India ? Your opinion...

[Rotten_Orange]

With all the speculation/reality regarding network operators moving call centre's abroad. Just thought i'd set a poll to gather the opinions of the enlightened...

[gajet]

~Couldn't work out how to vote. IMO it's not the location of the call centre that matters, it's how well it operates. If an indian call centre worked as well as a current local one then who cares, but if we get another 3CS then that's a different matter.

[99901]

end of the day its all down to money. If the call centre is set up right then it performs just the same or better in some cases.

Wanadoo have just moved their Dial up call centre to India and the customer sat figures are much better than before.

[vijay2040]

i think it is good idea.

is spreading the wealth around the globe.
i find customer services here at a lot of companies are people who dont have pride in their jobs and often give out misleading information

[fozzie]

Yeah but the elongated waiting times experienced by users when phoning 3 & other companies would say that although spreading the wealth is good .... the overall customer experience is horrific.

The outsourced centres abroad do not seem to be able to make simple decisions without putting the caller on hold for anything between 2 & 30 minutes(possibly longer in some cases)

The accent & language barrier can also be difficult to overcome especially with the impatient manner of many customers.I am not in India I work in a call centre in Glasgow and several customers over the years have had difficulty understanding me and I have had the same problem with some of them.

Just for you thick english types before you start your neanderthal knuckle dragging anti-scottish behaviour I am actually english myself so take your pathetic rascism elesewhere.

[agent O]

i voted i'd rather they didn't
simply because it can be very frustrating holding a conversation with somebody who's accent i can't understand and if they can't understand me. i have had a number of calls recently from companies who's staff i could only just decifer were speaking english!!
by all means move your call centres where you like but please staff them with only people we can hold a conversation with.

[99901]

its all down to the right training

[bluetide]

i agree with them but only if the staff are correctly trained and they have a decent connection(unlike 3s that keeps breaking up)

[perkadillo]

I voted "not bothered"..I have had good and bad experiences with India CS. As long as we see some of the Benefits of it i dont mind....i wish they would think about whether the employees could speak good enough English though.

[Rotten_Orange]

Nobody's commented on the loss of UK jobs for the sake of costcutting...

[perkadillo]

Nobody's commented on the loss of UK jobs for the sake of costcutting...

Thats a good point...did people lose their jobs?...

[Rotten_Orange]

Not with 3 i don't think... but it's the prospect of that happening...

[99901]

Nobody's commented on the loss of UK jobs for the sake of costcutting...

Normally when a company outsources a call centre operation off - shore then the company normally looks to relocate existing staff in new roles. This is good practice from a PR point of view. However it is very difficult to relocate if the staff are part of an in house operation and there is were else to go. I believe Orange call centres are in house and the call centres are owed by Orange. However take a company called Venture who only specialise in Outsourcing then they would have loads of contracts and would be able to relocate staff over a course of a ramp down of 3 months. Orange owed call centres would not be able to do this because they only do Orange support and would have no were to put the existing staff.

Overall if you work for Orange now in the call centres I would be looking just to be safe. Like I have said in another thread Orange are not taking the calls to india just to resolve an overflow problem, this is a long term plan to take more work out there. I have also been advised there is a job out there for a contractor to project manager a telecom out to India in late summer. This is all pointing to a Orange india move

[Rotten_Orange]

Good news is another mobile operator who has already made this 'mistake' is believed to have plans to open another UK contact center... good lads...

[Gunner]

I voted I'd move. That is if the experience is as bad as with Three.

[phoney]

T mobile are the latest company in recent weeks to announce outsourcing customer service staff. Are we to assume thats to India to...

Follows hot on the heels of Oranges latest move to ship even more out to India. They'll all be over there before long.

[Gunner]

While at the same time they're forced to reduce prices to compete with Three.

Thanks Three!</sarcasm>

[phoney]

Oh yeah thats down to 3 just like the weather oh and the leaves on the track and the floater someone left in the toilet at work today.

The 3 knockers have been telling us for months that Orange and the rest wouldnt have to resort to competing with 3 on prices.

But now all the worlds problems are down to 3...yawn...

[Gunner]

Hey.. just adding my 2 cents... like you did...

Why don't you leave all the '3 knockers' rubbish in the toilet where it belongs :) You're obviously pro-3... that's fine, good for you. Doesn't mean I have to be!

[phoney]

Doesnt mean you have to try your cheap line of blamin 3 for the fact that Orange have chosen to outsource their CS to India...

Oh did I tell you the Iraq war was down to 3 as well LMFAO

[Gunner]

Why can't I? What gives you the right to say I can't have my opinion? :S

[phoney]

Er I didnt actually say that.

But whilst on the same lines as you - here's my opinion...the 3 knockers desperation to explain this one away knows no bounds...

[agent O]

i heard on the grapevine that 3 faked the moon landings, oh and they had santa murdered. the most insideous crime tho is that 3 killed bambi

runs off crying

[3themagicnumber]

Good cricketing nation

[Rotten_Orange]

[QUOTE=agent O]the most insideous crime tho is that 3 killed bambi QUOTE]


Thats really low... Fitting, but low...

Heh incidently i'm giving serious consideration to asking our internal CS for a pac code to go to the big 3 ;)

[Gunner]

Why the hell would you want to do that :S Even if it was down to cost, surely you get discount on O? :S

[scoobystu2]

Like other posters have mentioned, call centres in India it has good points and bad points. Plus that can be true of many UK based call centres. It is all down to good training.

[Rotten_Orange]

Why the hell would you want to do that :S Even if it was down to cost, surely you get discount on O? :S

Contract => 13 months since last upgrade
Handset Sanyo S750
Handset Price - Free
Upgrade Fee - £125

Bearing in mind our retail stores upgrade roughly every six months(ish) free, and get a better choice of handsets.

We have to wait until they decide to do another 'companywide' refresh or pay £125, They won't tell us how long we have to wait though...

[Gunner]

£125? :S !!!!!

Ok... My base contract is £15 a month. I upgraded 4-5 months ago and got the Z1010 completely free. My current upgrade fee stands at £117.50!

[Rotten_Orange]

See my point, the staff call rates are good, (data rate in particular) but we don't have quite as much freedom regarding upgrades - handset choice etc...

[STAATSWANN]

I love India

[Andy252]

I hate indian call centres! If I wanted to make a call to someone I don't understand and doesn't understand me, I would call a random telephone number in Germany.

I am rather willing to pay extra money for a UK / British customer services team who can help first time. I recently left Orange for this very reason. It goes to show how many people like Indian call centres, I believe Orange lost a lot of custom over this ???

I reading a survey somewhere last year, even though companies save money by using an Indian call centre, its was something like 60% of the customer who called didn't get the query resolved first time and had to call back. It is bad customer services for any company to outsource their customer services.

The "Mircosoft Product Activation" line is another one. I remember calling this about July last year speaking to some Indian woman. All I can say is it was a bloody good job the call was free because I was on the line for over 25 minutes then it should have taken less than 2 !

[/rage]

[Andy252]

P.S. I was under the impression it was illegal to replace staff for other staff who are willing to work cheaper. How do Orange work around this if they move all their call centres ?

[bilbo--baggins]

Just for you thick english types before you start your neanderthal knuckle dragging anti-scottish behaviour I am actually english myself so take your pathetic rascism elesewhere.

I think you will find it's the Scottish that are incredibly anti-English. It wouldn't occur to most English that there was any reason not to like the Scottish.

I'm only aware of it because my wife was an English person in a Scottish school. Not a nice experience...

[Gangsta Moto]

Yo... i heard 3 started WW2 back in the day when the Aliens still lived on Planet 3 and wanted to take over... Hitler was an Alien from Planet 3 ya'll... thot u knew.

Plus... also heard the iraq war was actually started by them cos since they could not take over the world.. they got Bushman to hook dem up with gas so they could fly back home.

Fcuk u George Bush... punk azz sellout!

The furture's Orange.

[mykiemm]

I think you will find it's the Scottish that are incredibly anti-English.

In my experience this is simply not true at all. And i think its ridiculous to base an opinion of an entire nation on the actions of school children. School children aren’t the kindest of people at the best of times, I cant imagine a Scottish person at an English school would have had a better experience - thats life, if your different from the "normal" in school then its not usually a great experience. For the record I’m a Scottish person who’s lived in England for about 3 years now.

Anyway...back on topic. I don’t have a problem with an Indian call centre, so long as they are up to scratch. If they are useless, know nothing, and cant help with anything then what’s the point, they are just wasting my time and the companies money. In my experience of Indian call centres 3's is in general better than orange's. I know people at work that when they are calling through a new connection will hang up and redial if it gets through to India!

[camlo2k]

I work for large company who have call centre in India. Many customers have said they don`t want to talk to india call centre. Problem is accent and they don`t fully understand our language. They are ok if it`s in their script. I phoned Debenhams and was put through to India and I ended up terminating the call. I am on 3G and I phoned to get roaming sorted and couldn`t understand the agent. Luckily when I rang back I got through to the Uk. My company is moving everything away from India because of poor feedback from customers.