Suckification
Budjette alerted me to the Wired explanation of Why Things Suck, customer service-wise:
Bangalore, India
The locals speak English, they’re educated, and they’ll work for 85 percent less than equally qualified US employees. But they’re not exactly emotionally invested in the product you bought.
Manila, Philippines
English is spoken here, too (the Philippines were an American colony). Plus, the island nation is wired with optical fiber, meaning cheap voice-over-Internet calls. And they work even cheaper than the Indians (so that’ll ensure quality!).
Tell me again who outsourced the jobs because their profit margins are way more important than customer satisfaction and a familiar accent? Are the customers really dissatisfied, or do they really prefer to speak to an American? And was their locally-based customer service so great to begin with?
Juan pointed us to this account of an American’s experience with a Manila-based call center. Â
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
February 6th, 2008 at 02:00
I have managed several Fortune 500 clients that outsourced their respective accounts CS/TS to multiple sites in multiple countries. All of these accounts show one thing in common: in terms of Customer Satisfaction, callcenters in the Philippines trump the rest of the competition.
February 6th, 2008 at 02:01
..and the US itself is part of the competition.
February 6th, 2008 at 05:15
Filipinos work cheaper than Indians??? really??? I always thought it was the other way around… I never could understand why companies would choose to outsource to India. However much they gain in profit margin, they lose just as much or even more due to customer dissatisfaction b/c of horrible customer service.
February 6th, 2008 at 18:33
Back in gradeschool I remember our Science teacher telling us never to use hairclips, as there was this woman who’d been using hairclips to clean her ears and she died of tetanus.
February 7th, 2008 at 19:25
Well, we are all entitled to our own opinion.