I work for one of the major telecom/cell phone companies. I’ve been in the business of customer service for a REALLY long time. (9 years straight from the work at home level 20+ if you count them all, but only talking the last nine years). I’ve been with Sprint, T-mobile, ATT, Comcast, and Microsoft Xbox.
Here’s the rub, as I’m sure you are all familiar. I am adept at understanding people from overseas, it’s part of my job; however, 99.9% of the U.S. population is not like this. I bet you all have gotten the run around trying to get something simple fixed only to be on the phone and ping-ponged around for hours on end.
This last week at my current job (I won’t say which) has been poignant. I have been THANKED (it’s happened before) for ‘actually speaking English and being from the states.’ I have customers asking if they can get directly back to me to finish out a payment because of the simple fact, ‘I speak English, I was friendly, I wasn’t transactional, I am not a scripted robot’. Regretfully, I can’t offer this to them because of the limitations of my job. — because if I did this, I would never speak to a new customer ever <Insert mega truth here>.
But, as with everything, it’s ‘cheaper’ to offshore my job, no one cares, it’s just “business”. Right? It is. Cheaper to answer the call, they get more ‘kudos’ but low handle times, the pay is less, sure it’s a great ideal. But where is your actual Customer service? That white-glove treatment that you built your company on? You’re just tossing it out the door for cheap labor sub-standard labor expecting people to put up with it? Yeah, that’s what you’re doing.
For example, in my last job, (Again not telling you which one) about 1 out of 3 customers would ask me to hand them to a rep in the states. I couldn’t say yes to this, because 99.9% of the time I was getting one overseas. I bargained, and took the reigns, got the problem underhand, I just didn’t have access to the tools to do it, made the call, handled all of it, other than authorization from the client to make whatever changes. Happy thankful customer — me on a write up for being over my ‘average handle time’.
My current job has the same problem, we run credit checks, if we run into a manual review (AKA something didn’t match) it goes overseas. Now I am not biased, but when someone cannot pronounce Chevrolet, Pontiac, or Kia, or Acura, correctly, there is a problem. When they can’t pronounce common street names accurately, there is a problem. I would venture to say, 70% of my customers who go through this, hang up, they don’t trust their information in the hands of a ‘foreign’ agent. And I don’t blame them at all — regretfully, I can’t translate/relay answers.
My Care department, I CRING having to send anyone over there, why? They get no help. (Luckily for them they got me, I can solve most issues without the tools, did I mention I’ve been at this a while?)
I make $12 an hour, I live on my own, but I had fewer wages and raised two kids on that single income. It was not easy. Now, I get incentive bonuses, which honestly come easily, I just get to be me, a nice friendly person who does actually realize how diverse this nation is. As an example, I take about 40 calls a day, I’ve been here for about a year, and I work 6 days a week (I get bored on my days off, so do OT). Of that time I have had two really right-wing totally engrossed into the Q-anon wackiness (trust me, it comes out). A few highly religious republicans that when they find out through conversation (I don’t hide it, I’m gay) are totally fine with it. Otherwise, most are democrats.
Now I know that’s not a ‘poll’ but it does say something to me, if you treat people with respect, they will in turn to you as well. I speak with people of all colors, creeds, and religions. One today, that kind of prompted me to write this, — She’s a U.S. Citizen, but her husband is not. Her credit was not so great, but she needed to get him a phone. (Okay, narrowed it down, phone company). Through conversation I asked how they met — turns out, it was at Starbucks while they were both going to school. The only thing that is saving him from deportation is that they are married, but it is being called into question.
I like where president Biden is going, by raising the minimum wage, and ‘made in America’, but what I wish he could do, is also add-in, ‘service for Americans from Americans’. Stop these big companies shipping our jobs overseas because it’s cheaper to answer a phone call in India or the Philippines on substandard lines than it is in the States. We have the labor right here, willing and able.
Alright, I’m done ranting, Have a good night all.