[Closed] Indian call centres

Not at all, makes you human!
Treat it as a game and do everything you can to get them to deviate from their script...what's the weather like?...did you see Corrie last night?...that Susannah Reid on Strictly, she's a bit of alright etc.

Having worked downstairs from one in Cumbria I wouldn't want to have to deal with them either. When Call Centre's were being dropped into every [s]dump[/s] up and coming shithole I found it hard enough to understand the UK's extreme accents 🙂

I generally find the problem is not the nationality of the person on the phone but that they cannot do what you want or have the authority do anything.

Does this make me racist...

I don't know, does it?

I hate having to use them - some of the operators are fine but often their English isn't [i]quite[/i] good enough and this combined with the often poor lines makes for a frustrating experience.

I talk about cricket and say my name is Javinder.
I like to join in with the false bon homie.

I used to work for a support line for a banking service... We had a brilliant girl who worked for us who was born in india then moved to scotland, so she had impeccable english but a bit of an accent. About once a week some total fanny would go mad when talking to her, "I can't believe I'm talking to some *ing indian call centre". She would say "No really, I'm in Sighthill in Edinburgh". They would say "yeah? What's the view like out the window." And she would say "We don't have any windows, which kind of sucks, we work in a basement". and so on. "What was the football score?" "I really don't care, Scottish football is awful"

And after a wee bit more, she would pass the call onto myself as the official most bad tempered most scottish person, and I'd have a bit of fun with them til they either apologised, hung up, or we banned them from our service. Couple of them insisted I was faking though, they were the best. The joke was, Zav was one of our best staff, but people would just refuse to speak to her.

Anyway. The problem isn't foreign call centres, there are excellent foreign call centres... The problem's bad quality lines, bad training, and unsuitable staff. Of which, there is a lot. But there are bloody awful UK call centres too. If I had to work in an actual call centre, I'd be a total * to everyone.

I am not sure we would notice the change 😉

You're probably right. But I'd do it on purpose rather than due to my personality defects.

Does this make me racist...

No, it makes you a cock.

They're just people trying to earn an honest wage. It doesn't matter what country they're in or anything else. Get over it.

They're all actually based in Norfolk and put on the fake accents and lack of comprehension because it's the only thing that gets them through the day and because they loved the film Slumdog Millionaire. Blame Danny Boyle.

noticed on a couple of websites recently that rather than give a contact number or email address you are invited to join their "on line community" provided you've read the FAQ first - so a self opinionated nerd who can't spell who isn't employed by the company can make really useful suggestions at some vague future point in your lifetime

Call centres are located where there's a good source of cheap labour which is why theres loads in Liverpool, Wales, Newcastle, Scotland and India.

Wait till we start getting loads of eastern bloc countries hosting call centres.

I mind we outsourced our IT support to india

Within 6 months we rehired most of the IT folk we paid off. Was a belter.

Got to the point where folks were getting stuck in a pepetual loop with the scripts. Alot of complaints were made.

I've nothing against Indians of course, having worked with many of them and people from all over the world; but I do have something against certain Indian companies and business practices.

Many IT jobs and even call centre jobs are seen as high status and lucrative, so there's a lot of competition. And there's a lot of competition among the companies for Western business. So there are some pretty fast business practises going on I think. In IT at least there's a 'loophole' in Indian employment law that means if an employee is working overseas (ie not in India) permanently then employment regulations don't apply, so they can really screw them over with their terms. No sick pay, no holiday pay, no overtime etc etc.

I've no idea what it's like in call centres but from what I've heard on documentaries etc it's a bit cut-throat, which would explain why the people with whom I dealt on the Orange broadband helpline were so unbearably cocky. I actually got into an argument with one of them - he was insisting he knew what my problem was when he clearly knew naff all about broadband, and he was rather offended when I asked to be put through to second line.

It's worth noting that I've never had a good experience calling about broadband, even when talking to a UK centre, apart from Zen internet. When I was their customer you'd ring up and within a couple of rings a nice helpful person who knew loads about broadband would answer, listen to the problems and give advice and help WITHOUT A SCRIPT.

Does this make me racist...

No, it makes you a cock.

Well it doesnt really does it PP 🙄

I spoke to a very nice young lady from India yesterday. Very helpful but I couldnt really understand very much of what she was saying and she was struggling with my accent as well. From a practical point of view it was almost a waste of time and thats why I often cringe when I call for support and somebody with a strong (usually Indian but I struggle with the team in our Glasgow and Edinburgh offices as well particularly when there are several of them talking quickly) answers the phones.
Probably makes me a racist misogynist but whatever.

Thry the Virgin broadband "help" line....no idea where it's based but it is excruciating.

When I was having problems with Sky I found their Indian call centre staff far easier to understand than their Scottish ones. All of the Indian staff we employ are very good indeed, our IT support which is also India based aren't as good. Bit like everything really!

I was on hold to Npower the other day (or SSE, forget), and they played me some stupid automated message about how I was on hold for their "England based call centre" or sommat. Personally I'd rather talk to someone in India, than wait on hold for 15 minutes (before I hung up) for someone in some god forsaken corner of the UK.

Ah yes reminds me of bt . I work world wide with people who often dont speak english at all . We always manage to comunicate to an end

Bts call center just ends up being me repeating my self saying - sorry i cannot hear you , sorry i did not understand what you just said.

Cmmunication over phone is crap , much prefer face to face.

Oi nick , you just need to spend more time in the homeland 😉

Tbh ive come across some glasgow call centers that have some scary strong accents that i struggle with. Just be thankful they dont have call centres in mintlaw or fraserburh.

Racist? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Dunno. Nev and Hayley were wondering your opinions about the Welsh?

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Regional call centre accents? Wythenshawe anyone?

Definitely not racist and not a cock.
Foreign call centres are one of the biggest irritations of modern life.
You have a problem that is already annoying you and then struggle to make yourself understood and understand the person on the other end of the phone who is supposed to be sorting out the problem. You don't hate the person on the line, you hate the concept, the CALL CENTRE. and the company that has outsourced their help to them.

I'm talking about [b][u]BRITISH TELECOM[/b][/u].

One of our banks has its call center in Bangladesh - they are pants.

Ive negotiated with the bank that if they want our business our UK bank manager has to make the call himself with our issues, then has to call me back with the answer.

So they have a shite call center, but I deal with a UK chap in Oxford who has the pain of his own call center to deal with.

Works for me 🙂

Does this make me racist...
No, it makes you a cock.

They're just people trying to earn an honest wage. It doesn't matter what country they're in or anything else. Get over

it.

Still plugging away. You are a fool, I think you probably are aware of this though.

 

No, it makes you a cock.

So for wanting to be able to have a problem rectified, with someone you can understand, makes one a cock?

😐

I feel sorry for them having to speak to miserable, incoherent, mumbling, stupid British people.

My heart always sinks when I get put through to a far east call centre. Generally I try and avoid companies which use them, although you never find out till its too late.

Oi nick , you just need to spend more time in the homeland

Getting the jabs and the visa sorted is too much hassle Terry 😉

Most Scots are absolutely fine, just some of the more harsh Glaswegian accents that are a bloody nightmare!

Nev and Hayley were wondering your opinions about the Welsh?

That show was incredible! She was clearly as mad as a sack of badgers.

njee20 - Member
When I was having problems with Sky I found their Indian call centre staff far easier to understand than their Scottish ones

this^^ tho in my case it was BT

my mums a glaswegian too but I just had no clue what the scottish engineer was saying to me

however lifes far to short to get upset about it or be rude to people
I cant even be mean to cold callers, just politely say no thanks

Barclaycard aren't bad, but the automated chummy voice that tries to stop you taking to a real person is such a PITA. I think part if the issue is that a lot of these call centres have KPIs that are based around time on calls ( ie the shorter the better, so they can get through the max numbers of calls) its then frustrating for all concerned, they're trying to rattle through a script, you want it done carefully and to be dealt with properly. Some companies have realised and are doing something about it, but its not the norm, and won't be for most as customer interface isn't seen as revenue generating ( very short sighted attitude) and most are trying to do away with CC completely and get the customer to do it all themselves on line

[i]I feel sorry for them having to speak to miserable, incoherent, mumbling, stupid British people.[/i]

What about coherent, intelligent, articluate, mildly irritated British people?

Barclaycard aren't bad,

John Lewis CC are all UK based and very nice to deal with....

Zen Internet for your broadband. Seriously.

John Lewis CC are all UK based and very nice to deal with....

Ditto First Direct.

Breath of fresh air after HSBC.

Zen Internet for your broadband.

Japanese call centres?

Chalking, agreed First Direct are ace, but aren't they part of HSBC?

As part of our business purchasing criteria we ask suppliers where their call centers are based and test them to see the quality.

but aren't they part of HSBC?

Yep, big difference in how they treat customers though.

Zen Internet for your broadband.
Japanese call centres?

No, they are just really philosophical.

"Ah. You have a problem with your broadband. Look inside yourself, you do not need such material things as internet access. The path to enlightenment is not through surfing the web."

When I worked in a call centre dealing with Indians was fine, It was when the bloody Scottish rang in, specifically pissed off Glaswiegen ladies, that were nigh on impossible to understand.

My company has just outsourced our IT help to Malaysia. They're bloody 8 hours ahead!!! What use is that for IT support?

Don't they work to your hours though? All of our foreign support do.

I read an article fairly recently about UK firms sending people to Aus/NZ for 6 month secondments and it was something to do with provision of support etc. 24hrs a day. Can't recall the details.

Easy enough to find though

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-22370334 ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-22370334[/url]

My recent fave was the Student Loan Repayment people.

They sent me a letter which was completly wrong and then invited me to call them if they had made an error. So I did.

I then spent 5 mins trying to navigate their phone system that was designed to stop me ever talking to a real person. In then end the call centre could have been next door, it wouldn't have mattered, I was so irate with the phone system they had lost me. Shame I can't find another provider.

BT also excelled themselves the other day. They have some fancy voice recognition software that you have to tell why you are calling. Much to my suprise that worked exactly right, but then instead of using that information they then made my navigate about 10 layers of "press 1" menus and swear on the bible I had already read the online help guides before I actually got put through to someone. The Indian chap on the other end of the line was thouroughly pleasant and helpful once I actually got to talk to him.

on't they work to your hours though? All of our foreign support do.

That would make sense.

Unfortunately not. They probably would have had to have paid a little bit more.

The Virgin travel offshore call centre cocked up our holiday of a lifetime (up to now) booking a few years ago. It was a package self drive LA-Vegas-Sanfrancisco trip but they managed to book the flights to arrive and depart from LA but we had to drop the car off at SF the day before the flight and had no hotel for the last night. We didn't find out until the tickets came a couple of weeks before departure.

I rang the call centre straight away, and there best advice was to drive to the airport (heathrow from birmingham) a couple of days before and they SHOULD be able to change the flights.

And that's the problem with offshore call centres, the perspective is completely out of whack, they can't understand why we give a crap about internet or phones and don't see a problem with having to travel 200 miles on the offchance that someone could sort out a problem for us.

But not all are bad, Three are better than they used to be, and all the people there are clever people, they just struggle to relate in general I think.

First direct are spectacularly good though. Completely recommended.

Personally not had any trouble understanding people at call centres (various accents) or with the service I've received.

*Shrugs*

I think the biggest issue is call centres, regardless of location, seem to use string for their communication cabling. The line quality, and volume, seems to trip me up most times.

Slight tangent, but just had those lovely people from windows support on the phone from India with the unlikely name of Roger!. It's been at least 12 months since they kindly spotted all the windows problems with my mac! They have learned the script better this time though to be fair. Still I was shocked by the "ok, FO then" comment when I let on that I knew they were scammers!!! 😉 if lunch was not ready, I would have happily kept them going for a while.....

This cracks me up every time. Most of my dealings with Indian call centres has been with BT. I would say that although accents at both ends of the phone don't make it easy, I have always found the person to be friendly enough and keen to help.

Some Indian call centres are woeful as they'll just employ the cheapest English speakers they can find (some not even fluent). Company I work for is a global IT services provider and our offshore stuff is generally pretty good (I even have someone in my team that work out of Bangalore). They do a lot of training on pronunciation so the guys over there are generally very easy to understand (important when you're discussing technical stuff).

At work we use Hoares bank in London(think its the UKs oldest bank). Put through to your own account manager who knows your name and sorts things out pronto in clipped English. I can speak some Hindi so Vodafone calls end up being quite a laugh!