NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL

[jonbr]

I had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with NTL's Indian based BroadBand support yesterday. I have to say, and I don't think it is the Indian centres fault, but they are completely inflexible.

In the end I had to ask to be transfered to normal support as I wanted to cancel my contract and then ask to be put through to the UK support centre after making a complaint about the Indian call centre. This worked and my problem is being resolved with an engineer due this afternoon.

So, this is a plea to NTL, please allow the Indian call centres to be flexible and DON'T make them stick rigidly to a script provided by your selves. The UK call centres do it and so can the Indian call centres. I've worked with enough Indian IT staff before to know they are very capable people if allowed to be!

[Florence]

The Indian call centre can arrange for the engineer to visit they have for me.

[Angua]

I had a similar experience to Jonbr, so much so that I will hang up and try again in order to speak to someone in the UK whatever my problem or query might be.

[ian@huth]

I often ask myself how customers know they have been connected to a call centre in India. One of my daughters works in a call centre (not NTL) and tells me that there are dozens of immigrant and immigrant descendent agents working alongside of her, many of which are of Indian descent.

In the call centre they are trained to follow certain procedures when dealing with customers and are taught the most likely problem and the best way of dealing with it for many customer queries. This may give the impression that they are working to a script and perhaps they are, but if this is the best way then it is the right way.

[andygrif]

I'm starting to get a clearer picture of the biggest problems regarding Indian call centres.

There are two key issues that I can see; The first and most common is that the call cantres are hiring people with a less than perfect knowledge of English. That's not the fault of the person on the phone of course, and in a country where about 10% of the population speak English, I imagine that many of those speak it as well as I speak my A Level French (i.e. I couldn't work in a French call centre).

The second problem is that none of these operations appear to allow deviation from what is printed on their screen. I've had the displeasure of getting through to Dell, Powergen, NTL and Norwich Union's Indian call centres - and they are all as inflexible as the next. I would add that ntl's were at least polite, spoke English well and friendly - if still utterly unhelpful. Powergen's on the other end of the scale, were useless in all respects.

I don't object to Indian call centres per se, but when I phone I company I expect to speak to someone who is an expert on the product, has the autonomy to resolve my issue and who understands my extremely middle-England accent perfectly, and me theirs.

It does and had backfire on companies though. Powergen have just had a cancellation letter after I spent five hours over two days trying to sort a minor acount query out.

What I still fail to understand is why any company in the UK thinks it's OK to put my calls through to India for handling - but somehow don't think it's right for their sales lines to be there. Isn't that odd?

[Raistlin]

I think that I too am starting to get a better picture of the biggest problem regarding Indian call centres (I think you'll find that a lot of this can apply to British call centres as well though).

Imagine that you work in a call centre, no matter where it is located.

You are fairly new to the job, don't have a lot of exeperience either in the product or in that field. Your employers give you a script and tell you that this is a guide to the best way to solve the most recurring problems.
What do you do? You apply that guide, of course you do because you don't have the experience to do much else and because it does seem to solve the majority of problems.

As your experience increases you feel more able to apply your knowlede to the problems that you are being faced with and eventually the script becomes superfluous (sp?).

The problem with the Indian call centres (and with a lot of the British ones) is that they are still very new and therefore manned (or should that be personned) by inexperienced staff.

Given time I am sure that they will improve, unfortunately in the mean time we are left with a less than ideal situation. Perhaps the script should be re-written, a little line at the end.

<All The Other Questions Here>

Q: Has the Customer's problem been solved?

If YES Then Hang Up
If NO Then Transfer, along with all notes about problem, to next service level.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Raistlin

I think that I too am starting to get a better picture of the biggest problem regarding Indian call centres (I think you'll find that a lot of this can apply to British call centres as well though).

Imagine that you work in a call centre, no matter where it is located.

You are fairly new to the job, don't have a lot of exeperience either in the product or in that field. Your employers give you a script and tell you that this is a guide to the best way to solve the most recurring problems.
What do you do? You apply that guide, of course you do because you don't have the experience to do much else and because it does seem to solve the majority of problems.

As your experience increases you feel more able to apply your knowlede to the problems that you are being faced with and eventually the script becomes superfluous (sp?).

The problem with the Indian call centres (and with a lot of the British ones) is that they are still very new and therefore manned (or should that be personned) by inexperienced staff.

Given time I am sure that they will improve, unfortunately in the mean time we are left with a less than ideal situation. Perhaps the script should be re-written, a little line at the end.

Does the script ever become superfluous no matter how much experience and knowledge the agent has?

Where a script exists it should give the best method of obtaining the facts and determining subsequent action. There should be no better way of tackling the problem but if a better way is found then the script should be altered to reflect this new information.

I don't think that Indian call centres and scripts are the problem. The customer is the problem.

You have two types of customer in the main. Those that know nothing at all about the subject and those who think they have a certain amount of knowledge.

Those that know nothing may be confused by the whole subject and unable to follow the process they are being led through. If they don't get a successful conclusion to their problem they may tend to blame anything and anyone other than themselves. It is far easier to put the blame on things like "it was an Indian call centre and the bloke couldn't understand English" than their own failings.

The ones that think they have a certain amount of knowledge may or may not have the required troubleshooting knowledge and the agent they speak to doesn't know the extent of their knowledge. Even the best expert in the world can have a momentary lapse and forget a most crucial step in troubleshooting. They can get annoyed when asked to do things which are very elementary. They also can tend to jump ahead of the agent when he/she is talking them through a process and do things that the agent doesn't want them to do. How often have you been talking someone through a process that brings up a message saying "Press OK to reboot or cancel to reboot at a later time" and told them to press "cancel" only to be told they have already pressed "OK" and the sytem is rebooting?

The glaring fact that the experienced user has forgotten is that he/she has a problem that they have been unable to solve. They are obviously either doing something wrong or they don't have the necessary knowledge. The guy with the foreign accent and "the script" may be tackling the problem in the correct way which could lead to a resolution. Getting the hump and terminating the call because he is foreign or reading from a script before reaching the conclusion could be the worst thing you could have done.

[Millay]

I think a lot of the problem with the script, and the indian employees limited english, is they cannot use normal communication tecniques to help solve a problem, IE A brisitsh support worker can normally guage someones age and ability through there voice patterns, language use etc... Allowing the CS bod to focus on different things.. IE ensuring there running just supplied kit.

I had a customer phone me the other day who said the indian call centre had told him to return his PC to the shop, as it wasnt accpeting his IP.

Infact the problem was he has a router between his cable modem and computer. reboot of the router and all was solved.

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..

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Millay

I think a lot of the problem with the script, and the indian employees limited english, is they cannot use normal communication tecniques to help solve a problem, IE A brisitsh support worker can normally guage someones age and ability through there voice patterns, language use etc... Allowing the CS bod to focus on different things.. IE ensuring there running just supplied kit.

I doubt that any support worker can guage age and ability through voice patterns, etc. Does an Indian moving here from India suddenly acquire new abilities? Some people have good communication skills, others don't on both customer and company sides. Just look at some of the posts on these forums and tell me that all British posters have good communication skills.

Originally Posted by Millay

I had a customer phone me the other day who said the indian call centre had told him to return his PC to the shop, as it wasnt accpeting his IP.

Infact the problem was he has a router between his cable modem and computer. reboot of the router and all was solved.

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..

A properly written script would ask the relevent questions about set up, etc. Adhering to the script should ensure the correct question are asked but deviating from it could lead to vital questions being missed.

You can never be sure when talking to someone about a prior support call what has actually transpired. If a satisfactory conclusion is not reached then the customer may blame everything and everybody but himself.

Quite a lot of people can become very aggressive when things are going wrong and their attitude can have a bearing on the ultimate result. Customer service agents can also have an attitude brought about by things outside of work just as much as things within work. They may just want to get you off the phone and tell you anything to make that easier to do. That applies to employees of call centres worldwide, not just India based.

[Millay]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

I doubt that any support worker can guage age and ability through voice patterns, etc. Does an Indian moving here from India suddenly acquire new abilities? Some people have good communication skills, others don't on both customer and company sides. Just look at some of the posts on these forums and tell me that all British posters have good communication skills.

Point taken, but I found when I was working on a support desk that I found that by what people were saying and how they were responding was a good way to guage how to deal with the call.

I certainly did not try to say that anyone coming here suddenly aquires new skills, but that people with english as there first language are better able to understand and deal accordingly with callers.

Originally Posted by ian@huth

A properly written script would ask the relevent questions about set up, etc. Adhering to the script should ensure the correct question are asked but deviating from it could lead to vital questions being missed.

Yes you are correct, the point I was trying to convey was that with a good understanding of the english language, you would have the ability to pick up on wheather somebodfy was confused/not sure about your questions, thus possibly not giving you the correct answers.

Originally Posted by ian@huth

You can never be sure when talking to someone about a prior support call what has actually transpired. If a satisfactory conclusion is not reached then the customer may blame everything and everybody but himself.

I never mentioned there side of the story being as it happened, just how they reported it

Originally Posted by ian@huth

Quite a lot of people can become very aggressive when things are going wrong and their attitude can have a bearing on the ultimate result. Customer service agents can also have an attitude brought about by things outside of work just as much as things within work. They may just want to get you off the phone and tell you anything to make that easier to do. That applies to employees of call centres worldwide, not just India based.

I can argue with that, as that is human anture

[Angua]

Having worked for the RAC taking calls from motorists whos vehicle had broken down, we had a "script" to follow. However provided we got all the information needed it did not matter in which order we collected it. Often the first priority was calming the person down enough to get the right info.
This lack of flexibility is what causes the disenchantment with the overseas call centres regardless of the company you are calling.

[ian@huth]

If you were a NTL technical support agent and a customer called and told you that they couldn't get to any internet sites, what is the first thing you would ask them to check / do?

[grandmaster]

Find out if they use a STB or a SACM And if any other equipment is being used like a router.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by grandmaster

Find out if they use a STB or a SACM And if any other equipment is being used like a router.

I would assume that the agent would have got the customers details on screen which would show what services they had and what equipment was installed. I may be wrong on that count though but let's suppose they had those details. Any other suggestions as to what to check / do first?

[Raistlin]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

I would assume that the agent would have got the customers details on screen which would show what services they had and what equipment was installed. I may be wrong on that count though but let's suppose they had those details. Any other suggestions as to what to check / do first?

This is gonna sound flippant but.....have they rebooted everything?