Posted on 06/05/2007 12:29:06 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
One of the failures involved a call center making sales solicitations for a data service. I moved into the office of someone who left, and was getting these calls from one regularly.
"Hello! Smith John?"
"No, over here as say it the other way..You know, like 'Ravinda Gupta'- Look, the person is gone. Stop calling me."
This went on for a few months, and my patience began eroding. My replies became shorter and angrier.
The one that finally stopped it all was
"He is GONE! it was HORRIBLE!!!"
"What do you mean?"
"He got his dog pregnant, and then ran away with a truck driver!!!"
Over the phone there was stunned silence, with the unspoken icon "This program has performed an illegal function and will now close."
CC&E
This happened to me with Ameriprise Financial(formerly American Express) regarding a sale of a mutual fund I was going to sell. I was speaking to a call center in Manilla , Phillipines.
I promptly asked to be transferred to a representative at their corporate office in Minneapolis. I then read this person the riot act about speaking to anyone regarding an acct. with over $100K in it with a person in a foreign country that could barely speak English. I then threaten to move my assets to Fidelity.
I am not sure it did any good , but I felt better.
Also, try a CITI Platinum Select Master Card. I get 5% back on all purchases for gasoline, grocery stores and drug stores. I get 1% on all other purchases up to $300 anually. All I do is call up their 800 # and they send me a CHECK.
Exactly. In the early 90’s, we were “focused” on customer satisfaction and quality. We modeled the Japanese who were “obsessed” with quality. Then came Walmart. American business discovered that American consumers didn’t care about qualty. They cared about cheap goods. So, kiss quality and customer service goodbye.
My wife worked for a textile company. The Japanese worked them to death on quality in product development but in the end, they bought the cheapest fabric they could get, quality be damned. All they wanted was Mexican cloth even if it was inferior.
We had an Indian professor in the 70’s and we couldn’t understand him at all. Now I talk withg Indian college students and they have almost no accent.
Cricket match on Saturday here. That’s a benefit of having a lot of Indian students.
Well, that sure described my 3 hour nightmare with Verizon yesterday. I didn’t get rude; I got all manner of I’m sorry’s but no joy in fixing the real problem.
Don’t you think they hear that every day? A real journalist wouldn’t be using it to threaten people on a help line, it sounds more like blackmail than journalism.
If you call the COMPANY number, and immediately say “I’m a columnist working on a story about your help desk lying about where they are located”, then they will believe you and will probably take the time to answer your questions.
When you started on the help line, they assume you are just trying to get better help.
Hello, my name is ;lkjrdsguerouty, but you can call me George! Blackbird.
I recently flipped my car loan to a no transaaction fee, 3.9 card. Spoke to india, and the man didnt do it. I had misgivings and called back a couple of days later and the transaction was never posted...I almost lost the deal...it was time sensitive.
He kept on saying that he understood, when I didnt have any confidence that he really did.
Interesting point. I'd be almost willing to bet that had you pressed 'two', you would have been transferred back to the states and would probably have found someone who speaks better engrish than the Indian.
Sigh... it was nice, wasn’t it? Alas, we normal folks got old and went out of fashion.
LOL! You have a way with words.
THat’s the most coherent thing I’ve ever read or seen out of Susan Estrich, she must be slipping.
They normally give them Anglo sounding names (Buffy, Jody, Biff, George, Chad, etc..)to try and fool us. I have been able to get them to admit they are in Bangalore, New Delhi, etc..
When I lived in the sticks, I had a phone line just for my computer. Periodically I got static so bad I couldn’t get on line. It was always “your equipment”. A repairman told me early on the lines were 75 years old. I called for repair and the guy told me to unplug the computer from the line and it would reset itself and the problem would be cured. Like an idiot I believed him. It didn’t work so when I called back I got someone else and after some argument she finally told me “OK I am going to put in an order for repair, but if the repairman can find no line problem, it will cost you $85 an hour. Needless to say the guy found the problem and fixed it.
The next time, I called on the bad computer line and static was so bad she could hardly understand me. After looking at my account, she said you have another line, why didnt you call on that line. I told her because she wouldn’t believe me that I had a bad line. She got pi@@ed, poor broad.
OB
The anglo sounding names are probably to make it easier for you to communicate with them. Not to fool you.
I am an Indian and I live in Canada and noone can pronounce my name, so I picked a nickname. It doesnt mean I am trying to fool people.
As much as I dislike Verizon, I have yet to find a better alternative. They are all plagued with customer service people who just don’t care if they solve a problem or not.
Some years ago (about 20 to be more precise) I was having an ISDN line installed. 9 months later it was still not working. I happened to have the phone number, given to my predecessor some years prior, of the desk actually at the switch at the local CO. I called it and got an “old guy”, who within 2 hours sent his assistant down to the office with test equipment and they had the problem fixed by noon. That would never happen today - all the “old guys” who really knew their stuff were laid off or retired.
Now even their repair technicians call the same numbers we do to get repair. Unbelievable.
The only service of ANY phone provider I have no problem with is my cell phone.
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