Indian Staff Quit over Abuse on the Line

[taleya.livejournal.com]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1494871,00.html


...am I the only one thinking "Welcome to our world, my friends...."?

Sorry guys, but you don't have to be Indian to get the crap abused out of you.

Comments

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

Oi.

Yeah, try to gloss it over.
"They're just upset because of the outsourcing and they're taking it out on us!"

Guess what? It's tech support. It's call-center.
My fiance is a Delta Reservations Rep.
He gets laughed at, yelled at, sworn at, etc, all the time because people don't get what they want. And he's 100% American.

It ain't because you're foreign, buddy. It's because you're customer service and about 70% of the population of the world thinks customer service people are there to be their asswipe.

Learn to deal.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

ayup.

In Australia we have a lot of Indians and Asians working in our callcentres. Why? Because they come down here to study, and it's work that pays.

People generally don't blink when they hear an Asian or Indian voice on the phone down here in Melbourne.. but they'll abuse ya all the same.

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

We've got a New Zealander and an Austrialian in our call-center. They don't get treated badly, fortunately (heck, amusingly enough, we often get 'Uhhh, the guy I spoke to had an... Australian accent, I think? Can I talk to him again?'

But anyway, we all get abused, same as the rest, and yes, it's infurating, and I often, being female, get 'Can I talk to tech support?', but I don't leave crying (I did break down once, but that's another story and was a jackass businessman who could not accept that /I/ was not the person who could handle his issue, no matter what he believed) or quit because "they're just so mean to me!">

[bekscilla.livejournal.com]

I'm in Melbourne, and we get a few people who think that, because of the company I work for, any indian people means we must be in India. Some guy even tried to tell me that the helpdesk I've been on for 2 1/2 years is in India.

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

It's not even that they're from India, or that jobs are being outsourced over there. It's the fact that they usually don't know what they're talking about and are reading off a script. I try to be as nice as I can but it just gets aggravating. It's not any worse than when a customer calls OUR office on a busy day and is put through to a sales rep who's just working the tech phones for the day. When I call somewhere for support, I want someone who has firsthand experience with the product, not someone who is reading something that feeds them the next question/answer combination.

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

Bingo!

I get a lot of people who ask me: "Do you really know this, or do you just have screens telling you what to say?"

And it makes me proud that I can say: "Yes, m'am/sir, I do actually know what I am talking about."

They hire people with a tech background where I work, and then put us through 3 weeks of training (1 week classroom/listening, 1 week classroom/typing, 1 week classroom/talking, then the 4th week we're "sort of" on our own while doing everything with the trainer watching over our shoulders). This is to make sure we know what we're doing. If you call in with a strange issue, chances are I'm going to be able to go 'Ok, let's figure this out.

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Bingo!

I get a lot of people who ask me: "Do you really know this, or do you just have screens telling you what to say?"

And it makes me proud that I can say: "Yes, m'am/sir, I do actually know what I am talking about."

They hire people with a tech background where I work, and then put us through 3 weeks of training (1 week classroom/listening, 1 week classroom/typing, 1 week classroom/talking, then the 4th week we're "sort of" on our own while doing everything with the trainer watching over our shoulders). This is to make sure we know what we're doing. If you call in with a strange issue, chances are I'm going to be able to go 'Ok, let's figure this out. <question, question, question> Ah! Bingo. That's it. Do this....'

[255-255-255-0.livejournal.com]

AW HAHAHAHAHA Welcome to the 21st century.
Put up or shut-up I say. If they outsource support calls to other countries they need to be ready for the S*#T that comes with it.

[kallell.livejournal.com]

And as for racism, If i cant understand you, it doesnt matter how helpful you are.
Its simple communication, a skill lacking to do the job

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Heh. Maybe we could get jobs in cultural retraining. Get paid $70/h to teach Indians how to stop being polite and start telling the caller to go chew on themselves.

[klytus.livejournal.com]

This might be more difficult than it sounds. In one of my most recent Tech Calls, I spoke to a lady from India working for the sales force we support in America. While her system was rebooting, we started chatting and she told me how puzzled she was when an American first told her to "Talk to the hand." He had to tell her that he was being rude to her. As she tells the story, Indians are always polite, so polite it is to the point that they never say what the really mean. For example: "I have the perfect wife," when the truth is, "She's sleeping with every man in town!" or "I have wondeful children," when everyone knows they are utter hellions. The lady I was speaking too was only able to fully adapt after 4 years of college in the States.

[pixeltwist.livejournal.com]

I know for a fact in my callcenter, which is in Ohio, we've had Indian people quit because of abuse. A woman in my training class who was probably better at the job than I am (and I like to think I'm pretty good) would constantly get hung up on or be asked to transfer or would get asked where she was located, which is in Ohio.

I had someone call in to HSI support because they didn't want to talk to Indian reps for HP because she didn't want to give them her personal information. She flat out told me she 'didn't trust those people with her personal information'. I wouldn't have helped that bitch if I could have.

I don't think this is because of outsourcing to other countries. Xenophobia is the correct word. I have some problems understanding heavy accents, espically Indian ones, but people have to make a living and outsourcing is a fact of the world. Everything in our lives is 'outsourced', but as long as we don't have to see it face to face or talk to it, it's A-OK.

People are still racist. Just that it's not whites vs. blacks anymore so no one really seems to care that much.

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

*sighs* Let me throw it down this way ...

I've had to go through HP Tech Support before to deal with some matters, as thier website support is designed along the lines of 'Provide no help'.

I absolutely cannot withstand deceitful practices, such as a person re-named "Jeff" who has a shaky grasp of english at best, for starters. The fact that he's reading scripts to me trying to troubleshoot a modem while I'm simply trying to get a set of XP Drivers that aren't on the main support pages for a digital camera REALLY pisses me off. He has to go to a SUPERVISOR just to look in the FTP and forward me the drivers after 20 minutes of me saying "OK, umm, dude, I am a damn tech, I know there's nothing wrong with my modem, especially since I am talking about hooking up an HP Digital Camera to a hand-built system."

I have a very good tolerance for end-user stupidity. I have a reputation as having bhudda-nature when dealing with end-users, of all backgrounds. Yet I will be the first person to say "And keep on abusing these idiots". Do you know why? I haven't YET hit a tech out there who had a clue. I'm not going to say "call and harrass", I'm going to wait until they can prove to me that they're just bumbling through a job I could SLEEPWALK through with far better results.

It doesn't matter to me if it's the HP idoits in India or in Iowa, if I wind up talking to a tech with no clue I am honestly going to wonder why I had to change careers so THEY could have a job that they're not even qualified for.

As anyone who knows me will say, I am the single most live-and-let-live guy there is to work with. I treat everyone equally regardless of race, origin, gender, etc. I sometimes have to ask people to repeat themselves a little more slowly if they have a thick accent, but I'm not rude about it.

If they can't hire the quality of support staff I expect, they need to realize I am going to join in the effort to drive OFF the low quality support staff. I can't exactly do anything else about it. Neither can any OTHER well-trained, well-versed support staffer in the US or the UK. I admit, I expect to be able to call up, speak to someone who actually knows the hardware in question, who is capable of adjusting thier pace to the type of user on the phone - "OK, this guy has a clue and a half, he's done the basic troubleshooting, I can safely skip the scripts and start asking the questions to narrow down the request" or even not ASK any questions beyond "What camera are you trying to find drivers for?", as "Is your computer plugged in?" "Is your computer's modem plugged into the phone line?" are not very helpful in my case - and get the issue resolved on, at worst, the SECOND try.

And I don't get that from outsourced tech support, unless it's Canadian.

[fenchurchly.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, it has nothing to do with racisim. People are angry because corporations are taking away jobs from Americans (or the British) by outsourcing. It doesn't matter if the jobs were going to China, Russia, or Japan - people are still going to be pissed off.