companies to close with loss of jobs

As I mentioned earlier, I work in this industry and have been involved in setting up call centres in India, Egypt, Manila...in other words, most of the popular countries.

Whilst a lot of you can sit here slagging off the "indian" call centres and say things like "I got so wound up I told them to fuck off." that the other side of the coin is that many of these agents are paid a fraction of what the average UK person is and take stream after stream of calls from customers, many of whom are simply rude.

99 times out of 100, the agents are not being rude or purposely unhelpful. They are bound by the stupid rules set for them. So in that context it's a bit unfair to be rude and tell them to "fuck off". And trust me, plenty of people seem to think it's perfectly acceptable.

No wonder then why a growing number of Indian's seem to think that westerner's are rude and obnoxious.

I don't blame people for disliking the indian call centres because of the accent issue. It's about as racist as me saying I don't like calling call centres based in Birmingham because their accent depresses me!

But if you are not happy, please think before you launch into a tirade of abuse at the poor employee who is being paid a shit wage to work long hours because he must feed his family. Write/email to the management, vote with your feet. But there really should be no reason to swear at people doing their best to help.

to be fair I think of all the posts on this thread there was only one where someone admitted they'd told the person at the other end of the phone to fuck off... I don't think that's acceptable either; it's ignorant and rude.

I am in the middle of writing to BT (for all the good it will do) and am not in position to 'vote with my feet'... where/who to? Sky? No, for obvious reasons. talktalk? Worse than BT if PIL's experiences are anything to go by. Virgin? no cable in our area...

My own BT problem has still not been resolved (surprise surprise), hence the email to them (after 2 reboots this afternoon alone due to incoming phone calls)

I left BT because of the Indian call centres & the useless faffing response you get.
The final straw for me was when I was trying to explain I had been incorrectly billed and the woman kept misunderstanding me, at one point I said 'I don't think you quite understand' at which she hung up on me, I changed supplier that week, just utterly had it!

Barclays also have Indian call centres and generally I have noticed that if anything needs to be done they transfer you to an english call centre, why don't you just go thro to an English call centre in the first place. I'm hardly likely to be calling the bank to engage in light banter. I only ever call them when I need practical help which I cannot deal with myself

I had an awful time with 3 when trying to get my mobile pac code to move to O2 , I resorted to repeating over and over "Please give me my PAC code" in an ever increasing volume until I was practically screaming down the phone.

Someone mentioned Sky - if it is a problem with broadband visiting skyuser forums before phoning - they are a mine of information and the best times to phone Sky to get the Scottish call centres is 6am and after 10pm

Last time I dealt with a call centre, for Barclays Bank, it was in India, about a problem we'd had with a cheque.

I just about understood the guy I was speaking to, and I'm well travelled, have good hearing, speak excellent English and have a law/languages degree and good communication is a large part of my job. I had to keep repeating back what he was saying, basically translating it into recognisable English rather than the strange textbook English/call centre script he was reading from, and by the end of the call, I just about knew where I stood.

Imagine how hard that would have been for someone hard of hearing, with a less than average grasp of English or a strong regional accent.

Businesses want call centres, most customers don't. Most customers would rather deal with a local individual and not have to speak to a different person each time. So having a call centre abroad is even worse, it's even less personal plus the language barrier on top of that.

just spent THREE HOURS trying to get my internet fixed. belkin routers, based somewhere forrin, possibly india/philippines/malaysia not sure.
had the first person i spoke to heard me when i asked why the light was showing as wireless rather than wired (cable was plugged in) rather than giggled and stuck to her script, it would have taken one hour to sort out.

oneofsuesylvesterscheerios Try Sam Knows and see who serves your area.

Personally i'm a HUGE fan of BEThere. They might have their call centres in Bulgaria but I can understand them and crucially they don't have stupid scripts. They have experts who understand what the heck they are talking about.

The problem with call centres who use scripts is that they are using them to replace knowledge and expertise. In my experience, they replace neither.

Businesses want call centres, most customers don't. Most customers would rather deal with a local individual and not have to speak to a different person each time. So having a call centre abroad is even worse, it's even less personal plus the language barrier on top of that.
Yes but how many people would pay for it? For example, I had a bank account which I paid a tenner each month for. I didnt use any of their services but for some time I kept it because I knew if I called, I'd always be put through to a UK call centre. Ultimately though in these tough times I couldn't justify the 120quid a year just to speak to a UK person IF I needed them.

It also reminds me of years ago when I built computers. Each week me & fellow geeks would sit at the local distributors for literally hours waiting for our gear whilst slagging off the guy who ran the place for the rubbish customer service. Then one day I spoke to the man himself. And he was very candid. He tried it (good customer service). But people weren't coming to him for good customer service....they were coming to him cos he was cheap. And he was right. The following week, we'd be back! All sat there, all grumbling!

So yes we may moan about how we hate indian call centres but most of the time what we REALLY care about is cost.

So yes we may moan about how we hate indian call centres but most of the time what we REALLY care about is cost.

It doesn't make something cheaper to the customer because there is a call centre, it may mean there is more profit for the shareholders though.

Banks used to operate perfectly well, in fact probably a lot better, years ago when people could ring up individual branch staff. They probably had higher costs and didn't make as much profit, but customers weren't paying £10 a month for the privilege of speaking to a human being.

My point is that we might moan about the crap service we may or may not get from the call centre but more often than not we are more concerned over cost.

Case in point is last weekend. My neighbour spent a hair pulling 2 hours on the phone to the Indian call centre, Sky use. Before finally coming to me in desperation. I diagnosed very quickly his router was broke. Cue another hour from me trying to get the guy off the script and telling him the router was broken. It wasn't responding and my spare one worked! Then cue a 72 hour wait for another team to call him back who obviously did not. Eventually he called up, another saga along with them trying to charge him for a new router until they relented and sent him one free. With another 4-5 days delay before receiving one.

So after that complete debacle of customer service, will he move to another company with better service like mine? Nope. He's paying a fiver a month! He'll put up with the service for that price.