speaking ad nauseum with english-challenged customer service reps would add to GDP.
However, doing so still detracts, tremendously, from productivity.
They won’t measure the lost customers from people who give up, hang up, escalate to a supervisor at a higher level of pay or just take their business elsewhere.
Yes. I do hate automated telephone “trees’. Having soulless computer voices tell me to push “1” for this and “2” for that can be painful. I always wish that I could somehow speak to a real, live human being. And then, of course, it happens and I find myself speaking with someone — a real, live person — in Mexico or India whom I cannot understand, and then I think, “Couldn’t they just automate this? Why isn’t this an AI job?”
Well, try to look at it this way they are all named Abu Patel......makes it easier when you launch a beligerant tirade!
Those CS reps obviously graduated from journalism school.
Many years ago, I worked for Lillian Vernon. A big part of her sales were personalized items.
Vernon sold the company . The suits that bought the place fired the overnight crew, that consisted of 8-10 ladies that worked 12-8 to handle calls from the west coast and overseas. these were long time employees that they canned.
The suits , in their wisdom, hired this out to Pakistan of all places. Ahmed and Abdul were trying to get the personalization correct. They failed, miserably.
The suits fired the Pakis and begged people to work the 12-8 . Few took the position. The suits sold it soon afterwards. Not long after that the company closed.
This may seem rude, but I right out ask what country they are in.
Then I ask to be connected in the US of A.
If they can’t, then I ask them to connect me with someone that speaks English.
No GDP lost. The companies pay these people like $2/hour. Lower quality customer service definitely.
I used to enjoy listening to Hubby discuss internet failings/blackouts with our internet provider. They’d eventually tell him to contact our computer manufacturer. He’d tell them, “You’re talking to him. Stop reading from your script and connect me to someone who actually knows how this works.” He built all our computers, was versed in troubleshooting and the script readers were clueless.
Speaking with an English one costs a lot more.
Most customer service calls are “user error” calls. No sense dropping a ton of money on them.
Wait a minute, it’s not all benefits and no costs?
If you really want to throw a phone into a window, hire Amerigas! Their customer service is the worst, second only to the now defunct Sears credit department. They route all calls to the Philippines, where I needed to implore my USA born half-filapina wife to torture them. Lawsuit still forthcoming!
This morning C-SPAN had a program about George Washington, from Mount Vernon, and one of the speakers was an Italian scholar who has written a book about Washington. His English was so good you would have thought it was his native language.
(The program had been shown before.)
Que?
Most sellers have missed the fact that consumers can be very savvy and can be well-informed. Unfortunately, all are reduced to being read a script like a 5 year-old child. The CS reps that have never used the product or service and read the script ad-nauseum is insulting, inefficient, etc.
yup, I agree with comments about horrible experiences with customer service by phone.
Today I dealt with my local post office and the woman had an accent, mumbly and talked so fast I kept telling her repeatedly I couldn’t understand her, please slow down, etc.
she just kept at it. Unreal, she gives no consideration that she is not in her native country but in USA. does whatever she wants AA hire for sure. No way should she be at the service desk.
Customer service with people who barely speak English is just as bad.
My Orthopedic Surgeon retired early and left the business to four other surgeons. They were so backed up I went to another office that was in a busier area. I really injured my back, as in the worst I have ever had and the pain was beyond awful. I didn’t know specialty surgeons had Physician Assistants and the one I got was from India and could barely speak English and I could hardly understand him. I knew I needed an MRI and a shot and related to him I had this injury before but not as bad and the shot had made it better.
He ignored me, gave me an x-ray and some pain killer like Tylenol plus a weak muscle relaxer, neither of which touched the excruciating pain. They then wouldn’t let me pick a Physical Therapist and told me I had to drive the 20 miles into traffic to them and that they would not send a referral to Tricare.
I dropped them and found a way to do my own PT and after three months I was OK. That worthless foreigner was not even a doctor and was a terrible PA.
“Every customer service representative has a heavy, barely discernable foreign accent.”
If the CSR’s accent is “barely discernible,” then what’s the big deal?