NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL - Page 2

grandmaster · 12-07-2005, 15:23

I think it still depends on what they have.

I think CS can obtain more info from a SACM than they can from an STB and as such a diffrent "script" may be used.

Otherwise

Open a command prompt and find out what ip address they customer had. (ipconfig)

I dont work for NTL this is what i would do

spike7451 · 12-07-2005, 15:40

Considering NTL closed all but 2 or 3 (cant remember the exact number) of the 13 call centers we had,the chances of getting thru to India are ,well,huge!
Spike

jonbr · 12-07-2005, 15:51

To clarfiy the problem I had with the Indian call centre :

I called because my daughter called to say the connection had gone down for the umteenth time in the last week. The Indain call centre would not deal with my call because I was not by the PC/Modem in question. This I do not have a problem with.

However, I said I would call my daughter and relay the messages. The Indian call centre would have none of it telling me that they would talk to my daughter but only if I was by the PC/Modem! Yes, if I was at home he was happy to talk to my daughter, but not through me to her

.

When I explianed the situation to the UK call centre, the response was "not a problem sir" and an engineer was booked.

I have to say I am getting very fed up with having to threaten to cancel my contract to get service, not just from NTL and not just from Indian call centres either! I very rarly call support from suppliers, but when I do expect good service, not excellent, just good.

Oh yeh, I wish NTL would get rid of those very long announcements before you get through to a human as well!

AlanYork · 12-07-2005, 19:24

I had someone out from NTL today at the third time of asking. The ready light was flashing intermittently on my SACM. It was a power level issue which appears to be fixed now. The first agent I spoke to a week ago was Indian, she advised me to reboot which worked and she then assured me the problem would not recur.

Today it did and a different agent, again Indian told me she could not help as the problem had righted itself just as she took the call.

Sods Law, the minute I put the phone down, it happened again. Call number 3 and agent number 3...an Indian, who arranged an engineer visit and that seems to have fixed it...but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Two points. My service from NTL has been appalling from Day 1 when they messed up my cable installation and set me up with a crossed line on my phone. Other "worldbeaters" include last month insisting I needed a new ethernet card or some such, when what I actually needed was a Windows disc and reinstallation of Windows and sending around an engineer (not the guy who came today who was very good), whose idea of customer service was to be as curt and rude as possible and whose charming phrases included "nothing wrong with your modem mate so its not our problem".....

Second point...it could be argued that using Indian call centres is symptomatic of NTLs attitude to customer service....do it on the cheap as we already have their money.

Now these Indians are educated people, they speak better English than I do Urdu, but I know from experience (I do 12 hour night shifts in a call centre looking after people who've had their credit cards stolen all over the world) that you can be as politically correct as you like, but most people just do NOT want to speak to an Indian call centre. It really is that simple. The sooner companies realise this simple fact, the better off we will all be. I wish I had a quid for every time someone said to me "thank God you're English" before asking me to help them having just spoken to their bank's Indian call centre and then been passed along to us, and if you think tech support is hard, try dealing with a mugging victim in Prague or someone who has been robbed by bandits on a bus in Ecuador! Why do you think Nat West advertisements make a point of saying our call centres are in the UK??? It's not racism, but neither is it rocket science to understand why.

Chrysalis · 12-07-2005, 20:04

andy raises a good point the fact that we never see indian sales call centres shows how much value is put into after sales support.

The problem defenitly is linked to scripted support, If the problem you have isnt referenced in the script you are basically SOL I still think its better to employ people who have knowledge of the product over customer service skills. A friend of mine who used to work for BT ADSL isp (old name bt openworld i think) was told to stop helping customers in his own way and follow the script he was also told to rush them of the line this frustrated him so he quit, people sitting alongside him who had much less tech knowledge got on better with the bosses because they were following the scripts and getting people of the lines leaving problems unresolved. Seems to be todays fashion of support.

fudge · 12-07-2005, 20:18

Before i came to ntl broadband i was with tiscali broad band, and had to phone them for help many many times due to the poor service they supplied. They are also in india and they are all given british names.

One day i had to phone and i got put through to a guy who called himself dave ( in a very hard to understand indian accent ) and as he was reading a script i got his breathing down the phone for up to 2 mins at a time , which i got fed up with , after half an hour on phone the problem still was not sorted , so tiscali was history.

wsf86 · 13-07-2005, 08:20

I am quite open minded on this subject as, going from personal experience, I have had just as bad experiences with call centres in England as I have with ones in India and vica versa. I also think that it is inevitable that all of ntl's customer service will go to India, not just the broadband support. It's quite simply a money thing and the savings they are making on wages I am sure outweighs the costs of losing a few customers who don't like the change. Again it's all down to the balance sheet and the shareholders - they are the ONLY important people as far as ntl (and many other companies) are concerned.

One thing that does annoy me though are the sales calls I get from Indian call centres... has anyone ever bought anything from these guys?

Angua · 13-07-2005, 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsf86

I am quite open minded on this subject as, going from personal experience, I have had just as bad experiences with call centres in England as I have with ones in India and vica versa. I also think that it is inevitable that all of ntl's customer service will go to India, not just the broadband support. It's quite simply a money thing and the savings they are making on wages I am sure outweighs the costs of losing a few customers who don't like the change. Again it's all down to the balance sheet and the shareholders - they are the ONLY important people as far as ntl (and many other companies) are concerned.

One thing that does annoy me though are the sales calls I get from Indian call centres... has anyone ever bought anything from these guys?

I got the Indian call centre for a telephone problem!

spike7451 · 13-07-2005, 09:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsf86

I am quite open minded on this subject as, going from personal experience, I have had just as bad experiences with call centres in England as I have with ones in India and vica versa. I also think that it is inevitable that all of ntl's customer service will go to India, not just the broadband support. It's quite simply a money thing and the savings they are making on wages I am sure outweighs the costs of losing a few customers who don't like the change. Again it's all down to the balance sheet and the shareholders - they are the ONLY important people as far as ntl (and many other companies) are concerned.

One thing that does annoy me though are the sales calls I get from Indian call centres... has anyone ever bought anything from these guys?

I for one DEFINATLY would'nt buy from them! Was'nt the a story in the paper awhile back about your bank/c-card details been not secure! AND was'nt there a story more recently in the papers about someone selling these 'secure' details on ?
Spike

portsmouthali · 13-07-2005, 14:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlanYork

you can be as politically correct as you like, but most people just do NOT want to speak to an Indian call centre. It really is that simple. The sooner companies realise this simple fact, the better off we will all be. I wish I had a quid for every time someone said to me "thank God you're English" before asking me to help them

I also work in a call centre and I've had exactly the same said to me. I agree as well - my bank have an Indian call centre (I think it's an overflow type thing - if the UK call centre is busy, then you go through to India) and I must admit after a few very frustrating conversations with the Indian call centre, I always hang up if I get through to them, and redial in the hope of getting the UK call centre next time.

Chris W · 13-07-2005, 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by grandmaster

I think it still depends on what they have.

I think CS can obtain more info from a SACM than they can from an STB and as such a diffrent "script" may be used.

The diagnostic tools, but pretty much the same information can be obtained from both... just in different formats

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike7451

Considering NTL closed all but 2 or 3 (cant remember the exact number) of the 13 call centers we had,the chances of getting thru to India are ,well,huge!
Spike

India only do BB tech support... and this has always only been in Swansea (well since about 4 years ago when there wasn't really an official broadband tech support). Not in the other callcentres that have closed so this will not have affected the chances of getting through to India... although you are correct in saying that the chances nowadays are pretty damn high!

greencreeper · 13-07-2005, 19:13

Scripts don't work. Nine times of out ten the problem resolution may develop as anticipated, but there's always a tenth time when something you expect just doesn't happen or isn't there. It's what makes life interesting. Where I work, it's the tenth occasions that send the newbies running for a Senior consultant

brooks111 · 13-07-2005, 20:06

I had to phone up with a problem the other day and I had to do some MS-DOS codes to test the problem and they were having to say words that begain with each letter cause I couldnt understand them!

greencreeper · 13-07-2005, 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by brooks111

I had to phone up with a problem the other day and I had to do some MS-DOS codes to test the problem and they were having to say words that begain with each letter cause I couldnt understand them!

winver is the classic. "winder - do you mean window?" "No - V, V, not D - V for Victor". "ipconfit?" "No - FIG FIG. G for Golf". Even then they put a space between the "ip" and "config"

A colleague used to use "I for Idiot"

I've noticed that Asians with poor English seem to interpret questions as instructions. I've always wondered why

jonifen · 14-07-2005, 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Millay

I think this may have been avoided if the Customer Service bod had been able to leave the script a little and start enquiring about the user set up..

As ian@huth said earlier, if this is a question that should have been asked, then the script should be modified so it is asked on each call in the future.

In my job role, I have been working on a procedure database to resolve problems. Previously we had to put the caller on hold, ask a colleague, if they didnt know, we asked another and so on until we knew what to do (i.e. not very useful). Everyone did things differently, used different tools etc - causing problems when going back to old records etc.

If we find we're not asking something we should, we update the procedure. If we no longer need to ask a question that we currently are doing, we remove it from the procedure. I do find personally that knowing how to fix some things means I do not need to read the procedure and as such just get on with fixing it. BUT, if the procedure is changed, I'll never know unless I read it... so no matter what experience a person has, the script should never come superfluous (sp?) and the operator should always consult it.

As for indian call centres, I sometimes find their accents difficult to understand. In their defence, I'm sure my scouse/rochdale accent is difficult for them to understand - so its a two way problem... and this is before any advice is given!
I do not feel they are any less competant in doing their job as at the end of the day, the Internet is an internationally used medium. Broadband in different countries connect up in similar ways, its just trying to find a common ground in terms of instructing people how to fix their problems.

NTL is operating in the UK, so we need tech support advisors that speak english. They are employing indian people who are not too fantastic at speaking english. Let me point out schools who send kids away on trips to french as part of their education to help them learn the language. How better for them to learn English to help them do the job than to actually do the job?!
Yes, it will be difficult for all in the short-term, but going to the future, providing most of the current employees stick around, we should have a team that helps us and gets things fixed asap, and keeps costs down for NTL meaning more money for improving the network!!

(a long post I know... sorry)