Why do companies outsource their customer service to India?

Question

I'm about ready to throw my phone through the wall. All I need is to ask a question to someone who can freakin speak English.

Answer 1

That's right, I was trying to talk to someone about my WalMart/Sam's credit card and finally after making an idiot of myself by demanding someone who spoke English, I discovered they were in India. I just got mad and canceled. I don't like the idea of all my personal info being across the globe. Of course I guess it's not any worse than being across the US, but it still irks me.
Look at the bottom of the yahoo answers page where it shows the countries participating and their flags etc. They have USA's in English and Spanish,that ticks me off!.

Answer 2

Because people will work excruciatingly long hours for much lower wages, and because contrary to what you've stated, so many Indians DO speak English and many are very well-educated. Plus, they seem to have a very strong work ethic.

The huge corporations of the world are pitting people against one another. It's not the fault of hard working Indians that US jobs are outsourced abroad. It's the fault of greedy corporations, and the corrupt politicians who allow it. Don't fall into the trap of holding a grudge against Indians, or any other group of hard working people.

And on the subject of English, just because they don't have an American, British, or Canadian accent doesn't mean they're not speaking English.

Have you ever been abroad? I assume you're in the US, and I can tell you that if you go to Britian it might very well take you some time to become accustomed to the British accent. And of course, to the Brits, we have an American accent.

No one really owns the English language anymore. It's become the most dominant international language.

In fact, the following quote is from ABC News Radio:
"the country with the largest number of English language speakers in the world is…India!"

Don't take any of this the wrong way. It makes me angry, too, that jobs are outsourced when people here can do the work. But I try to put the blame where it belongs. And there's nothing that's wrong with your question, in my opinion.

Answer 3

It's cheaper. But if the person can't speak English well, then it is a bad Indian company because most speak great English (American and British). In fact many of the companies put their employees through several weeks of English training, and now are expanding into German and Spanish. So, those great American service reps you talk to, may actually be Indian and you didn't even know it.
I spoke with a rep from Atlanta GA the other day and couldn't understand her. Go figure.

Answer 4

5g's a year in India is equivalent to about 40g's for the average american. So, company A can pay someone in India 2500/year, and hire 8 people for the same 20gs here.

It's all about dollars and sense. Samething happened in the 80's when manufacturing got shipped to Taiwan. Fire the Americans, and hire a bunch more foriegnors for a lot less money so the CEO can get a GIANMORMOUS Christmas bonus!

Answer 5

The first, and obvious, reason is cost. For 1 full-time employee in India, the "all in" cost (overhead, electrical, telecom, salaray & benefits) is $19,000 to $22,000. That same FTE in the US would run $30-$40,000 for salary & benefits alone.
Second, you have the benefits of the time-zone difference. India is 9.5 hours ahead of the East Coast (10.5 after we "fall back"). So there is shift overlap, and you can take advantage of a 24-hour clock. You can pay India first-shift wages while they technically work third-shift hours in the US, thereby allowing you to provide greater hours of coverage to your customers.
The company I used to work for, acknowledging the language and cultural difficulties of foreign customer service reps, actually didn't house any phone associates in India, but instead used them for back office operations such as quality monitoring and the like.

Answer 6

Because you've already bought their product, so they don't really have to worry about whether they provide adequate service, or even someone on the other end of the phone who speaks English. Unfortunate truth.

Answer 7

People earn less in India, so they are paid less, and the amount of money saved through payroll is greater than the amount of money it costs for int'l phone lines and etc.

That and publicly traded companies do not care about ethics or customer happiness, they only care about profit for shareholders.

Answer 8

For the same reason they allow so many Mexican people in the country. Cheap labor. They don't care about us, the people from India, or the Mexicans. They care about how much extra profit they can make.

Answer 9

because they only have to pay the ppl in india $.25 an hour to do the same thing americans would do for $15 an hour.

Answer 10

Calm down ooooooooom! Come on.....make a joke of the funny things that happen. They have a very cute accent! One can start a joke book.