Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

Do you speak any other language apart from English well enough to converse over the phone with someone? Could you speak another language well enough to understand technical queries etc? Don't forget that the people in these off-shore call centers are not speaking their native language when you call them up, they are often answering the phone at a very early hour in India due to time zone differences and they do their best to try and resolve issues that they may not fully understand themselves.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

So who previously did tech support, yes it was ibm but did people at ibm uk lose jobs?

There may well be supervisors in india but they too sigh to come to the phone.

Have you rang ntl tech support in india?
If yes have you spoken to a supervisor?
If no then why are you telling me its the opposite to what I say and what others have experienced, you may have used to work for NTL and it may be different to call centre's you worked in and you may also have been told its nice and rosy in india but this isnt the case.

I can compare this to nike sweatshops where the cheif exec at the company chooses to ignore the dire conditions of the child workers he employs as far as he was concerned it was the opposite to reality.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

Silly question! - you just knew some one would answer that with the obvious!

(Actually I've been made redundant from IBM twice since 1974!!)

Incidentally regarding Indian call centres ironically a few years ago IBM tried deploying their DB2 lab/coc to India from Toronto but quickly had to redeploy it back again due to some seriously heavy criticism from some of their larger corporate customers.

Additionally one of IBM's largest banking customers (at the time) probably had (dis)proportionately more technical support from us for it's Indian CC than all other UK based CCs put together.
No doubt some IBM Global Services marketeer copped a nice little sweetner for stuffing NTL with a Level2+ outsourcing support contract knowing that L1 was India based and thus bound to inflate L2 call stats and quality feedback.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

Actually before September 2004 it was all done by ntl. Everyone who worked in Tech Support then was TUPE transferred to IBM/Manpower, and later the India centre opened. There were no jobs cut- just extra jobs created in India.

Too Sigh?? :confused:

Yes and yes, I used to work with them every day.

I was *told* anything about the centre in India- when I was at ntl I dealt with all the levels of support in India on a day to day basis, so perhaps you could just change the record and accept that I might actually know what I'm talking about?!


yes... i can see how the situations are extremely similar :rolleyes:

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

not strictly true, there were voluntary redundcies<sp> of a couple of management from tech support in swansea, & there have been no new staff taken on in swansea since the takeover/outsourcing, but plenty have left, these havent been replaced in swansea but the headcount in india has increased to cover these people who left swansea & some more on top....

complete & utter b0ll0x...sometimes if you dont know what your talking about its better to say nothin at all.....

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

So me and other customers who can see an obvious difference in quality of tech support since the move to india are talking ********, I only speaking from experience nothing else.

Chris so the tech support used to be done by ntl themselves in 2004 but no job cuts after it moved to india, so these people who used to do tech support what happened to them? they got relocated? or they still do it for a select few customers?

I don't mind been given facts that quality control has been done but I find it offensive barfly that been told what I have experienced is ******** so effectively saying I am either imagining or lying.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

So given what you say, is it a good idea to have tech support in india? sorry but where is the point in employing people who cannot converse with the very people they are supposed to be assisting?
Obviously to me NTL are saving too much money not to carry on with india call centres, otherwise they would have thought long and hard before going ahead with the idea.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

I too recently had the misfortune to get through to India for broadband support.

I had had an engineer round to confirm the ethernet port on my PC had died a death (PC saying a cable was disconnected). I have had to go back to the usb connection. I phoned for confirmation on this. After a very annoying ten minutes of an Indian Gentleman telling me that it meant the cable may be faulty (Not true) he would book an engineer (which had just visited the same day). I tried to explain that I wanted help in reconfiguring my connection for usb. This continued with the man repeatedly saying 'Listen to me will you' I finally reached the end of my tether after repeatedly being rudely told to listen when the man blurted out 'FOR GODS SAKE!'. at this point I asked immediately to be put through to a supervisor where the line was disconnected. I have complained via email to NTL but as is normal with their shody service have yet to recieve a reply.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

When I had my problem with Tech support in India I emailed NTL the main man in my area and sent an email to the company NTL moved the staff to. It was this company that finally moved out tech support to India, I had no reply from this company but NTL phoned me a few times to check if everything was working alright. If you have a very bad experience then make sure the complaint goes to the top.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

When I got through to NTL support in India - I was asked about 10 security questions, sometimes the same security repeated. To rub salt into the wound the tech person, kept calling me "dear" no dear, yes dear etc - this annoyed me no end, I asked him to stop calling me dear - in the end I asked to be put through to the UK - he replied he couldn't do that. I then explained that I was the customer, I was paying for the phone call, and if he couldn't put me through to the UK then to put me through to cancellations, as I wish to cancel my contract.

Got through to the UK and explained - I wasn't happy to be put through to India, and I would rather speak to someone in the UK, Was advised to keep phoning until I got through to UK, if I got India just hang up and try again - I advised that wasn't good enough, and what the procedure was to cancel my contract. In the end I got my problem sorted by the UK and also 1 months free broadband

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

Personally I find the whole outsourcing thing to be scandelous at best

I have nothing against Indian call centres themselves, other than the apparent language barrier.

But, I do have a problem with multi million pound companies laying off british staff so they can make even more money by outsourcing support to India.

I could understand it if the company in question was working at a loss, or just breaking even.

I haven't had to deal with an indian call centre...yet, but my mother has on a few occasions and like others in this thread, she was equally angry and not having a simple problem resolved and ended up cancelling the service.

Mind you, I have had to deal with a scottish and am irish operator at a call centre once, gah that was hard enough

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

Data Protection act says:
8. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

Funnily enough, certainly until recently, the Indian sub-continent was said to NOT have such a level of protection. AIUI, only transfers to Switzerland, Hungary, Argentina, Canada, and the US (Safe harbor) are allowed under this principle. However, there are a bunch of exemptions...

Cases where the eighth principle does not apply
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/80029--p.htm

Probably the two relevant ones are..

8. The transfer is made on terms which are of a kind approved by the Commissioner as ensuring adequate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of data subjects.

9. The transfer has been authorised by the Commissioner as being made in such a manner as to ensure adequate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of data subjects.


The Information Commissioner has 'binding corporate rules' (BCR) and a 'model contract' for such occasions.

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressRele...ference=IP/05/
12
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/justic...vacy/modelcont
racts/index_en.htm

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

the last time i spoke to tec in india due to a really slow connection (i'm on 3 meg and was speed testing at 128 kbps ) i was asked to run netstat .
this returned the result that i had 5 ports open, ahh he said, thats why your connection is so slow, to which i replied that he was having a laugh wasnt he?
then he argued that i was only on a 1 mb connection and then said the fault was with my pc and not a fault with my connection.
then he hung up on me.

I e mailed ntl with my issue and my experience with tec support in india and the next time i turned my pc on the problem was resolved

from what i could gather from the conversation i had with him he was way out of his depth

ho humm

s

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

Speaking to a friend from India, he says that they mostly speak English over there anyway, Urdu or Hindi can almost be seen as Second Languages to them.

Re: NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL
 

never disputed this fact either way...

this has been explained many times berfore on this board, selective reading on your part i guess, but what the hell, just for you, il tell you again, Tech support employee's who were employed by NTL were tupe'd/ tranferred to IBM/Manpower, no one lost there jobs directly because of the transfer in swansea, though as i said, there were voulntary redundcies for a handfull of managers 6 months after..... tbh no great loss..;)

It was your ridiculous comparision to the Nike sweatshops that i thought & still do think is b0ll0x :dozey: