Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate Indian call centres

155 replies

Pakdooik · 07/07/2011 09:33

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?

OP posts:
oneofsuesylvesterscheerios · 11/07/2011 16:31

Thanks for the link, niceguy2.

I think the issue is that we're not given a choice, when clearly in the case of Sky, BT, HSBC, etc. they have both Uk and overseas call centres. If I was given the choice and the UK centre was more money, I think I'd make an informed decision, based on my personal experiences and fork out the extra. If you didn't want to, you could stick with the cheaper option.

I think then at least I'd feel completely justified in my rage at poor service without having to run the risk of being called a racist. It is absolutely obvious from the info I've gleaned from this thread and my latest dealings with BT that I've received completely crap customer service, my rage has increased and the problem has not been resolved in any way shape or form. In fact it's been contradictory and very confusing all round = poor service in any language.

jay11111 · 18/06/2013 11:44

The thing that gets on my last nerve is i kno for a fact their name is not lynne or andrew, the guy cant even pronounce his own name its a joke, i kno his mother didnt name him that. so automatically they lying to us from the get go,

NotYoMomma · 18/06/2013 11:58

I work in a Geordie call centre and have been asked for my 'real' name and if I am Indian lol

How I chuckled. I was like 'honestly I am called xx and I'm from Newcastle!'

Then I fixed his issue like a boss

Mimishimi · 19/06/2013 01:03

I can't say I've had any problems when I've called a call center myself about an issue. Generally I've noticed more of a shift to the Philippines of late and they seem to be more effective. We still get lots of cold calls from Indian call centers though and they can be a bit nutty at times (probably to pass the time of day). Generally, I hand the phone over to my six year old who has a speech disorder/delay and he enjoys talking with them. It's good practise for him and sometimes I think they find it diverting as he can be on there for quite a while - telling them what his friends got up to, how many merits he's accumulated this term etc.

I enjoy getting all panicky on the phone about my apparently broken computer when we get the 'Windows Services' calls...'Oh my god... really? What should I do? Please help me fix this". Grin

MrsRickyMartin · 19/06/2013 12:29

Closet racist? I am forrin and still have a forrin accent after years of living here, I have no problems making myself understood, but you have no idea how hard it was to spell my long surname or any other detail to a person working in an Indian call centre, they couldn't understand me and it was hard for me to understand them. It's a nightmare!

I also hate the fact they use fake names, I had to call ASDA and 'Helena' answered the phone. I really wanted to say: 'Helena you ain't, unless you are from Goa Wink

LastTangoInDevonshire · 19/06/2013 12:43

I've just had the 'pleasure' of ringing BT. I got a very well-spoken Indian lady, but she couldn't help me so I threatened to leave BT. I got put through to someone else (English) and it got sorted straight away (with my monthly bill being nearly halved).

jellybeans · 19/06/2013 12:45

YANBU. Virgin media have the same and they are shocking! You get the odd lovely helpful person but many seem to be reading off a card and have no idea.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 19/06/2013 12:47

Nothing like reviving a 2 year old thread with a bit of racism jay11111

Fenton · 19/06/2013 12:47

ZOMBIE THREAD

(there's a lot of it about)

melika · 19/06/2013 12:52

It's when they can't help you and say at the end, 'Thank you, Mrs Melika and is there anything else I can help you with today?'

No thank you as you didn't help me with what I rang you for!!! Doh.

TheRealFellatio · 19/06/2013 12:52

Try spelling a Welsh address to an Indian call centre...oh dear, it's grim for both sides.

Hahahahahaha - yes I can imagine! Grin

TheRealFellatio · 19/06/2013 13:06

I live in the Middle East and I was phoned by an Indian man carrying out a survey for my car dealership service centre. I only agreed to take the call because I thought he was ringing me to book my car in for a service, but as they are so polite and get such a hard time here from so many people I decided to take the survey anyway because I was feeling magnanimous.

O. M. G. it was like pulling teeth. His understanding of English was excellent, but his command of spoken English was a little topsy turvy to say the least, and his accent was SOOO heavy I barely understood a single word he said. He had eleventy billion questions to get through and I was seriously losing the will to live by halfway through, but I was too polite to tell him to stop, for the sake of my sanity, and probably his too, poor bloke.

After the first ten or so questions I started to feel so rude at asking him to repeat everything twice that I gave up and just answered 'yes' to everything. Which worked for a while....

But then he sounded confused, and I realised that the questioning had switched to a 'mark from 1 to 5' so I just answered 5 to everything. Had NO IDEA what I was being asked, only that it somehow related to my car.....But then it got trickier still - he was asking me things that required whole sentence answers, and I was still just randomly blurting out yes, no, 5, 3, ...anything to get the pain over with.

I don't know whose idea it is to put either the customer or the poor hapless employee through this mutual trauma but it really has to stop, for all our sakes.

5Foot5 · 19/06/2013 13:07

SHIT
I have just wasted 20 minutes of my life reading a zombie thread. Why do people resurrect them?

I am looking at you jay11111

JackieTheFart · 19/06/2013 13:08

I work for a high street bank and we have Indian call centres.

TBH as a member of staff I find the UK people to be more rude and less willing to actually do anything, but I do agree some companies don't seem to train their offshore staff - just give them a list of FAQs to read from!

JackieTheFart · 19/06/2013 13:09

FFS! I didn't notice either 5Foot5, although I haven't read the whole thing.

1Veryhungrycaterpillar · 19/06/2013 13:09

Naughty resurrection but is what Jay said racist Fanjo?

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 19/06/2013 13:11

There is a hint of it there as I said.

ChunkyPickle · 19/06/2013 13:15

I don't think it's the Indian callcentre that is the problem, more that the company isn't training properly.

For instance my mobile is with Three, when I called it went through to what I assume was an Indian callcentre who were very helpful (within the limits of their system), scheduled a callback for a week later (they had to wait for an addon to run out before it could be changed), and did what they could in the meantime. To my surprise, they actually called back in the weeks time to let me know that they'd made the change I'd requested now, and ensure everything was alright. I don't think anyone else has ever returned a promised callback!

Another example was when I had moved country and wanted to make a wire transfer to pay my credit card bill. The CSRs native to the country had no idea how to do this, barely knew what a wire transfer was (they were used to cheques - this was Canada btw, not somewhere 3rd world). The Indian reps that I got when I emailed instead were superb though - sent me all the details, and gave me some other options.

All about training and expectations, nothing about where the callcentres were.

1Veryhungrycaterpillar · 19/06/2013 13:22

Hmm, it's just that a lot of my Nigerian friends who work in a IT call centre adopt a more anglicised moniker for our ease

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 19/06/2013 13:23

Yes I am aware of this.

Jays post mocking this was what I found slightly iffy..plus resurrecting the thread.is that Ok.

TheRealFellatio · 19/06/2013 13:28

Some of the big companies in the UK employ fantastically well trained Indian staff with spectacular spoken English - no problem. And especially impressive if they are answering very technical questions on computer help desks in a second or third language. Top notch.

But the little bloke with sketchy English employed in Qatar to work his way through a questionnaire for my car's service centre - another story altogether. Gawd knows how he gets on when he has to speak English with his heavy accent to expats who are French or Italian or Russian, and they are trying to understand him and reply in their own patchy English. The mind boggles at how that conversation might go. Confused

1Veryhungrycaterpillar · 19/06/2013 13:37

It's ok, I just personally get annoyed by this practise as well as I feel patronised by it but on the flip side I do see that it must help some people

Norfolknway · 19/06/2013 13:37

YANBU
I have been charged £12 late payment on my Barclaycard. It is in error, I know this. However, it's not worth the aggro of calling Hmm

I think I'll just pay the £12

TheRealFellatio · 19/06/2013 13:40

Actually where I live there are loads and loads of Asians with English names - they are usually from Kerala, Goa, Sri Lanka and the Philippines and most of them are Christian, and even if they don't speak much English they do have English names. So not always made up as a sales ploy.

1Veryhungrycaterpillar · 19/06/2013 13:43

Do they all work in call centres??