Many of the big companies use Indian based call centres, as a nation British people rarely consider support when making a purchase. However they have garnered such a reputation as unskilled and un-intelligeable that some companies now use "we have UK call centres" as part of their advertising.
The firm I work for is setting up an Indian call centre.
The industry is mostly Indian based rather than from Pakistan which lacks the infrastructure for it.
There are plenty of people in Blighty who's English is of, shall we say, sub-par quality and many of them speak no other languages, and in parts of Britain (specifically North Wales) English is not the first language.
The problem is twofold, English is a common language in India and the majority of people speak it but they do not speak it well and are usually thickly accented. India has many different regional languages and English is often used for communication across country, but it is, shall we say, 'regionalised' in it's pronounciation and word usage. So the first problem for a call centre is finding enough people with sufficient language skills to fully staff a call centre, bearing in mind most of the quality staff are already taken.
The second problem is simply one of finances. My firm did some R&D in Britain over the last few years and some of that R&D involved some seamstresses, the wage cost of 1 entire assembly team in India is roughly comparable to 1/3 cost of a single factory floor monkey in the UK. With such vast savings on labour possible it is no wonder the temptation is to build it in India.
The firm I work for has gone as far as building an entire factory from scratch and buying houses for visiting staff (cheaper than renting) and staffing them with cooks, drivers etc.
We had to get roads build, broadband, power and telephones lines laid from the nearest major settlement, we even built a cricket pitch for our local staff.
It was cheaper to do that then to find an existing factory in the UK and staff it for a few months.
That is... well.. strange, to say at very blunt and easly. But again, money rules the world. But appart the language difficoulities, how are they technical wise? From what I'v heared they have little or no understand of basic computer and internet problems. Is that right too?
This depends entirely on the individual, but the problem here isnt limited to technical support for computers, they're also common in the banking sector, even some double glazing firms and so on.
Typically they run from a script, and like to take control of the call so they can follow the call through a standard flow chart and read off standard responses. It is very rare that the staff even have permission to deviate from the flowchart, this saves massively on training, and I seriously hope my company doesn't take this route! (nothing to do with me I work in R&D).
That's borring, I mean to call a support that just follows the notes. Of course there are things that need to be noted, asked and checked out in a conversation, but still that little extra effort from custommer support really helps the reputation of the firm.
In my firm we are working on the custommer support part a lot. When you are done with a problem you repported, you get asked some questions on how you felt "happy" about the support. Usually we'll end up on 4/5, or 80% +- of the people that contacts us feels a good experience about it.
Guess, or by reading and listening to comments I guess it ain't the same in UK :/
To be fair though all of the above is pretty much true for any technically oriented support call centre. Businesses these days put very little investment in to staff training and practically all call centre staff know little to nothing more than the process they are told to use.
The only ISP in Hull. Karoo is abysmal. dropouts occasionally, peak times with speeds dropping so much you can barely ping things and a serious lack of competition to make things improve all add up to what has to be one of the worst ISPs in the country. Did I mention it was expensive?
i was a rogers cellular customer at one point... i moved, and told them my new address. their system showed the right address. their bills didn't have an apartment number so they bounced at the post office. after fighting with them and whatnot (because why should i pay a bill i never receive? - not to mention they cut me off over a mere $100) i told them to close my account. they didn't, kept it open for four more months, then sent it to collections. they sent me a letter and i in return sent them all the bounced bills showing them it was rogers fault to start with. now i got a R9 on my credit report.
i can agree but their office is five minutes away from my house, i might aswell take a spin up tomarrow just before lunch time and speak to the manager - make him miss his lunch so he can Somewhat understand my fustration, then agree to pay me back the over charging, ensure i get Exactly if not more then what i pay for, and keep my custom...
if he wont... ive a good idea for a means of getting his Full attention
Connection is unlimited, unthrottled 2Mb in/1Mb out for 36€ per month. Pings ok and steady to European servers. Maybe one or two days in a year when I've had complete blackout but other than that it's good.
Although I've never used it, a friend of mine has it on his house, and believe me, it's terrible. He was supposed to receive a 8Mbps connection but he can't get more than 100KB/s download (when he's lucky, of course). It usually drops to 20kB/s and is very unstable. Every time I create a game server for me and some friends play, everyone that doesn't use VELOX connects perfectly and we play with pings lower than 60ms (some of these people live more than 1,500km from me), but when he joins the server, his ping goes from 300 to 9999ms (it happened twice ), and everyone else's ping goes up to 110~120ms. He lives in a apartment 400m from me
Either his line, or some stuff home at his place I think.
Let me guess, wireless router??
Oh, and distance is irrelevant, remember my neightbour where I lived before. He could not have internet, while the whole rest of the street had perfectly fine and stable net. Sollution was to borrow our line and share it with his (a lot of work, but a sacrifse for a nice neightbout).
It's cable connection (ADSL or something), not wireless
But I'm wondering what happened to him now, it's been 5 months since he last gone online Maybe it's a problem on his computer or something. But his internet connection is still very bad and most people who use Velox complain a lot about it.
Well, I've been having some problems with my connection lately too (very slow) but I think it's because of a transition they announced they'd do. The former company was sold and the new company is making the transition (it's going to be a lot better than it already was, it seems as we're going to receive better internet connection speeds (from 1.2Mbps to 3Mbps for free, also with the possibility to get 6Mbps, 9Mbps and 12Mbps, as opposed to a maximum of 2Mbps on the other company) and we're also going to receive NET TV Digital (rumours says it'll be full HD, but only time can tell )).
By the way, that's a very nice thing you've done to your neighbor...
Yeah, I am nice. No, tbh it was my parrents forcing it thorught, I just wanted all my internet alone from the pedofile neightbour who would just download crapporn 24/7.
Joke aside, he was a great neightbour, allways came over with cookies on the sunday or asked us over if we wanted to take a soda/coke in his garden.
God, now I even miss living home
Either way! :
If a company suddently starts telling they can deliver muuuch more speed than the others, don't belive it - probally just sales bullshit all of it
Or, this one is good and it's going on in Norway :
"Get Get's fastest internet. 40/20mbit, order here!" . Now, when you push that link you need to sign up on a INTEREST list for getting it, and basically it needs to be like xxx number of people close to you that wants it before it happens, and you have to sign an ass-long contract with them.
The only annoyance is traffic shaping. Looking forward to my free upgrade from 2MB to 10MB around May 
.
), and everyone else's ping goes up to 110~120ms. He lives in a apartment 400m from me 