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Today's rant: Indian tech support

radcen

radcen

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Today's rant: Indian tech support

Call me racist, call me xenophobic, call me intolerant, I don't care. I seriously hate Indian tech support.

For my own reasons I keep my domain registration and my domain hosting at two separate companies. The hosting company has completely screwed up the situation.

Which is interesting because both companies are owned by the same parent comany (a fact that I did not know when I recently changed hosting companies).

:gunner:
 
The funniest is hearing a distinct Indian accent, followed by "from Kansas."

Ya know, a lot of IT support jobs are coming back to the USA IIRC
 
I have been dealing with this for many years.
For starters, I think there are some cultural differences, that make India a poor choice
for Tech support, and how it is supposed to operate.
Their should be tiers of support.
1st tier basically diagnoses the problem, helping with the simple stuff.
The 1st tier, should have a clear idea of when a problem is outside their scope, and escalated.
What I have observed, is that even when it is clear a problem is not tier 1, the techs
will try and solve it by just going through their boiler plate questionnaire a second,
and even a third time.
 
longview said:
I have been dealing with this for many years.
For starters, I think there are some cultural differences, that make India a poor choice
for Tech support, and how it is supposed to operate.
Their should be tiers of support.
1st tier basically diagnoses the problem, helping with the simple stuff.
The 1st tier, should have a clear idea of when a problem is outside their scope, and escalated.
What I have observed, is that even when it is clear a problem is not tier 1, the techs
will try and solve it by just going through their boiler plate questionnaire a second,
and even a third time.
Click to expand...
I do believe that cultural differences play a big part.
 
radcen said:
I do believe that cultural differences play a big part.
Click to expand...

So do language differences.

Hay low my name iss mike. How may I halp djoo toda?

But, they do work more cheaply than people who speak American English as a first language, which is why you only have to listen to "Did you know you can get help online on our website....." fifty times while thinking "If I could get online I wouldn't need tech support!" instead of a couple hundred.
 
Dittohead not! said:
So do language differences.

Hay low my name iss mike. How may I halp djoo toda?

But, they do work more cheaply than people who speak American English as a first language, which is why you only have to listen to "Did you know you can get help online on our website....." fifty times while thinking "If I could get online I wouldn't need tech support!" instead of a couple hundred.
Click to expand...
I've been dealing with them for over a week online only (precisely because I do not want to call them)... live chat and tickets... and there's still an obvious language and/or culture difference that is thwarting me.
 
The issue is not limited to India. Call centers have expanded into South and Central America, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.

The problem with using these overseas call centers is the presumption that simple knowledge of English must equate to an ability to understand the needs of a native English speaker.

It would be like setting up service call centers in the USA for problem solving of customers from India, South America, etc. We might understand the language but we wouldn't understand their social/cultural needs. They would be as frustrated as we are trying to deal with someone who just doesn't get what they are calling about.

The member who mentioned these call center personnel frequently pretend to be from the USA is right. As if we can't tell someone with American cultural experience from a fake claimant. However, that does demonstrate these folks know there is a problem, and are trying a pretty lame way of circumventing it.
 
Last edited:
Captain Adverse said:
The issue is not limited to India. Call centers have expanded into South and Central America, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.

The problem with using these overseas call centers is the presumption that simple knowledge of English must equate to an ability to understand the needs of a native English speaker.

It would be like setting up service call centers in the USA for problem solving of customers from India, South America, etc. We might understand the language but we wouldn't understand their social/cultural needs. They would be as frustrated as we are trying to deal with someone who just doesn't get what they are calling about.

The member who mentioned these call center personnel frequently pretend to be from the USA is right. As if we can't tell someone with American cultural experience from a fake claimant. However, that does demonstrate these folks know there is a problem, and are trying a pretty lame way of circumventing it.
Click to expand...

The cynical part of me says they don't even care about that. It's just $$$. They can 'get by' with pretending simple language communication is enough.
 
radcen said:
Today's rant: Indian tech support

Call me racist, call me xenophobic, call me intolerant, I don't care. I seriously hate Indian tech support.

For my own reasons I keep my domain registration and my domain hosting at two separate companies. The hosting company has completely screwed up the situation.

Which is interesting because both companies are owned by the same parent comany (a fact that I did not know when I recently changed hosting companies).

:gunner:
Click to expand...

You also have to remember you are dealing with people who are working second shift over there. So, you are not getting the better people. There is also a big difference in work ethic. Between the langauge barrier, the lack of abiltiy, the work ethic and the fact they are call center (I.e. scum of the earth).. no wonder you are frustrated
 
longview said:
I have been dealing with this for many years.
For starters, I think there are some cultural differences, that make India a poor choice
for Tech support, and how it is supposed to operate.
Their should be tiers of support.
1st tier basically diagnoses the problem, helping with the simple stuff.
The 1st tier, should have a clear idea of when a problem is outside their scope, and escalated.
What I have observed, is that even when it is clear a problem is not tier 1, the techs
will try and solve it by just going through their boiler plate questionnaire a second,
and even a third time.
Click to expand...

Ah well, at least Chinese tech support will probably be better.
 
Here's one solution:

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Henry Monterroso is a foreigner in his own country. Raised in California from the age of 5, he was deported to Mexico in 2011 and found himself in a land he barely knew.

But the 34-year-old Tijuana native feels right at home as soon as gets to work at Call Center Services International, where workers are greeted in English. Monterroso supervises five employees amid rows of small cubicles who spend eight hours a day dialing numbers across the United States to collect on credit card bills and other debts.

He is among thousands of deported Mexicans who are finding refuge in call centers in Tijuana and other border cities. In perfect English — some hardly speak Spanish — they converse with American consumers who buy gadgets, have questions about warrantees or complain about overdue deliveries.
Click to expand...
 
Captain Adverse said:
The issue is not limited to India. Call centers have expanded into South and Central America, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.

The problem with using these overseas call centers is the presumption that simple knowledge of English must equate to an ability to understand the needs of a native English speaker.

It would be like setting up service call centers in the USA for problem solving of customers from India, South America, etc. We might understand the language but we wouldn't understand their social/cultural needs. They would be as frustrated as we are trying to deal with someone who just doesn't get what they are calling about.

The member who mentioned these call center personnel frequently pretend to be from the USA is right. As if we can't tell someone with American cultural experience from a fake claimant. However, that does demonstrate these folks know there is a problem, and are trying a pretty lame way of circumventing it.
Click to expand...

How about- they're just dumb and will often try and scam you.
 
My worst and my best experiences have been with Tech Service from India. My worst? OMG, it involved a period of days, followed by phone calls to see if the problem was solved... at least I think that was the question... by people who I could not understand at all... followed by me saying no, it wasn't solved, in fact instead of eliminating the virus from my machine, they eliminated the damned Anti-Virus program that I'd paid for!

My best was when I couldn't get a video game to load properly, and ended up losing the download that I had paid for. This tech sat on the computer with me for two freaking hours, insisting to wait through the download (which took almost an hour from my podunk server), saying that until I had everything I'd paid for, he wasn't leaving. He was outside of Mumbai, and we chatted about everything from his love of rugby to the kinds of video games he liked, exchanging jokes, and honestly I felt as if I'd just spent two hours in a coffee shop with a new friend.

People are people. Caveat: as long as you can understand each other!
 
DiAnna said:
My worst and my best experiences have been with Tech Service from India. My worst? OMG, it involved a period of days, followed by phone calls to see if the problem was solved... at least I think that was the question... by people who I could not understand at all... followed by me saying no, it wasn't solved, in fact instead of eliminating the virus from my machine, they eliminated the damned Anti-Virus program that I'd paid for!

My best was when I couldn't get a video game to load properly, and ended up losing the download that I had paid for. This tech sat on the computer with me for two freaking hours, insisting to wait through the download (which took almost an hour from my podunk server), saying that until I had everything I'd paid for, he wasn't leaving. He was outside of Mumbai, and we chatted about everything from his love of rugby to the kinds of video games he liked, exchanging jokes, and honestly I felt as if I'd just spent two hours in a coffee shop with a new friend.

People are people. Caveat: as long as you can understand each other!
Click to expand...
Your "best" story is pretty cool.
 
longview said:
I have been dealing with this for many years.
For starters, I think there are some cultural differences, that make India a poor choice
for Tech support, and how it is supposed to operate.
Their should be tiers of support.
1st tier basically diagnoses the problem, helping with the simple stuff.
The 1st tier, should have a clear idea of when a problem is outside their scope, and escalated.
What I have observed, is that even when it is clear a problem is not tier 1, the techs
will try and solve it by just going through their boiler plate questionnaire a second,
and even a third time.
Click to expand...

Because thats what they're trained to do. I co-own several call centers (not in India so dont rage at me lol) and the corporations that outsource to us provides us with a template and all calls routed to tech support must start with a prelim basic diagnostic (are the cables plugged in? is the modem working? yadda yadda yadda) script before they go on to the more advanced stuff. There were many times that agents would come up to me and ask if they could bypass the prelim script because they knew what the problem was but I basically told my managers that this is what our clients want and so unless they give us more flexible rules we have to stick with it.

Actually, in most cases the basic stuff does work. You wont believe how many tech support problems were solved by just running through the prelims.
 
PoS said:
Because thats what they're trained to do. I co-own several call centers (not in India so dont rage at me lol) and the corporations that outsource to us provides us with a template and all calls routed to tech support must start with a prelim basic diagnostic (are the cables plugged in? is the modem working? yadda yadda yadda) script before they go on to the more advanced stuff. There were many times that agents would come up to me and ask if they could bypass the prelim script because they knew what the problem was but I basically told my managers that this is what our clients want and so unless they give us more flexible rules we have to stick with it.

Actually, in most cases the basic stuff does work. You wont believe how many tech support problems were solved by just running through the prelims.
Click to expand...
I am normally quite capable of doing the basic checks myself, and do before I call. Insistence that we have to do it always pisses me off. But...

...one time the basic stuff did work. :3oops:
 
i work in IT so i can definitely relate to your frustration

however i have to say that this isn't limited to india, although the accents/language barrier can make it worse at times

but in general, it depends on the individual worker. if they're good and care about their job, they'll be helpful, it they dont, they wont, same as in the US. if you get a lazy help desk guy who doesn't care, you'll get bad service.

the root of the problem i think is that people who work at call centers like that aren't just very good; if they had real tech talent they'd be developers or analysts or something. that is an entry level job for people without many skills
 
PoS said:
Because thats what they're trained to do. I co-own several call centers (not in India so dont rage at me lol) and the corporations that outsource to us provides us with a template and all calls routed to tech support must start with a prelim basic diagnostic (are the cables plugged in? is the modem working? yadda yadda yadda) script before they go on to the more advanced stuff. There were many times that agents would come up to me and ask if they could bypass the prelim script because they knew what the problem was but I basically told my managers that this is what our clients want and so unless they give us more flexible rules we have to stick with it.

Actually, in most cases the basic stuff does work. You wont believe how many tech support problems were solved by just running through the prelims.
Click to expand...

You'd think people would check to see if everything is plugged in and try turning the machine off and then on again before investing the time it takes to call tech support, but no, they don't.
 
Dittohead not! said:
You'd think people would check to see if everything is plugged in and try turning the machine off and then on again before investing the time it takes to call tech support, but no, they don't.
Click to expand...
I believe that most people don't, but to expand on my experience above... I did, and it didn't help. I was then going through the process to humor the tech and get past that part when, whammo!, it did help.

I was both dumbfounded and embarrassed.
 
Dittohead not! said:
You'd think people would check to see if everything is plugged in and try turning the machine off and then on again before investing the time it takes to call tech support, but no, they don't.
Click to expand...

Or, even better.. know that the machine is actually plugged in.
 
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