Indian Answering calls?

Question

Why is it that everywhere i call i get Indians answering the phone?
Im not racist so don't give me that please but it's the fact that i don't understand them and they don't understand me. I find myself repeating myslef to them numerous times and them the same to me.
It is so frustrating.
Taxi's, restaurants, take aways etc all have indians answering the calls.
My bank even has and indian call center.

Answer 1

It is because the Indians work cheaper and so they are hired more. It annoys me too!

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

It's the result of outsourcing. Companies want to save money so they outsource customer service. I have nothing against India, but I feel that it was a bad idea to outsource customer service jobs there. The language barrier is a tough thing to deal with, but what's worse is the cultural barrier.

For instance, I was having a hard time when placing an order for certain personal items on Amazon.com. I had ordered them before with no problem, but this time, I kept on getting a message saying that my card had expired. I knew good and well it hadn't, so I called up customer service. I could tell from the accent that the gentleman was from India, but didn't think anything of it. Lots of companies outsource. When he pulled up my account information to see what I was trying to order, he gulped and then suggested that maybe my bank had a problem with me ordering things of this nature?! I told him that all my bank concerns itself with is the money, not what I buy with it!

The issue got settled after about 5 hours of messing around calling my bank, Amazon customer service, etc. But the more and more I thought about what this guy said to me, the angrier I became. I thought he had a lot of nerve saying that to me. If he had such a problem with me buying items that his company sells, why the heck is he working for them?

I happen to have an aquaintance, however, who is from India. We were talking about outsourcing (she's not a fan of it, either. She was treated rudely by outsourced employees and she's from the same culture!) and I mentioned this incident. She explained to me that India is very conservative, that most parents won't even kiss in front of their children. The man was embarrassed about what I was ordering, especially because I'm a woman, and made a judgment call that he shouldn't have made. She also agreed with me that, in adddition to being taught English, people working at Indian call centers should be given a class about different cultures so that such problems don't happen.

Answer 4

It does my head in. Like you I'm not racist but when I make a phone call I want to speak to someone who can understand me and sort out whatever I'm calling for ASAP, I've got better things to do than repeat myself over and over because they don;t understand my accent. If you call an offshore call centre they have a set script, which is no differnet to the web site info and I wouldn't be calling if I didn't have a query that wasn't on the web, they can't tell you any information or put you through to anyone who can and it drives me mad. I also hate being called ma'am, if you must be polite it's miss thank you very much. If I'm speaking to someone in the UK it's just as annoying as call centres, I think it's just bad business to have someone answering a phone if their accent is too strong to be understood by the majority, the calls take longer and customers are less likely to return, you wouldn't employ a typist who took twice as long as their colleagues to type a document so why employ a telephonist who takes twice as long to deal with a call?

Answer 5

Indian call centres are much cheaper than UK ones, but isnt it so annoying when you ring up a 118 directory inquiries number and get someone not even in the country, so you could be looking for the nearest airport number and they havnt got a clue what it is. They dont know the areas or the facilities. It ends up costing you a fortune in phone calls.

Sorry moan over!!

Answer 6

A lot of organisations have out-sourced call centres to India because there is a large, very well educated (Mostly graduate) workforce willing to do call centre work at comparatively cheap rates.
I do agree that heavy accents, particularly on long-distance phone calls, can be very hard to understand. I spent a very frustrating time talking to a call centre about a fault with my broadband - we were constantly asking each other to repeat, and going round in circles. Because of customer dissatisfaction, I think this in the long run will prove to be a false economy. I would say that articulate spoken English is a legitimate job specification if you are going to be taking calls from England!

Answer 7

OMG I know what you mean. I don't care what race/gender/nationality someone is, as long as they can speak and understand English well!!!!! I mean if you're taking calls from an English speaking country, it should be a requirement for you to be able to speak/understand the language well enough for the customers. I mean I don't speak Chinese, are they going to hire me for a call center in China? lol
Once, I got into an argument with an AOL call center employee - they asked my screen name and I began telling them:
'I - N - H - E....'
And they repeated
"eye - en - ache - eee'
and I said no 'H' and they said no 'ache' lol It went on for five minutes I was so mad and asked for someone else and they said no! So I hung up!
I think it's so ridiculous!
But companies hire people from India because they will work for much cheaper. As if big companies need more money please

Answer 8

It seems like all the big companies here in the US have outsourced their telephone customer service rep jobs to huge call centers in India. Yes, it is EXTREMELY frustrating to call your credit card company, your phone company, or whoever, and have to talk to someone on the other side of the world who barely understands you and has a such a thick accent that you can't understand them at all! I know what you mean, it's not a racist thing at all. But it is very annoying.

Answer 9

It is all about outsourcing. Outsourcing refers to getting things done from out-house instead of getting them done in-house. Right now India is a big spot for this activity. Typically though countries that provide cheap labor for outsourcing will eventually run into 2 problems. The cost labor will rise and the amount of skilledlabor will diminish. This is happening in India now. Dont be surprised if you see these outsourcing markets moving to other countries such as china or western europe in the next few years.

Answer 10

Hey there! It looks like you are not very extrovert kind of person and very sensitive too. But let me tell you that doesn't sounds funny, in fact its good that guys still think of their limitations & deadlines. Neways,the best way to find out if its OK or not is by judging the limitations & mindset of your friend. Maybe 10pm is not the deadline for her & if she's just a friend you may send a SMS to her asking if it'll be ok to call her, that late, or not. It may just prove to be a mental block & nothing else, so rather than having a one-sided desicion its better to casually ask her & try to get a feeler of how she takes it.. All the Best!

Answer 11

Hey I'm an Indian and it even annoys me. It's not that I can talk the local lingo because there are so many languages in India that's it's pretty unlikely that I can speak their language.
All you can do is use other banks, it's only when they start losing customers they'll bring the call centres back to the UK.