Quote:
Originally Posted by Kushan
I'm not entirely sure why you've taken such a disliking to me, horseman.
|
Actually quite the opposite - Clearly my banal attempt at humour/wit/banter falls flat. More smilies needed.
Didn't appreciate how serious you took your past employment with VM.
If some one said my 30yrs with IBM explains why I'm so arrogant and conceited I'd have to agree with them and share a few company jokes about it as well!
Horses for courses - so sorry again. Let's continue via PM if my public apology offered is still insufficient?
I don't deny there are failings/differences in agent tech quality in UK either nor that offshore has imo shown a small but noticeable incremental improvement in the last 6 years. However in my experience (in general) UK Level1 are far less reticent at admitting their technical limitations and thus more willing to escalate/transfer to Level2.
Equally there are more Level1 agents that are not limited by the "traffic light" system of their noddy "Network stats" interface but able to explore further than their offshore counterparts.
Yes I sometimes have problems with UK Regional accents and I'm always apologising for my lack of comprehension but almost to an agent we have a laugh about it including regional weather comparisons whatever!
Offshore are so polite and always profusely apologising for the wait when invariably addressing my questions to a colleague/senior that it becomes wearing. Any attempt to inject humour to lighten & slow their rapid scripted dialogue of excuses falls completely flat. Just like UK there are some (but all to rare) that do know their onions but too far between compared to UK.
That's the price/compromise of sourcing off-shore with a far lower Labour & Burden Rate than UK! If we were all prepared to pay the increased subscription rate for UK quality support then this type of discussion would largely disappear.
That said no way is a Consumer product Level1 support going to attract quality staff as my only experience was with IBM Level1 in Spango Valley Greenock which were excellent (but funded by Corporate Maintenance fees) but still required some occasional feed back/exchange from us in Level2/2.5 at IBM Basingstoke.
The remuneration/mindset was thus not comparable to VM's it seems!