Heartland

good to see the trend in outcourcing helpdesk services to india is starting to suffer a backlash of public opinion

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/34582.html

after my recent disatrous call to a tiscali center somewhere north of bangalore (probably) i can confirm that yes, the service you receive is cr*p.

so cr*p in fact that i had to make another 2 calls after just to "check the status of my query" (ie: double check that last muppet has done it properly)

i know helpdesks are notoriously sh*te wherever they are, with the cheapest monkeys money could buy staffing the phones, but when you outsource your helpdesk all accountability for quality of service goes out the window. targets for calls answered become even more important than they do when its done in-house, thus meaning the actual content and usefulness of those calls is neglected

and yes, i know this is the same when the outsourced helpdesk is in this country, but at least you dont have the language barrier. when you are trying to relate something quite technical (such as a fault with your modem) it helps if the person you are speaking to understand your language, and indeed its even easier if its their native tongue.

not to mention the ethics involved in shifting your whole operation to india, making 1000s of people redundant in the process, only to set up in a 3rd world call-centre which has employment conditions not ythat far removed from those of a sweatshop. no unions, long hours, unreasonble targets, very little pay, etc etc

so, yes. i'm glad the backlash has started.

and i particularly like the way dell make their stance on this sound like an admirable thing:

Astonishingly, Dell actually wrote:Dell dismissed the reports, however, and affirmed its commitment to India. "We're not shifting the work. [Dell] is committed to India and is growing," a spokesperson for the Bangalore-headquartered Dell India operations said.

thats great, dell. shame you werent as commited to the 1000s of people in their native ireland that lost their jobs when you shifted your helpdesk operation over there....

c*nts.

As a soon to be victim of relocation ( up North rather than round the world though) what I don't get is, once we have all been replaced who do these firms think their customers will be? Their staff certainly can't afford their products.

But then, the UK became one big service centre in the 80s, (ooh no, no nasty dirty making things thanks very much) so it's easy meat now.


M

Quiff Boy wrote: not that far removed from those of a sweatshop. no unions, long hours, unreasonble targets, very little pay...

... running through shooting the Lucretia video ...

mayhem wrote:As a soon to be victim of relocation ( up North rather than round the world though) what I don't get is, once we have all been replaced who do these firms think their customers will be? Their staff certainly can't afford their products.

That's what i always ask myself.

leeds is like that these days.

the last few years has seen the city center become more, err, "prosperous". alledgedly.

the shops in leeds now seem more aimed at new-media rich kids who come in from harrogate on a saturday. nothing that yer average leeds folk can afford

designer outlets by the dozen, but no where to go to actually buy anything useful, such as shoe polish or a plug.

There was a new call centre opened up in Leeds recently which has been moved from central London. The job is the same as it was in London, but the wages are about 2 quid a hour lower.

Down our way there used to be the biggest steel plant in europe, Round Oak, we were all guranteed a job there when we left school, shovelling coal, dying under cranes, that kind of thing, it has now been replaced by the Merry Hill Shopping Centre (damn big, bigger than Wolves town centre) full of designer shops and people on shop(lifting|) trips from wales....

"Once a railroad....now its done."

And did Von's feet, in ancient times, walk upon Dudleys darkened hills....

do you like that? i thought that was good...sorry!

Quiff Boy wrote:leeds is like that these days.

the last few years has seen the city center become more, err, "prosperous". alledgedly.

the shops in leeds now seem more aimed at new-media rich kids who come in from harrogate on a saturday. nothing that yer average leeds folk can afford

designer outlets by the dozen, but no where to go to actually buy anything useful, such as shoe polish or a plug.

Try living in the SE. London is great (if you like that sort of thing and I'm a fan in spite of myself). But everywhere outside is a nightmare. It's a collection of ghost towns and dormitories, full of pound stores and charity shops. Grim, grim, grim. And in Essex the locals aren't much better

The problem is that we are over-centralising. We've moved from a historical society built around small-town communities which were pretty self-contained into a world of grasping mega-cities which drain their surrounding communities by drawing in all the jobs, resources, entertainment facilities etc.

I read somewhere that something like 20million people either live or work within the M25 - that's more than one third of our population. Not surprisingly that everyone I went to school with in Durham has moved away, mostly to the SE. Also no surprise that commuting is hell, public services are a mess and everyone moans about it without seeing the obvious solution.

We need to switch the focus away from dragging everything into our cities and start regenerating the boring bits - ditch any investment into London and SE and spend the money in the English regions (Scotland and Wales have their own parliaments to put their case, so I'm arguing for my lot now!). Don't use that money exclusively to build poncey "City-of-Culture" developments to regenerate tiny segments of depressed areas but use it to produce small-scale, low-key improvements of the quality of life in our small towns. In theory it would cut anti-social behaviour and related crime rapidly while correcting our current metro-centric population drift and thus improving everyone's quality of life.

.... OK, it may not be a perfect answer and the Daily Mail wouldn't like it, but it's better than blaming asylum seekers for everything.

Not sure what this has to do with call centres any more, though

personally I'm all in favour of seeing jobs moved to 3rd world countries. Just as long as the employment standards are up to scratch.

Living in a country with 11 (count 'em) official languages i can identify with language barriers though.

80s - close down mine and industry move abroad

90s - retrain people for call centre work

2000 - call centres move abroad

I'd have to say I had this problem with BT last year.
Weeks of banging my head against a brick wall.They came up with everything from it was my pc & modem to one of my phones
as it turned out it was an exchange fault and nowt to do with me whatsoever.
As a Tiscali user I don't go to the helpdesk unless it's a dire emergency as it's not much cop.It was enough of a headache ordering a screensaver for my mobile...aaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It just bugs me when they try to shift the onus onto customers when the service is at fault
Anyway.Nuff said.Whinge over

Quiff Boy wrote:...thats great, dell. shame you werent as commited to the 1000s of people in their native ireland that lost their jobs when you shifted your helpdesk operation over there....

c*nts.

Same s**t's happening over on this side of the Pond, Quiffy...

That's the free market for you. And I'm generally all for it, so long as there are standards for employment etc. - of course, that's usually the rub. But in theory, I tend to think that people need to 'evolve or die': I'm especially tired of all of the out-of-work programmers that I know who think they somehow "deserve" a high salary and don't understand changes in market conditions. (Of course, they all _love_ me, as a foreign programmer working in the States...)

Protectionism is a dangerous policy, and I don't think there's anything intrinsically 'better' about 'jobs at home' than 'jobs abroad' - I'm a globalist in that respect; after all, it's not as though most of the people doing the complaining actually care at all about whether workers in India etc. are being treated fairly - most just care that their "jobs are being taken". (And, incidentally, I'm a leftist veggie tree-hugger type in most other respects.. but perhaps I'm turning into my father? [it's inevitable, etc.].)

Cheers,
--George

i was going to write an impassioned defence of my often berated industry but it's awfully late and i have to be up early tomorrow to arrange the outsourcing of our contact centres to yemen...

Richey James - I will vote for you in the next election - I like ya policies!!!!!!!

why just vote for me? you could get in on the ground floor by becoming my campaign manager. your doctorate will look good on the headed notepaper...

Sign me up mate, Federalistaion and a Groovy Despot to boot!

I'm in.....the campaign has started, look for a web site coming soon.....

right then, that's campaign director sorted. any more offers?

Can I be the one who spots the photo opportunity and hands you the baby that pukes all over your shoulder just as the cameras start clicking?

that'll make you the spin-meister general mr boy. so long as you're up to making nasty threats to low-life tabloid hacks from time to time...?

RicheyJames wrote:that'll make you the spin-meister general mr boy. so long as you're up to making nasty threats to low-life tabloid hacks from time to time...?

Guaranteed. And please, no 'Mr Boy' ...call me Alaistair. Who else is coming onboard?

RicheyJames wrote:right then, that's campaign director sorted. any more offers?

I've a background in campaign finance. I used to audit the bastards money collected and spent.

So how about campaign finance manager? I can certainly collect and spend your campaign contributions.

$$$$$$$$$

When I was having computer problems I phoned (name deleted so I don't libel them!) customer support quite a lot. During that time I spoke to people with a variety of different accents, and during one call the guy explained that my call is routed through an exchange in Amsterdam, and from there forwarded to someone anywhere in this half of the globe. Each time they talked me through various procedures, and finally concluded the motherboard was kaput.

When they came to repair it, it was the wrong motherboard, 3 days later they brought the right one, installed it and it didn't work, so advised me I might have to reformat and f#<£ed off and left me to it. Instead I put another hard drive in and formatted that, so I wouldn't lose everything. Didn't work. I phoned back and spoke to someone with a Dutch sounding accent who said that the replacement motherboard was probably faulty and just to try one more thing and call back. I tried what he told me and it was definitely kaput. Phoned back and got some complete arsehole from some unspecified company not even in Europe for whom English wasn't his first language (or even second or third). He attempted to talk me through some stuff I'd already done, and no amount of protesting made any difference to this little $#!£. In frustration I just hung up on the tw@tter, called right back and got someone in Scotland who put me down for a new motherboard and I had it delivered and working a few days later.

Argh! It's got me right frustrated reliving that little episode.

Also...

50% of numbers given out by calls to 118118 are wrong numbers, and they told someone trying to phone Guy's Hospital that it was ex-directory!

Soon, we'll get wise businesses advertising that their call centres are still hosted in this country. They'd get my business over the ones that don't.

Dan wrote:When I was having computer problems I phoned (name deleted so I don't libel them!)

Name them, it's supposed to be a free country!

RicheyJames wrote:...my often berated indusrty...

what's an often berated indusrty?