Customer service in India Rant

For many years I worked as a software engineer. Then several years ago my company began to outsource work to India. I wasn't excited about that, but my boss told me he could get three Indians for what I was paid, and I could help "make it happen" or not...<scary music here>. So today I am an "engineering liaison" and I coordinate all the work that goes back and forth from my company to India. Not too long ago while talking with my boss, I lamented that I haven't done any "real work" for a long time, and I felt my engineering skills were beginning to atrophy. "Ah yes," he said, "but now you are experienced with every aspect of outsourcing and hence are very valuable." (No raise, though!)

In a globally competitive market, I understand the cost pressures which force companies to outsource. On the other hand, after years of dealing with Indian accents, I still find it difficult to understand many of them. When it comes to Customer Service, it has backfired on a number of companies. People call CS when there's a problem. At that critical point, CS can either fix the problem or make it worse and in all likelihood lose a customer. Reputation is everything and is easily ruined when you cannot understand a service rep's broken engish.

Welcome to modern day serfdom. As Mel Blanc said "It's good to be the king". The next part is "it sux for everyone else". Only the management and shareholders (which again is mostly management and their buddies) benefit from this outsourcing foolishness. It is very much a "haves verses have nots" scenario.

At the turn of the century, the labor unions were a force that could impedge this type of corporate greed. But with them having been eviscerated by congress, now what can we do?

i just hate it when i buy jeans and shirts and i look for the label and it says made in pakistan, turkey or india. i don't shop at walmart anymore for just that reason. i refuse to support a foreign worker over an american worker. now for an idea!!!
why can't we outsource our more nastier prisoners to india. surely would be cheaper to support them there. what the heck is wrong with that..............? i wonder if some of our states have thought of this? i think it is a stunning idea....................

It would probably save a lot of electricity if you stopped using electric lighting...how about kerosene lamps? There are flat wicks, Aladdins, antique Rayos and the like, and modern round wick lamps. Old Coleman table lamps (but be sure you know how to use it! Many of them are very different from a modern Coleman lantern!) or gas lights--propane or natural gas that is.

Why not a sawdust bucket composting toilet instead of that electric thing?

Yeah, this free trade stuff (preparing us for one world govt. really!) is a load of nonsense.

I have a friend who cannot understand the CSRs in India, either. so he yells into the phone: "Could I speak to anyone without a red dot on their forehead?"

If the Eurpoean invaders would have been more peaceful when they "discovered" America, the Indians wouldn't have moved to Aisa and started their own country.

Huh?

:haha:

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[QUOTE=sisterpine]LOL wow you folks really made me feel better! Emptied the old change jar and went and bought a cheapy inverter, it is smaller but will allow for the minimal power we need to keep the comode mixing and the lamps when we want to read! Shipped off the pricey one to repair in Oregon after talking to a very nice american business owner who is authorized to do warranty work.

Also, it took me a while to work up some courage but I did manage to call Xantrex back and insist on speaking to someone I could understand. Got shifted around to a woman in Washington state and was much easier to deal with this way!
QUOTE]

I have had problems with my Trace (now Xantrex) inverter over the last 5 or 6 years and finally got to talk to some real engineering techs out in Washington. Didn't solve my problems, but they did help, and I can contact them again if I still need help.
I am lucky to have an authorized repair fellow only a couple of hours away, in Central Wisconsin, who does good work and is quick and reasonable. When lightning disabled our big inverter it was back in use in about 5 days from the time the damage was done.

Jim

Free trade is fine and healthy when it is free trade among equals. Canada, modern Japan, Great Britain, Italy, Korea, Sweden etc. which have a standard of living and wage structure that is somewhat comparable to the US. Trading with Pakistan, India, China Mexico etc is not trading among equals.

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Lol, you'd have a fun time where I live here in southern California. My neighborhood is like the United Nations. We have a little bit of everything here. I enjoy communicating with people so I never mind accents. I find it makes life interesting.

I've heard some American accents just as "thick" as any I've heard from Indians.


"At the turn of the century, the labor unions were a force that could impedge this type of corporate greed."

Sorry to say this but labor unions are one of the big reasons American corporations started outsourcing and an even bigger reason we can't compete with other nations. They may have served a purpose 100 years ago but they haven't done much for our nation lately. Last union(philly teamsters) shop I worked in, they did nothing for employees but take money from them. When they could no longer extort money from the company, they made the employees strike. There were about 10 paid strikers for every actual employee. I was management non-union there. They almost ran the company out of business and made it clear they didn't care if they did.

They spit on our company president as he left out the door. They followed and harrassed his young pregnant wife and sat outside his house 20 miles away day and night. They tried to follow me, played chicken with me on the road, stood in front of my company truck when I was leaving although they always backed off after I made it clear it was the companies insurance who'd pay after I ran them over. I had bruises all over everytime I had to go to our main office and go through the gauntlet, everyone including myself elbowing and kicking. It was like fighting for the end zone just to make it to the door. It went on for two months. Things were on the edge of becoming very violent, life-threatening even. None of our companies employees wanted to strike, it was all union people who had never been at the company before the strike. After all that was over, about two years later the employees got rid of the union and made out better for it.

I had another run-in with a union a few years ago. Teamsters again. Those cowards broke out my car windows and ransacked my car while it was parked in a lot. Needless to say, I don't care much for unions anymore.

Sorry Quint but comments like this make me crack up. "Free trade" is just as it sounds. It's not "free trade with restrictions". If Americans can't compete, then they have nobody but themselves to blame. Americans promoted free trade for many years, still do when it's something favorable to themselves. Now that it's not in your favor anymore, you're going to whine it's unfair? Just about everyone on this board shops at places like Wal-mart. Everyone here is using a computer built with Asian hardware. Most everything plastic or electronic in your homes are imported and you were happy to find it cheap. Why blame the sellers? You're the ones who brought this on. Every single American had a share in it. Don't whine about it now.

ALL Americans should be required to read The Earth Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. Friedman is a columnist for the New York Times and is a very smart fellow. Not too liberal, either. This book exactly addresses the subject of this thread.

About 3-4 years ago, we, and the world, began a major paradigm shift on the order of the agrarian/industrial shift of earlier times. This shift is happening extremely rapidly and will affect every one of us. Please get this book and read it, and then pass it on.

Walter Wriston (dec) former chairman of Citibank made a statement that I think fits here: "No matter what happens, Americans have always had the remarkable ability to cope." Don't hold me to exact wording here. The idea is that we have always had innovators who enabled us to adapt to whatever was happening. I have some doubts that that can happen now, as we seem to have lost our edge. We are not educating our youngsters to deal with this! Bill Gates in a recent speech said that our high schools are obsolete and not up to the demands of this new paradigm.

I'm 71 and on my way out. (Yes, there are a few years left.) You younger ones are going to have to get busy if we are going to continue to be a world leader. We are losing ground rapidly and need to act decisively to hold our own, much less be the definitive leader. For the first time, I feel some fear for our country. I know I sound alarmist here, but guess what? I AM alarmed.

The solution is not to return to the olden days or live primitively. The solution is to find innovative ways to adapt.

Read the book, read the book, read the book!!!!!

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Best wishes,

Sandi

"Anger is an acid that does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to the object on which it is poured." Corrie TenBoom

If corporations started outsourcing jobs because they didn't want to pay a fair wage as demanded by the unions, that illustrates my point.

The majority of Americans are not at the top of the pyramid. Having been within shooting distance of it, I can testify that the closer one gets to the top, the more bizarre the perks get.

We hired the majority our workers for less than 30K. My VP group averaged 200K in salary and benefits. The Sr. VP I reported to made 500K. His boss 1.5MM and the top dog 2.2MM plus stock goodies galore. We were measured on productivity increases, not sustainability. There was no concept of "enough", nor of "trickle down" prosperity. The money always flowed to the top.

What really chapped me was when benefits were cut in the same year that "upper management bonuses" were handed out. A person making $2.2MM won't feel it when his .2 drops off. A worker making 30K very much feels his health insurance deductible climbing $500 in a year.

The problem began when the language changed from "personnel" to "human resources". Commodities are often exploited. By thinking of people as resources many companies believe they can make even more money.
I believe that before too long, many companies may soon discover that the exploitation doesn't happen with impugnity.

Quint, those 'equals' are doing the same thing. My mom in Great Britain had a problem with her electric bill and yes, she had to talk to India too. Seems to me this set up could be a huge security problem.

World trade is suppose to make 1st, 2nd & 3rd world countries have equal footing in commerce. It's working as planned, 1st world countries are falling into 2nd and 3rd world status, making us all equal.

Kind of makes you wonder if the "New World Order" is really just a conspiracy theory.

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Dave et al,
why do you think you are making as much money as you are now? Why do
we in the USA think $2.00/hr is laughable and a crime? UNIONS thats why!
Unions built this country, as well as tariffs and protectionist trade policies.
Without them we are heading to a race to the bottom. Its happening right
now. There are very few manufacturing jobs in this country and people are
beginning to think that $7.00/hr is GREAT! If we let this continue, people will
start to think $5.00/hr is great.
Free trade doesn't work unless it it TOTALLY FREE...let workers walk across
international boundaries and work unimpeded. Thats the only way "free trade"
will ever work. Wake up people! The Corporations are in control of EVERYTHING
around you and you are fast becomming SUPERFLUOUS. Check out "Rebels
Against The Future" (I forgot the author). The Luddites were fighting to preserve their way of life, and we best start fighting to preserve ours or we
will truly awaken to a Banana Republic.

disgruntled in Houston