NEWS: 40% of Fortune 500 Companies Outsource Call Centers to India

You call a toll-free number in America to ask a question or with a problem regarding your credit card, computer, or online services. It's increasingly unlikely that the "Sally" or "James" who answers works for the company you purchased your product from; in fact, it's likely they aren't even in the same country as the company you're trying to reach.

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Forty percent - over 200 - of the Fortune 500 companies are currently sending their service and support centers overseas to India. From Dell to American Express to General Electric, from Citigroup to AOL, companies are increasingly "outsourcing" their customer service to people who are paid less than $5000US a year.

It's all happening in the name of the "bottom line," the company's desire to save money. The backlash, however, is starting to get severe.

Customer dissatisfaction with the communication barrier and the call centers' lack of authority has resulted in a vast increase in complaints and brand-switching. Consumers are also wondering why the savings aren't being passed on to them.

In response to corporate client complaints, including the loss of some key accounts, Dell Inc announced last month it would bring its support for corporate accounts back to the States. Once known for having the best customer service in the industry, Dell is now beginning to lag behind other big computer manufacturers in customer satisfaction.

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Go India.

btw, the people who pick up the phole say their names are John and Sally, just to make you think they are in America.

It can be very well known from the accent, that they education is of British origin.

This is one of my major petpeeves, do you know how hard it is to give all your details to a person who can't speak english well and is barely able to understand a scottish accent.

Good article btw!

i suppose this is what it always comes down to with these companies, labour costs.

no go india...sorry surfup...i like india and all but I live in the USA.

those are jobs that could easily be filled in this country. I was a supervisor for one of the largest outsourcing companies in the usa (priceline.com our of clients). We easily could provide service for any of those companies, and many people could be trained and employed by us. However they didn't want to pay our fees. now they have to pay with bad customer service.

Danger Will Robinson.

A large percentage of high-tech IT jobs are also being outsourced to India.

Anyone remember the steel industry that the U.S. used to have and how it went away?

It sucks when history repeats.

What are you talking about? Have you heard a educated Indian speak (Not people like Taxi drivers or me)?

As for understanding, I accept they don't accept you and you don't accept them. So guess what?

Corporations are now giving lessons in how to speak American English.

Actually, people in India probably speak better Engish than we do. I work with 2 people from India and their diction is what they call "the Queen's English."

You know why they are doing this, to save money.

btw, you sound like my indian parents.

[Edited on 5-2-2004 by surfup]

I say skip the lessons and get back to good customer service...I think that will preclude India. The facts hurt sometimes.

[Edited on 5-2-2004 by Valhall]

You are catorgizing all people from that part of the world into one. India was under British rule for a long time. But there a other countries there, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,etc. Their evolution was different. As was their languages.

But no one really knows about those countries, they are small even in map and their voice is even smaller in foriegn affairs.

Do you know how many people live (exist) in just Bangladesh. Our arogance that if it doesn't start here or effect here will be our undoing.

Skeptic, the US had a steel industry?

As far as the IT jobs, even if the Indian firms do the jobs 3x in many cases its still cheaper. I did however read that Dell moved their call centers, servicing corp. customers, back to the states.

Apparently the directory enquiries lines in the UK are now done via Indian call centres.
It seems strange that I would have to phone India to get the phone number of someone who could live just down the road.

That is a corporate mandate. They are in existence to make money. That is not the problem with this thread. If you lump Banngledeshi, Packestani, Sri Lankan,etc(I'm sorry I couldn't name everyone) you are labelling a people, which isn't right.

Instead of some wahoo or hillbilly in a Virgina phone room telling you to pay your Visa bill, it's a PHD from India.

And the company get's the PHD for an average of $3,000 a year instead of the $16 to $20 some thousand it costs for the American.

I'll tell you "why not" ...They're OUR wahoo's and hillbillies. Color me xenophobe, but this economy SUCKS.

Bush DID NOT HELP by outlawing millions of American telemarketing jobs with that over the top DO NOT CALL list crap. That's right, I said it. CRAP.

Saying "no thanks" and hanging up is painless to you and the telemarketer. Bush eliminating those millions of jobs while giving tax breaks to his corporate cronies for exporting millions of others SREWED us all.

Practice saying this wahoos and hillbillies: Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart.

If these companies are getting better value for money out of outsourcing these jobs to India, then why should they not?

Why does an American deserve a job more than an Indian, if the American cannot offer better value.

No one person on this earth deserves a job more than another, and who gets the job should be purely based on who can do the best job at the lowest cost.

Maybe Americans are better at understanding English (though this is somewhat debatable when the Indians are mostly University graduates), but they are obviously not offering better value.

This is the global economy that America has been trying to promote for years, its a shame, however, that some moan when it doesn't work in their favour.

Tough #...

[Edited on 6-2-2004 by Fantastic_Damage]

The outsourcing that occurs is, for the majority, due to a time zone thing. Because of the difference in time the companies can offer technical support 24 hours a day. The same goes for companies who have divisions in India this allows them to work 24hours a day. It is just good business sense.

The Us is not losing jobs to this activity...unless you want to work between the hours of 8pm-6am

Lukefj.

T-mobile certainly does not employ these type of people for their tech support. They wonder why their customers are dissatisfied? Maybe cos when they have a problem with their service, they can never resolve the issue because of a language barrier.

oh yeah, cause you know the only time people call a 24 hours help line is between 8pm and 6am. just the other night i couldnt sleep so i decided to call norcent at 4am and chat with their help desk about my new cd burner.



what a patheric society we live in where people cant even see the importance of a company supporting the community and country that they operate in...we're good enough to give them million dollar tax rebates but not good enough to employ because we demand a fairer share of the profits.