Has the Indian Call Centre being given the heave ho?

[DABhand]

(Since the official forums is down for maintenance again)

Recently got offered a job at Airdrie (Thats in Scotland for the English who didn't know :P) for a tech support line, thought I would do it anyways better than sitting about doing nothing (although I don't need to work).

It turned out it was for VM who are grabbing tech support people for nights and the weekend, between the hours of 8am-10pm.

The test questions were a laugh on the phone.

What is the command for bringing up your IP address?
A customer wants 2 AV's running at same time is this acceptable?
Name brands of free AV's on the net?
What is msconfig?

There was a 5th one but it was easy I forgot it :P

So yeah do you think India has finally been given the chop it richly deserves?

Or is it some sinister plot?


EDIT: Forgot the extra info...

http://www.s1jobs.com/job/415521067.html

Doesn't say its VM but it is..

See that lovely 14.5k DOE salary, well turns out a couple of people who I know who was also offered a spot for the weekend anyway. Was offered 4.5k a year for 15hrs at the weekend.

Now if you get the old maths brains out, that is nowhere near the 14.5k that someone like my friends with their experience would accept.

It is like they are just trying to get anyone for cheap and the 14.5k is just a tease to get anyone interested but have no intentions of paying it :P

Damn if those 5 questions (still forget the other one) are anything to go by, anyone with A+ or even basic PC knowledge can get a job :P

[Peter_]

That is the Becogent office which has been there for a long time and a few posters on here even work there.

[denphone]

As far as l am concerned the sooner the Indian call centres get the push the better as they do not make for good communication and understanding of problems with customers.

[huxleypiguk]

However sadly they make economic sense. An Indian IT graduate will work in a centre for less pay than in a UK one and costs are lower.

Yes there is a cost in customer satisfaction, but it is all balanced.

Off shoring is a sad fact of life. 118 247 have just been offshored for example. Most European countries have it I'm afraid. France use Morocco for a lot of theirs and they are very good too.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by denphone

As far as l am concerned the sooner the Indian call centres get the push the better as they do not make for good communication and understanding of problems with customers.

Indian call centres are not the only ones that are hard to understand, I had a raging argument with Npower the other day on the phone and they are based in this country. I am not longer a customer of Npower and in fact left them 2 years ago but they have suddenly found a payment that i am supposed to have missed. Told them they can go forth and multiply and after talking to there complaints department they did

There customer service centre is in south shields, I have always had a problem with understanding there accent

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by Masque

That is the Becogent office which has been there for a long time and a few posters on here even work there.

Yeah I knew it was Becogent.

But, why there when you have a practically newish building in Bellshill >.<

[spiderplant]

I always get through to Airdrie when I call about my VM ADSL service, so it's nothing new. I think historically Bellshill was an NTL call centre and Airdrie was Telewest.

[BenMcr]

Yup, Bellshill is mainly cable, whereas Airdrie cover quite a few different things for Virgin

---------- Post added at 10:24 ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 ----------

The job advert is for staff for the Digital Home Support service

[richard1960]

Reading through the job descrption ie advanced virus removal and

· Advanced knowledge of Operations System troubleshooting from Windows 2000 to Window 7 Professional and Home, (MAC OS a plus) and



· Advanced knowledge of setup and troubleshooting processes for hardware devices ranging from MP3 players to home and small business networking apparatus

They seem to want a lot of knowledge for £14.500 a year!

Perhaps that is the standard rate though.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by richard1960

Reading through the job descrption ie advanced virus removal and

· Advanced knowledge of Operations System troubleshooting from Windows 2000 to Window 7 Professional and Home, (MAC OS a plus) and



· Advanced knowledge of setup and troubleshooting processes for hardware devices ranging from MP3 players to home and small business networking apparatus

They seem to want a lot of knowledge for £14.500 a year!

Perhaps that is the standard rate though.

I was thinking pretty much the same , that's awful money for the required knowledge.

[progers]

They are definitely still there, just had the misfortune to connect to them; having intermittent broadband disconnections but when the script started.."connect your cable modem directly to your computer" I politely asked if i could call back later

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by Sirius

Indian call centres are not the only ones that are hard to understand, I had a raging argument with Npower the other day on the phone and they are based in this country. I am not longer a customer of Npower and in fact left them 2 years ago but they have suddenly found a payment that i am supposed to have missed. Told them they can go forth and multiply and after talking to there complaints department they did

There customer service centre is in south shields, I have always had a problem with understanding there accent

I have a hearing impairment which I always make the agent aware of but I do find the off shore agents in India very hard to understand. I often give up as I cannot understand their accent.
I have had one agent from the India call centre spoke very clearly but in the main they do not appreciate the problem and just keep repeating themselves which just makes me annoyed, I beleave they need retraining so they appreciate our difficulty to understand them.

[spankysmagicpian]

I personally don't agree Ken. You know what's the killer, main factor when you get off-shore call centres?

VoIP

It truly, truly is awful quality. They want to crank the bandwidth up a notch.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Ken W

I have a hearing impairment which I always make the agent aware of but I do find the off shore agents in India very hard to understand. I often give up as I cannot understand their accent.
I have had one agent from the India call centre spoke very clearly but in the main they do not appreciate the problem and just keep repeating themselves which just makes me annoyed, I beleave they need retraining so they appreciate our difficulty to understand them.

I also have hearing problems and need to wear an aid in both ears (to much playing with Big tanks .

I just cannot understand a word they say to me on the phone if its india. This issue was increased tonight when my modem failed and i tried to explain that it has died and was making a horrible burnt smell. The first offshore agent i spoke to put down the phone because i asked him to speak up. I then had to redial again only to be cut off at pickup.

Ended up phoning another part of customer service's to get some help and they put me through to a person i could understand. New modem will be in the post for me

"posting this with my virgin portable broadband"

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by spankysmagicpian

I personally don't agree Ken. You know what's the killer, main factor when you get off-shore call centres?

VoIP

It truly, truly is awful quality. They want to crank the bandwidth up a notch.

I get the same problem even when I am speaking to them face to face!

Nothing to do with VoIP.

Out of interest do you have to wear hearing aids?