News AT&T stops outsourcing

[Da Dego]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/09...s_outsourcing/

[DougEdey]

If only all companies *coff*banks*coff* did this.

[bubsterboo]

Have you ever called a technical support line for your phone provider, computer manufacturer, or other piece of technological importance only to have the other end of the line be barely able to understand you, much less diagnose your problems?

Hahahaha, A friend bought a refurbished monitor of some kind a while ago. I phoned their tech support because the monitor menu for moving and scaling the image was locked and i couldent figure out how to unlock it. The tech support person was absolutely useless, i could barely understand what he was saying and to solve my problems he told me to restart the monitor... wtf? So the internet ended solving my problem instead.

Anyways...

[BioSniper]

I could only hope that more companies follow. Heck, my insurance company is outsourced, just hope I don't have to claim as I'm pretty sure they wouldn't understand.

I can understand the reasons for out sourcing as its cheap and drives down the cost of the products/services to the end user however bringing support back home would create alot of much needed jobs in this supposed time of high unemployment.

[dire_wolf]

So basically they're upgrading their foreign idiots to normal overpaid idiots who will more than likely follow the same script as the last lot but speak better english?

(Sorry, i just got off the Phone with NTL and i'm in a particularly murderous mood )

[samkiller42]

Hum, so we could start talking to american idiots Still might not understand them if Bush is anything to go by

Oh, btw, im British with a dislike for Bush and his stupidity, unless someone can take the michael out of him

[DXR_13KE]

this is a realy good thing. at least you wont be geting help from a dude from india that knows jack about computers.

[Warrior_Rocker]

I used to work at a webhosting company http://hostgator.com as an online support chat tech and phone tech. We started out with people here in the us and that is how it will continue. Thing is when you are calling tech support chances are you are already frustrated. The one thing you dont want to hear on the other end is "Hello and please be holding while I am bearing with you as my english is not of the very bestest." Not encouraging that you will ever get your issue resolved.

We used to outsource to india to answer emails, but even that did not work out, so we un-outsourced that, so to speak.

I am glad to see this trend, a good many companies are hearing the public outcry to have people they can understand speak to them. It may be cost effective in the short term, it is far more costly to have terrible support for when things do and will go awry.

[Nova]

ive dealt with the support staff from car/home audio provider crutchfield.com a few times and i have found they have the best phone/chat support period, i hope all these other companies take note from crutchfield and emulate their support system!

[Aankhen]

Originally Posted by DXR_13KE

this is a realy good thing. at least you wont be geting help from a dude from india that knows jack about computers.

Yes, instead you'll have a clueless American.

[Tyinsar]

The only good thing I can say about outsourcing is that provides much needed jobs in nations that need them - even if it "takes" from rich contries. I think we in the "West" with our unions and sense of entitlement occasionally need that sense shaken. If the person on the other end of the phone is knowledgeable and can communicate clearly I'm fine. Sadly this is often not the case even when call centers are not outsourced due to the cost of knowledgeable employees here.

Edit: the guy above me beat me too it

[Warrior_Rocker]

Originally Posted by Aankhen

Yes, instead you'll have a clueless American.

heh, as far as I am concerned the "clueless Americans" pioneered the computer as we know it? Maybe we are the right ones to ask?


I am sure we can all be reminded of Foamy's encounter with tech support

[NaThRo]

I had to call the customer support for my mobile phone company recently and was dreading having to do it, expecting an overseas ESL (English as a Second Language, or at least not their first language) call centre.

To my immense surprise it was an Aussie who answered!

This immediately changed my mood and feelings toward my mobile phone provider. I had been considering changing to another provider... not any more!

[DougEdey]

But even non outsourced positions do not help with tech support. Everytime I ring my ISP with exactly the same problem I have to go through the same tests every single time and get told to ring back in a few days after I have completed the tests and when I say I have and they have no record of it I get livid.

[Cthippo]

Lets face it, bad tech support across the industry is good for everyone, except the customer. If they can all be equally bad, then the customer will keep buying from them because everyone else is just as bad and they save money on payroll costs.

Good on AT&T, but I think it will flop miserably.

[DXR_13KE]

or succeed imensly. and other companies will folow.

[Warrior_Rocker]

Originally Posted by DougEdey

But even non outsourced positions do not help with tech support. Everytime I ring my ISP with exactly the same problem I have to go through the same tests every single time and get told to ring back in a few days after I have completed the tests and when I say I have and they have no record of it I get livid.

The reason they walk you through the same steps is because of the thousands of different reasons everything can be broken, working at a webhosting provider I often had people say "my webpage isnt working"... most of the time if they just restart their computer, or clear their browsers cache everything is happy again.


tech support is an iffy buisness, you really never know who you will get on the other line, I spent years making fun of these people, until I was one of those people. It is a good bit harder than it seems. Everyone asks a differenet question, in a different way, in a different accent.


I guess when a tech walks you though those same simple steps, it is because he probably knows it will solve the problem 9 out of 10 times. After all why give a customer an extremely complicated soluton, when just restarting their cable modem would have fixed the issue?


As for your ISP having no record of the issue. It is quite common, even though the call may be recorded it is near impossible to ever find it again, or link it somehow with your account. If I may make a suggestion, I know when I worked at hostagor.com We had two systems Live support, and a Ticket system, The ticket system was only dealt with by administrators with full SSH access to all of our boxes. If you can try to find out if they have some sort of system that you can email back and forth, you normally get a reference number or Ticket ID such as AUX-293212, You can always call up and give them that and they can pull up the problem in full with all responses to it.

[Aankhen]

Originally Posted by Warrior_Rocker

heh, as far as I am concerned the "clueless Americans" pioneered the computer as we know it? Maybe we are the right ones to ask?

...tell me you didn't just say that.

[shotgunefx]

It's a start.

I had ATT long distance, and it was billed through my Verizon service. They shut off my long distance service, saying I hadn't payed them, but I did (through Verizon).

So I call to see what the nonsense was about and off to India I go. Not only was she (the operator) less than helpful, she was down right rude. Insisting I jump through all these hoops to prove it.

I call Verizon. Apparently in this setup, Verizon makes giant batches of payments to AT&T once a month, whether customers pay Verizon or not (before they are billed in fact). These payments are made for batches of accounts, tens of thousands. There is no bill specifically for the payment of my account from Verizon to AT&T

I call back and now she is really friggin rude, practically barking at me and saying that I have to do this and that. Even explaining how there own billing arrangement works, she won't relent. I ask for her manager and says there is none. (right..., did I mention I used to run a tech support call center?)

I ended up hanging up on her and calling Verizon back. I ask what I should do, he said "F*CK em" , just ignore them, my Verizon bills prove I payed and then he switched me to a better long distance service.

Still it ate up hours of my time and was infuriating.

[cgm0001]

Please guys - take a look at the english usage (both grammar and spelling) in the postings in this thread and tell me that english is NOT the first language of the participants.

So why criticize others

Incidentally I DO NOT support outsourcing as it is practiced and dictated by a few elites in the USA - it will eventually lead to the relegation of the USA to a second or third world situation - so fight this evil.

I would not mind outsourcing so much if the goal was the upliftment of the peoples on the receiving end of those jobs - but this is not the case. What we see is that it is driven by greed and avarice and has led to the exploitation of those foreign workers - who are the targets of exploitation by both the outsourcers in the USA as well as their local bosses. This is definitely a new kind of slavery (the US constitution and legal system does not protect them) and we should once again resist it mightily.