Saturday, September 09, 2006

Thank you, come again!

So my title is a lame throw back to Apu the convenience store owner from The Simpsons. Now I bring that up to segue (poorly) to this. I HATE outsourcing. If you are unaware of just what outsourcing is then I will enlighten you. Major companies have their customer service directed to a call center overseas. Thereby lessening their overall pay to the employees working said call center. Now the majority of major companies outsource to India. This is where I have a problem.
I have nothing against Indian people. I have discovered recently that I enjoy Indian food. Brent and I watched a 4 hour Indian musical one time that was actually really good. BUT, I have a hard time understanding Indians when they talk. Especially over the phone.
This afternoon I was on the phone for about 2 1/2 hours with Indian outsourced employees of Hewlett Packard. Ugh. I was ready to kick a dog when I was done. I would love to know the flawed logic that went into the creation of outsourcing. Some brilliant CEO decides that when an unsatisfied customer calls customer service for help, we'll have them talk to someone they can't understand. Thereby aggravating said customer even further. So much to the point that they won't want to purchase any of our products ever again. Now back to the point. My favorite part of the whole process is when they first answer the phone and in the thickest Indian accent you can imagine they say something like, "Hello, this is Bob. How can i help you?" I mean come on. Do they honestly think that just because Ahmed has changed his name to Bob that I will suddenly think, "Oh, he's not Indian. He's Bob." It makes me just a bit angry.
Now the first time I called i could actually understand "Roger" aka Rahman Naharabi pretty well. We went through the motions of trying to fix the sound on my mom's computer until we reached a point where "Roger" could do no more. So I finished up with him and called back like I was instructed to. That's when I ended up with "Sarah" aka All Praise Allah who's voice was just about IMPOSSIBLE to understand. I had to call my mom into the room to do the listening for me. She didn't have much more luck.
I should probably stop now before I am labeled a racist KKK member. Just pray that the next time you call customer service, you actually get to speak to Bob or Sarah. Not their uninteligible alternatives.

1 comment:

jenn said...

hey, now you can't say that noone has EVER commented! because i have and i am CERTAINLY not noone!!!!glad you're back on the right track! luvya:)