Wakeup call: It’s the accent stupid

Calcutta Telegraph ^ | December 22, 2003

[sarcasm]

India’s image as a hot destination for call-centre business looks pretty ragged with Dell and now Lehman Brothers deciding that they’ve had enough of Indian expertise in handling queries from their customers in the US.

Both have shifted their call centres back to the US; but the interesting difference between the two is that Dell shifted back because its customers were dissatisfied with the grating Indian accents, while Lehman Brothers found that the Indians manning its helpdesk for its Sybase software did not have the technical expertise to deal with the flurry of questions emanating from its customers.

In one sense, the two cases have knocked the stuffing out of India’s claims that it has a large English-speaking population that can handle simple queries and that it has a huge pool of technical personnel.

India has been black-balled as the stealer of jobs from the US and the UK with the large-scale shift of call centres and back-offices to Bangalore, Mumbai and Gurgaon. The sudden loss of jobs in the US has triggered a growing antipathy towards India, prompting hard-line legislators in the US to move legislation in seven US states to stop American companies from outsourcing call centre jobs to India. But the Dell and Lehman Brothers incidents have nothing to do with these legislations, and for the first time, open up big questions about the deficiency in services.

“In terms of help desk, Indian firms could not provide the level of quality and services Lehman needs,” a note written by a chief of Lehman Bothers said.

“Dell Inc is no longer routing corporate customer calls to a Bangalore, India, centre in an effort to improve services,” a Dell spokesperson.

Is this a worrying trend and will more US companies start reviewing the performance of their call centres in India — and then decide to move back?

Industry mavens reckon that it would be too precipitate to draw such an inference from the Dell and Lehman cases but they do concede that there are a few worrying aspects surrounding the call centre business in India that need to be remedied — and quickly.

“This is a trend (foreign companies shutting down their BPO operations in India) and it is difficult to predict when it will end,” says P. Rajendran, chief of the education division of NIIT, the premier IT education institute, which was one of the first to offer a special course 'PlanetWorkz' to meet the BPO industry’s demand for professionals.

Rajendran admitted that it would be difficult to staff call centres with competent professionals over the next few years. It would be tough to predict when the gap between demand and supply will be reduced. “It may be five years or more; that will remain a guess as long as the industry continues to get artificial BPO professionals,” he added.

He said call centres were now too lax in their recruitment strategy — and the advertisements for walk-in interviews with graduation being a minimum eligibility criterion was an indication of the cavalier attitude towards employment in the BPO sector.

“With competency in English language a prerequisite for success in any career, especially in the case of Customer Contact Centres or BPO organisations, an effective English language training by PlanetWorkz.com is the right channel for you to get that extra competitive edge and meet challenges ahead,” states the NIIT website.

But is spoken English with an Yankee accent the only criteria? No, says Suren Singh Rasaily, head of Planetworkz. “It is just not the accent but understanding the culture of the customers you are dealing with.”

An IT consultant said most of the BPO firms outsource work to smaller outfits to meet the demands of clients abroad. Most of these are “fly-by-night operators” and fail to meet the requirements. But companies like iGate, led by former Infosys director Phaneesh Murthy, feel that this is a churning period for the BPO business and moves by the likes of Dell and Lehman Brothers seem to be a corrective measure.

“The decision by Dell and Lehman are corrective measures. Once these are through, there will be a demand for new services in the BPO segment,” said Tiger Ramesh, head of BPO, iGATE Global Solutions.

[sarcasm]

ping

[OldFriend]

A large appliance company, who shall remain nameless, also gave up on using India for it's call center for setting up service appointments.

[Paul Atreides]

I don't care what the race of the person, I would like to know who does the hiring for corporations. I cannot count the number of times a customer service rep gets on the phone and just mumbles. These are not people with thick accents, which are bothersome enough, but people who sound as if they are in a drugged stupor. I have to keep asking "what? what? what?" over and over.

[Vince Ferrer]

...who shall remain nameless

Why? I'd like to know.

[cynicom]

Mouse on my HP puter went bad. Called HP support, got guy in India, took right care of me. Two days later got bunch of discs via UPS. Called friendly Indian again, look dummy its the damned mouse. Week later got a mouse and still have handful of useless discs.

[Bogey78O]

technical support is just a chimp with a flowchart anyways.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

FYI ping

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

I have purchased several Dell machines over the years, and had been reasonable satisfied with their computers and their tech support. I bought my daughter a new desktop in September, to celebrate her admission to law school, and she has had nothing but problems from the outset. She keeps getting an error message about a "memory dump" and then the thing crashes. It has happened about a thousand times.

She has been on tech support lines with most of the billion people living in India, with no success. Finally, the budding lawyer threatened enough people that she is getting a new machine.

As an aside, I set up a new Dell for a friend of mine and, Voila! First day out of the box--the dreaded "memory dump" error. Fortunately, it has not happened as often as my daughter's, but it does give one pause. Dell is no longer my automatic choice or recommendation.

[BrooklynGOP]

That's a Windows error.

[CaptainK]

GE was using Indian customer service reps. Maybe that's the company being refereed to.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

That's a Windows error.

If so, (and I don't doubt it), why should it affect new computers right out of the box? Dell is using microsoft's operating system. It's supposed to work, and, if it doesn't, they are supposed to know why, and how to fix it.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

India hasn't played the race card, yet. But hyphenated groups here just might. Then what?

Will groups like

http://www.usindiafriendship.net/

http://www.usinpac.com/

demand "hate crime" protection? It's bound to become an "issue." It always does -- if there's enough money in it.

[sunryse]

>I have to keep asking "what? what? what?" over and over.

Yes, and instead of being more coherant, they just louder with the mumbling, lol.

[Zipporah]

GE was using Indian customer service reps... they closed the IT division here and outsourced to India.

[Truth'sBabyGirl]

"That's a Windows error."
TruthShallSetYouFree is my dad, and it's my computer he's talking about. As far as that being a Windows error or a Software error, the following information is quite interesting. Someone whose opinion I trust does research for a bank. At one point, he researched the very company that does Dell's tech support. Turns out, they HAVE TO say it's a software error. It's part of their script. When they tried that on my for the third time, I said, I know you are lying. Of course they had no response, because accusations of lying are not on their script. Their proposed solution of reinstalling Windows is a no-go anyway. My CDR and DVD drives haven't worked in about a month. The re-installation CD (and all my software) is gathering dust. They promised to send me a new computer, which, in their fantasy world, arrived here at my apartment on Friday. I called in the middle of the week to make sure we were on track with the delivery. By Wednesday, the machine had not yet been built. They claimed that my request for floppy disk drives was holding up the works. Here are the problems with that: A) I never requested floppy drives; B) I asked for an identical replacement for my broken computer, which does not have floppy drives (except the new one should work); and C) even if I had requested floppy drives (which I didn't) is that such an anachronistic request as to delay the building of the machine? Clearly not. Now, the computer is not here within the 10 business days promised. I am going to be out of the country for 2 weeks, and I'm sure Dell will choose that time to send the new machine. I will not be here to receive the package, so it will probably end up going back to Dell. I asked them to change the shipping address to my parents' house, but I've asked them to do a lot of things, so I doubt they will come through. Even if they do, the computer will get to my parents' house, and my old computer will be far far away in my own apartment, and I won't be able to send back the old one within the required 10 days. I will surely be charged for a second computer. I called them and asked them to make a note of the effects of their delay, and to promise me I won't be held responsible for the 10 day limit. They said Okay. We'll see. Of course I can somehow take my old computer with me on the train to my parents' house, so that we can send it back from there, but that doesn't seem to be part of my customer support agreement. People have sued these jerks and won on less.
Sorry to go off on a tirade there, but everybody should know what is really going on.

[Truth'sBabyGirl]

"That's a Windows error."
TruthShallSetYouFree is my dad, and it's my computer he's talking about. As far as that being a Windows error or a Software error, the following information is quite interesting. Someone whose opinion I trust does research for a bank. At one point, he researched the very company that does Dell's tech support. Turns out, they HAVE TO say it's a software error. It's part of their script. When they tried that on my for the third time, I said, I know you are lying. Of course they had no response, because accusations of lying are not on their script. Their proposed solution of reinstalling Windows is a no-go anyway. My CDR and DVD drives haven't worked in about a month. The re-installation CD (and all my software) is gathering dust. They promised to send me a new computer, which, in their fantasy world, arrived here at my apartment on Friday. I called in the middle of the week to make sure we were on track with the delivery. By Wednesday, the machine had not yet been built. They claimed that my request for floppy disk drives was holding up the works. Here are the problems with that: A) I never requested floppy drives; B) I asked for an identical replacement for my broken computer, which does not have floppy drives (except the new one should work); and C) even if I had requested floppy drives (which I didn't) is that such an anachronistic request as to delay the building of the machine? Clearly not. Now, the computer is not here within the 10 business days promised. I am going to be out of the country for 2 weeks, and I'm sure Dell will choose that time to send the new machine. I will not be here to receive the package, so it will probably end up going back to Dell. I asked them to change the shipping address to my parents' house, but I've asked them to do a lot of things, so I doubt they will come through. Even if they do, the computer will get to my parents' house, and my old computer will be far far away in my own apartment, and I won't be able to send back the old one within the required 10 days. I will surely be charged for a second computer. I called them and asked them to make a note of the effects of their delay, and to promise me I won't be held responsible for the 10 day limit. They said Okay. We'll see. Of course I can somehow take my old computer with me on the train to my parents' house, so that we can send it back from there, but that doesn't seem to be part of my customer support agreement. People have sued these jerks and won on less.
Sorry to go off on a tirade there, but everybody should know what is really going on.

[Truth'sBabyGirl]

I'm sorry, I don't know why it posted twice. I have a feeling it has something to do with my broken computer!

[Williams]

Anyway, how long did it take these geniuses to realize that cheap labor on the other side of the World wasn't going to have the necessary know how, or even give a damn to help their customers? I used to like Compaq/HP. I have been so abused, had my time wasted, and spent $$ on unecessary parts because of their Indian "customer service" that I have sworn NEVER to buy their products again. Prior to their switch I used to get knowledgeable techs working out of Canada. Now I get too many nightmares to report, the worst being them actually mocking me and making harrassing calls back to my house because they just don't give a damn.

[gcruse]

Is it possible to take your computer back to the store and get a refund? Circuit City and Best Buy are very good about that.