When was the last time you had a pleasant experience with any company’s customer service department? If you’re like me, it’s been years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had to contact customer support for anything and had an experience that was even slightly better than craptacular.
I don’t mind a company trying to save money. Eventually it might mean I see lower prices. Or at least not see higher prices. But saving money shouldn’t result in providing poorer service and support to the customers buying your product.
And yet it does.
Anyone who has had to manage a business budget knows that people are the post expensive line item. So, if you want to cut costs, the quickest way to do it is to figure out how to have fewer people, or less expensive people.
Which is why many Customer Support jobs have been shipped offshore.
I don’t have a problem with that, as long as the less expensive people can do the job. But mostly they can’t. The more high-quality, knowledgeable people companies take out of the process, the worse the experience for the customer becomes.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. After years of working with Indian outsourced companies, I’ve stumbled upon the secret to working with them effectively. It’s really simple. You can’t let them think.
I know, that sounds bad. But the fact is, the Indian culture is one of obedience. They’ve been doing what someone has told them to do for so long it’s part of their DNA. Literally. OK. Not “literally”. But if I use the term “literally” incorrectly to mean “figuratively” like the millennials do, then it works.
I should probably stop here and say that when I use the term “Indians”, I’m talking about the ones with a dot and not the ones with feathers. Sure, that’s probably an extremely politically incorrect thing to say, and I might have just offended a couple billion people, but you immediately knew what I was talking about. Didn’t you?
Besides, I don’t have a couple billion followers. Not even close. And if you’re one of the people reading this, then it’s highly likely that you won’t be offended by what I say. So, I probably only offended three people. Maybe ten tops. And I’m OK with that.
Where was I? Oh yeah. If you want to successfully outsource anything to India, you have to do all the thinking for them. Because if you ask the average Indian to think outside the box, they simply can’t.
There are exceptions to any rule and that’s the case here too. There are some Indians who do well thinking on their own. But those people are quickly promoted into a management position, so you’re left with front-line workers who need to be told exactly what to do.
But I’m not the only one who has figured this out.
It’s why Ranjeet, or Naya always seem to be reading from a script from which they can’t deviate. Because they are. And they can’t.
That’s one of the reasons why dealing with customer support that has been outsourced to India is so frustrating.
But it’s not the only reason.
English is one of the official languages of India. So, most Indian customer support reps speak English. The problem is, it’s not the same English I speak.
For example, I’m constantly having to spell PonkaBlog. The conversation goes something like this:
That’s “Blog”, B as in “Bob”, L as in “Lincoln”, O as in “Oscar” and G as in “George”. Unfortunately, none of those names mean anything to people from India. To get my point across, I have to use words that they can relate to. Like: That’s B as in “Binta”, L as in “Lalitesh”, O as in “Omarjeet” and G as in “Gagaja”.
People in India don’t understand American slang or any of our folksy sayings. They have, however, been trained to try and empathize with the customer. So, if I say, “that dog won’t hunt”, I might hear Ranjeet say, “Sir, I am so sorry to hear that your dog refuses to hunt.”
And, once I get past all that, there’s still the problem with the fact that most of the time I can’t understand a word they’re saying.
It used to be that I’d hope I somehow got randomly connected with someone in the U.S. because then all these problems would go away. But not anymore. These days, even if you are talking to someone in the U.S., it’s even money that you’ll end up speaking with someone with an unintelligible accent.
But I guess that’s OK. Because at least the people in HR will get their annual bonus after having met their quota for diversity hires.
Let me tell you something, if you’re going to be working at a job where the only thing you do is talk to people, then I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you have the ability to speak so someone can understand you. Speaking clearly should be your number one job requirement.
If I’m calling the cable company, then I don’t really care. I can probably guess what they’re saying if I have to fill in some gaps. And if I guess wrong, big deal.
But if I’m calling for something really important. Then I care a lot. I called the pharmacy the other day to ask about potential drug interactions with a new medication. The pharmacist had such a strong Mexican accent that I couldn’t understand her.
Now, I know it’s probably insensitive and politically incorrect to say “Mexican” accent. I should have probably said “Hispanic” accent. But this is Southern California, so, who are we trying to kid?
Because I couldn’t understand her, I also couldn’t be sure that she fully understood me. I left the conversation without getting an answer. Or…at least…I don’t think I got an answer. Which is my whole point.
Now, all those problems are only problems if I can actually talk to someone. But the technology they used to replace people gets in the way of that.
I’m already frustrated because I’m having problems with whatever product or service I bought from them. My frustration builds as I “listen carefully because the options have recently changed” only to find that what I need to talk with them about isn’t one of the options.
So, I make my best guess, and discover that there is a 30-minute wait. After waiting for 45 minutes, and listening over and over to the same message telling me to use their Web site, which I would happily do if it weren’t broken, I finally hear “please hold while we transfer you to the next available representative”. I quickly make sure I’ve got all my information handy.
Then the call disconnects.
So, I call back, wait another hour on hold, get even more frustrated by listening to the same message over and over, and finally get to talk to Ranjeet/Roger.
Ranjeet carefully follows his script. I assure him that my modem is indeed powered on. Of course it is. I’m not an idiot. Then he tells me to unplug it, wait 30 seconds and plug it in again. I already did that. But I do it again just for him. Still doesn’t work.
Finally, Ranjeet realizes that he’s in over his head and he can’t help me. So, he cheerfully offers to transfer me to “Level 2 Support”.
I hear a couple boops and beeps. And the call disconnects.
This sort of thing happens to me all the time. It’s gotten to the point where I’m no longer surprised when the call drops, or when the Level 2 Support technician turns out to be a moron. I’ve lowered my expectations to a point where I’m pleasantly surprised if they just answer the phone.
It’s not just me. I’ve talked with a bunch of people and found that this sort of thing happens all the time to them too. And, it’s not just one company. It’s every company. The dropped calls, missing menu selections and overall bad experiences with customer service is so widespread that it can’t possibly be a coincidence.
I’ve come to believe that this is all by design. I call it “weaponized frustration”. Companies all seem to walk the fine line between making the support experience just miserable enough so people give up trying to get help, but not so miserable that they lose a customer.
Think about it, out of a hundred dropped calls, a certain percentage of those customers will become so frustrated that they won’t call back. Which means that there are fewer calls to Customer Support. Which means the company needs fewer people. Which means they reduce expenses.
Try to keep all this in mind the next time you hear “your call is important to us”. Some calls probably are important. Just maybe not yours.
