Posted on 09/29/2005 6:19:46 AM PDT by Cagey
Sept. 28, 2005 — As Hurricane Rita roared toward them, more than 300 people called the local emergency number broadcast all around Nacogdoches County in east Texas. What they didn't know was that the operators on the other end of the phone were 7,000 miles away in India.
With power down and limited means of communication, Nacogdoches County Judge Sue Kennedy, who acts as the emergency coordinator, decided to set up a phone bank to help people out. She called a local firm that runs call centers and asked if they could help the community. Effective Teleservices, based in Nacogdoches, had a power generator big enough to keep a phone bank running but management didn't want to put employees in harm's way by making them come to work.
Kennedy didn't hesitate.
"In disasters we respond more quickly with the help of our local businesses and move much faster than by waiting for federal or state aid," she said.
She and her staff polished off a script with vital information regarding the location of ad-hoc shelters and what people needed when they left home.
"We wanted to make sure they [the operators] kind of understood and could give specific answers to questions," Kennedy said.
Who You Gonna' Call?
Across the globe, Jim Iyoob, the director of operations at the Indian call center site, gathered 15 of his customer representatives and trained them to work the emergency hotline. Iyoob had lived and worked three years in the Nacogdoches area so he was able to give additional information to his staff before Kennedy's people called to see if the "local" hotline worked.
The operators passed the test and within hours the switchboard was lighting up in sun-drenched Gandhinagar – a world away from hurricane-battered East Texas. The Indian operators offered words of encouragement to concerned Nacogdoches callers, and there were no reports of problems during the operation, Kennedy said.
Engineers!
I'm trying to imagine the confusion between the accents of someone in India and someone from the Piney Woods of East Texas.........
I've talked to two CSR's this week. Both with major US companies, one a bank.
The first was 'Brian' the second Miss Jones.
Both had accents so thick I caught about every third word.
I would love for them to be honest as to who I'm talking to.
I made up my mind the next time one of them gives me the phony name I'm going to say,
"Call me Mahatma".
Thank you for welcoming me call. This is Bob how may I gracious your call direct.
I manage a world-wide IT call center which is primarily based in Houston. Prior to the hurricane the management of the company asked for a solution that allowed us to offer our Gulf Coast employees the ability to call in and report their status or get information about the status of the company. We decided to use our normal 800 number that our employees call in for IT support.
We worked pretty much right up until the storm setting up the system but we had it running and it was heavily used by our employees after the storm. For staffing we ended up using fellow employees located in Arkansas, Oklahoma, California, Canada, Norway and Singapore. I even had to use the number to report I had lost power.
We did try to get someone outside to monitor the system but we were not able to find any companies willing to take over in such short notice and for such a short time. That is when I asked for volunteers and was very pleased when my fellow coworked jumped at the chance to help.
So you know outsourcing has been discussed and investigated but we still feel it is a better business model for us to keep our call center in-house.
Yep. it would take a government training program costing taxpayers billions educating them to answer the phones, doncha know?
Engineers indeed.
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