Overseas call centres

[Shwish]

Why are they often so completely crap and annoying? I don't get it?
If I messaged a call centre that's based in the UK with a question, I'd hope they'd message me back with an answer.
I messaged Argos. My question was simple. I ordered an item and on the order it told me it would be available from 5pm on Thursday (which was the same day).
Got to the store and it wasn't there. So I messaged customer service to ask when it WILL be there.
That's it. That's all I wanted to know.
What I got back was a loooooong message chain of questions (starting with security based ones so fair enough) ending with being told to message via another method - so use WhatsApp rather than chat. Annoying because now I have to start all over again.
So I do this. And have to go through all the questions again. Explain the problem again. Get told item will be available from Monday, even though it was meant to be same day which is WHY I ordered it. Get told there was a problem with the website stock but it's now resolved. Fair enough. I can see the item is available at another close by store so ask if I can amend my order and just collect from there.
Get told and I quote "wait till Monday".
Ask for a manager to have a look and hopefully change my order so I can do this - since this is the whole reason I ordered from Argos rather than Amazon in the first place.
Manager now rings me via WhatsApp. While I'm at work. I never gave permission for them to call me and I'm not meant to take calls at work.
I answer and get told their name and "how are you today. Can you please tell me what is the problem" I tell them I don't have time to talk and I've already.gone through it all on my messages, could they please just read the chain and respond. Then get asked "why are you so harsh. I am just trying to help you. I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is" I told them again it was on the message chain and I can't talk. At which point they told me they don't have to deal with rude people and hung up on me. They have read my WhatsApp messages since but not replied. WTH?
Honestly I won't be dealing with Argos again ever after this but WHY is it so crap? Why can't they just answer a message? Why are they calling? And if they must call, why not read what they're calling about first? And at the very bloody least if they must call and CBA to read the messages first why not at least get straight to the point without all the "how are you today" waffle? It feels like it's actually DESIGNED to be aggravating. OMG it feels good to get that off my chest.

I recently had to contact PayPal over a fraudulent account in my name. I can only message them & that was difficult enough to find. Got an overseas chat message after 24 hours (through PayPal so legit). Half way through they tried to call me, from an international number, without warning. Left a voicemail saying they needed to speak to me.... Because (drumroll) I'd have to give them an authentication code, sent to my mobile from a different site!! Err... No. A financial company asking for me to give them a 2FA code?? Really?

I'm going to call them, from work, because you can only call via a landline, to complain. But, I'll probably get a foreign call centre.

Oh my issue isn't resolved btw. I have neither my item or money.

OP- have you read the argos questions and the ridiculously, convoluted replies from argos staff?

Someone might ask 'What does this weigh?'
Instead of '12kg', the reply will be
'We have looked into your query and have discussed with the manufacturer and can confirm that this item is 12kg!'

BT- I called about a fault, but to get through to any faults people, you go through a barrage of people trying to sign you up to different contracts. Engineer sent out, but fault not fixed- then the ticket online gets closed on their system as resolved. It wasn't. I then had to call again, to yet again speak to multiple people about why I don't want to sign up to another contract. It took 4 engineers and over a month to get it resolved.

I actually wonder if it even saves these companies money in the end. If it ends up taking multiple calls / call outs rather than just one, then surely even if they're paying a fraction of the cost of the wages locally it can't be cost effective? Especially if they end up losing customers over it. I appreciate where they have a monopoly (like the utility companies for example) they wouldn't have to be concerned about customer loyalty.

I work for an agency, and I think their call centres are in India. The accents are so heavy, I can barely understand them. And it's difficult to get your issue across as I don't think they understand what I'm actually trying to tell them.

I spent 40 minutes on a call to Sky yesterday. Couldn't get through to the first person what I wanted so asked to be escalated to someone who did have the authority to discuss. Spoke to second person, same issue so asked to speak to someone about cancelling my services.

Within 8 minutes I not only had a better package with new box but a 40% reduction in my bill. They employed 2 people who couldn't resolve my problem over 32 minutes then one who could, who was based in Wales, almost immediately. My time wasted as well as theirs. Not a good use of anyone's time or their wage bill.

Honestly I actually wonder if it's designed to be annoying and useless to discourage people from calling.

The quality of the lines can also be really poor, I find half the call is me saying “can you say that again, I can’t hear you”

Best experience I had recently was either mums boiler, call centre was in Hull, excellent service, and a clear line.

I assume that chat and WhatsApp responses are generated by AI nowadays. So it will depend on whether the query is one they anticipate. Not helpful if it's not.

The chat one I used started as AI then I got passed to a person. The WhatsApp was a person from the start (a fairly rude one)

I'm American. Apparently Indian call center employees have been told that American customers prefer to speak to American customer service employees. So the Indian reps speak with an obviously fake American accent, which is actually rather offensive. But they're still poorly trained and can't answer most questions.

I usually changer company or service provider if they use overseas call centres.

It's infuriating. They seem to follow a script and whatever you ask them, you get 'the script' back, regardless of whether or not it answers your question. I changed banks from Santander years ago becaue I was sick of not being able to speak to someone in the UK.

Yeah honestly I will never use Argos again. They're pretty crap anyway. The only reason I used them rather than Amazon was because it said I could collect the same day rather than having to wait in for Amazon to deliver the next day. But actually I'd have had the item by now if I'd done that.
Screw you Argos.

Only way we can change things is to vote with our feet. Boycotting companies that outsource to foreign call centres will soon get the message across

I had similar with Vodafone when my home broadband was playing up. 5 or 6 separate calls of over an hour with their technical support over the course of a month, while I repeated the most ridiculous steps because they couldn't accept that I had done the same with their previous colleague a few days earlier. No I don't need to move the router and try again for another week while you monitor the line. That has been the location of my router for 10 years. No I am not using the wrong socket, see answer to the last question. I cried with frustration at one point. Eventually a Geordie man phoned me and agreed I'd had an absolute nightmare and they would let me out of my contract without a penalty - that call took 5 minutes.

@CarolinaWren it's the obviously fake names that get me. Octavia etc.

I had it this week with BT. I communicated with an advisor on chat about a problem I was having, which they eventually resolved but it took ages, their written English was appalling and could have easily been misinterpreted and then all they seemed concerned about was finding out when my mobile contract with another provider ended and getting me to agree to having offers emailed to me. I know they are told to push sales but this person spent more time on that than sorting my actual problem and I've lost count of how many times they asked could they call me by my first name!