Originally Posted by TheBadFairy

i'm just sick to death of having calls from people quite obviously from india with fake american accents who call me ma'am

Originally Posted by discolexy

lol. i doubt that.

Originally Posted by Rat Face

I am serious. That is considered a career to them over there.
I remember this, because when i worked for dish network tech support, they opened a branch up in the philippines, and outsourced alot of the work there.

Originally Posted by discolexy

i think its one of those urban legends that people in the third world are either so desperate for jobs that someone with a degree has to work in a call centre because shitty work thrown at them from america is the only industry in the country and golly gee they're just so grateful for it or an indian bachelors degree is worth so little the only job it will get you is one in a call centre.

but really, the few people with degrees can get good jobs easily. there are loads of rich people in even the poorest countries. it's the millions who have no education that are unemployed and starving

Originally Posted by ThePrude

I had a funny/weird experience with tech support today (Symantic Norton Antivirus)

Anway, I had to call 3 different times, and I ended up speaking to about 6 different agents. They were all obviously from India, but they all had such "American" sounding names like "John", "Peggy", "Alice" and "Dave".

These are obviously not their real names...but I think the reason Symantic re-baptised them is that the average middle American would be scared off if they heard names like "Rajvinder" or "Arun" or "Baljit".

I felt bad for them...it must be humiliating having to hide your real name.

Originally Posted by tilki

I did ask once a customer service person who clearly was from India, and not an Indian dude living in America, wheteher he was located in India or not, just out of curiosity. He said he can not disclose their location for their own protection blah blah. As if if he said "yeah, we are in India", I would immediately find him there and pull his ear for putting me on hold for too long. It is not like I asked his address, hah. But yeah the companies tell them to answer that way because they want to give the illusion that their customer service is handled within America.

Originally Posted by Rotten Berry

I think it's good that they tell them to handle things that way. I'm serious. The news about how many call centers are located in India is no secret, and people will be really abusive towards people on the phone about the employee's perceived English skills.

Originally Posted by tilki

Well, those assholes would be abusive about someone's accent no matter where that person is located in. His location does not change his accent. I also get thick accents from call centers in USA. I was curious at the time because it was only a few days before that I learnt about call centers in India by watching that 30 Days show. I had no idea otherwise, so I asked point black and he replied like that, and I laughed it off nicely coz I thought it was cute of him saying that telling me his country location would supposedly jeopardize his own privacy. They are actually very polite, a lot politer than those who are located in America. That is also another telling sign that they are in India, because they want to give a great service because they actually value their job unlike those who work in telemarketing here in America who do not get to earn much comapred to other jobs in here.

Originally Posted by Rotten Berry

I guess the point about no matter where the people are located is WHY I'm glad they tell people to answer like that. People call in and already think that a call center is in India no matter what, so if they do not get what they want, they are going to scream about your poor English skills, etc. I think that telling someone point blank that the call center is in India would compound this kind of behavior.

Originally Posted by RockitToTheMoon

I've heard (and I don't know that this is true) that some companies assign characters from American movies or tv shows to the people working on the phone. The Indian phone operator is supposed to study Ross from Friends and answer the phone as him- both with his name and personality.

Originally Posted by Black Mambo

I mean this in as non-racist a manner as possible, but I find it incredible that so many companies move their call centre operations overseas to any (largely) non-English-speaking country. Don't get me wrong, if it improves the standard of living for those people, I do find it hard to object. What concerns me is that the call centres are always for customer service purposes and you'd think that any company would be interested in having the most well-spoken people manning the phones as possible (I suppose that probably rules out half the UK population as well).

Originally Posted by Black Mambo

I mean this in as non-racist a manner as possible, but I find it incredible that so many companies move their call centre operations overseas to any (largely) non-English-speaking country. Don't get me wrong, if it improves the standard of living for those people, I do find it hard to object. What concerns me is that the call centres are always for customer service purposes and you'd think that any company would be interested in having the most well-spoken people manning the phones as possible (I suppose that probably rules out half the UK population as well).

Even regional differences in accent here in the UK can be difficult. I've heard about English customers' calls going through to Scottish operators, and even that can prove a challenge for both parties. It can't be easy for an Asian operator to deal with a British customer, and vice-versa.

Am I the only person that thinks this way? You're paying people to speak to your customers, wouldn't you want the most capable people for that job?


But yeah, it's incredible that they'd have their Asian operators be known as western names. I wonder how many Asian operators' lives were made a misery by ignorant customers before the people at the top reached that solution. And it's likely still a fairly miserable job when you can't even be addressed by your own name. It blows my mind.

Originally Posted by tilki

I think most people still do not know about this. I mean I learned it after watching that show randomly on Bravo. But the reason I laughed to myself was not that he did not want to disclose the location, but the reason they were told to give: that it would jeapordize their privacy, which is silly, but I know they are reading from the sheet of what they are told to say to me, so it is not HIS answer per se. I said pretty much the same thing in my previous posts that it is the companies who want people to assume that all is handled in America. Not so much maybe because of possible abusiveness about accents (although that always may happen) but more because someone will say to them, despite how great that Indian person may have learned the Ameican accent, "I want to speak to someone in AMERICA. My goods are in America and they are supposed to be shipped to me from America, why am I talking to someone in India, darnidydarn!!??". It makes some people feel somewhat better thinking the help regarding the products they purchased comes from somewhere where the products came from. Did that make sense?

Originally Posted by shashtasheen

most of my family is from india, and they speak english just as well as anybody here. the only difference is that they have an accent. the schools in india are required to teach their students english from the start. s