Keep It British!

[cleanbluesky]

My sentiments entirely. Free market, supply and demand, competition dictates and so it should.

Do you actually benefit in any way, or do you just want to think of yourself as someone who approves of it because its foreign?

Both Penski and you seem to approve of it, Penski has offered a single vague example and you dont feel the need to explain why something that most find offer an inferior service benefits you in any way

 

[GSXRMovistar]

Surprised by the amount of people who would choose low cost over high quality, which I know this doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive but normally is the case.

 

[cleanbluesky]

true tbh

The problem here is that a few people want to portray any negative comment on anything foreign as xenophobia. What you'll find on this forum is that people are more honest than the PC crap that a few have come to expect.

 

[starscream]

Do you actually benefit in any way, or do you just want to think of yourself as someone who approves of it because its foreign?

I thought you were a supporter of companies operating in "free market" conditions?

 

[penski]

WHat does that mean? If they had a 'not my problem' attitude, did you not complain to their manager or were they not supposed to comply with a possibly unreasonable request?

An example was when I hadn't received a statement for four months despite calling several times to request one. Certainly not an unreasonable request by any stretch of the term.

The (British) callcentre agent said "Well...It wasn't me who was supposed to send it so...er...I don't know."

At which point I asked to speak to his supervisor.

His supervisor said "We have no record of one being sent. Are you sure you've requested one?" despite me having already made three or four requests on the same number and callcentre.

To me, that is absolutely shocking customer service and indicative of the attitude held by a lot of British people. Say what we will but a lot of people here are happy to freeload and don't really care for customer service.

I've seen it in person when working in a multilingual office; the British teams are invariably always nipping outside for a smoke, sitting and chatting or just generally lounging around while other markets will do their job then, once done, will go find a supervisor or manager to see if there's something else to be done.

*n

 

[cleanbluesky]

I thought you were a supporter of companies operating in "free market" conditions?

I peddled the idea of "white flight" so hard because I wanted you and a few others to understand that a company has social responsibility as well.

 

[starscream]

I peddled the idea of "white flight" so hard because I wanted you and a few others to understand that a company has social responsibility as well.

So you didn't agree with the principle of "white only" flights?

 

[cleanbluesky]

<snip>

The only problem seems to be that you are blaming this on the fact that they are British, which is just part of the anti-British snetiment that some people seem to satisfy themselves with...

If you find yourself amongst lazt Brits then I would examine your peer group. Myself I see no obvious patterns on who works hard as opposed to those who do not.

 

[cleanbluesky]

So you didn't agree with the principle of "white only" flights?

I couldn't give a fudge either way, but if catering to Muslims is okay, then so is "air apartied"

 

[jas72]

I HATE callcentres. Staffed by people who couldn't give a toss whether you were satisfied or not.

I used to bank with the Halifax and could phone my local branch to sort out problems, any problems that couldn't be sorted over the phone could be arranged in person. Then they decided to have call center in Leeds.

Man what a difference.

I had a pass book which I had to send to the UK from Belgium to get my cash. I used to send it to my local branch who would check the signature with their records and then transfer the funds as per my letter. Then they became a bank and screwed things up.

After that I had to transfer my book to the head office in Glasgow who then transferred it to my local branch for signature checking then returned it to glasgow for the transfer of funds then sent it to Leeds for sending back to me.

I could no longer phone my branch to check on things always being transferred to a call center in leeds to talk to people who didn't have a clue what was going on only what was on the screen. My pass book was "lost" for 8 weeks and it took 6 weeks to get my money. (Before when I could send it locally it took 5-7 days including posting)

The callcenter staff in Leeds were beligerant and couldn't care less just wanted me off the phone basically as I was a nuisance caller. Their "screen" couldn't know where my pass went to, refusing also to transfer me to my locak branch so I could speak to the usual contact point, a very efficient branch manager.

Eventually they said they would send out forms so I could apply for a replacement book. The forms arrived ALONG with my passbook.

My complaints about the lack service of the call center to the customer service returned a very short reply explaining that they had teething problems but no real apology.

Now, you tell me which is more cost efficient.

A) I send my book local branch who check it and send it back, transferring the money.

B) I send my book to glasgow they send it to the local branch who check it then send it to leeds who then transfer the money and lose my book.

Why can't I talk to the local branch? I just don't get call centers or their need. For me it's a totally false economy.

I won't use them and would rather talk to my local branch.

Of course i've since closed my account and opened a girobank with the Alliance and Leicester.

 

[Pug]

Well, my views are that i dont save any money with outsourced call centres, and i receive an inferior service - how is that better???

Penski - you are in the minority for good service - every single person i speak to about these issues agrees that they get royally f'd off with foreign call centres - NTL are another bad, bad example of why not to outsource.

One of the women told me "you are not very friendly with computers" after me telling her there was no firewall running, only about 3 processes running, none of which was firewall - it just wasnt and she wouldnt believe me.


My opinion is that if it is someones role to communicate solely by voice, to english speaking customers, then they should be proficient at it - this includes some real strong scottish accents as well mind.

 

[penski]

The only problem seems to be that you are blaming this on the fact that they are British, which is just part of the anti-British snetiment that some people seem to satisfy themselves with...

No - I said that it is a trait that I have only seen in British people. I did not blame it on them being British. You really need to get over that whole assumption thing that you have...

If you find yourself amongst lazt Brits then I would examine your peer group. Myself I see no obvious patterns on who works hard as opposed to those who do not.

Professionally, I have found if I encounter someone who does not do their job correctly, shirks their responsabilities or does not really care if their job gets done or not...They are invariably British.

Much as we have a section of society which is content to live on welfare for the duration of their lives, we have a large section which is determined to only do the bare minimum at work.

A few years ago, the company I worked for used a team in Leeds to enact all 'changes' - Network changes, hardware changes, arranging of engineers et cetera. Basically, a team that I relied on to get my job done.

They had an 18 working day SLA due to huge backlogs of work.

There was uproar within my team when it was announced that the team in question was to close and replaced by a team in Lahore. I have to admit that I was amongst the nay-sayers. I thought that things would go from bad to worse.

Within a week and a half of the new team going live (with the same amount of staff), the SLA was down to ten working days. By the four week mark, it was down to thirty six hours.

Now that, to me, is indicative of hard-working people with a strong work ethic and their customer service skills were second-to-none.

The UK team would receive your request, send you an email saying they had it and that they would process it "in due course". If they needed information, they sent you an email and your request got put back to the bottom of the pile.

The Pakistan team received your request, sent you an email with a definite resolution time and kept you updated via internal IM as to it's resolution.

If they needed any more information or encountered an issue, then they sent you an IM and an email immediately and also confirmed whether the SLA would be affected.

So In the space of a month I went from spending two or three hours a day, every day, chasing a team that really couldn't be bothered whether their job was done or not (regular replies to a request for your case to be escalated were along the lines of "whatever, mate.") to spending ten to twenty minutes a day sending off requests, updating them as and when it they were required and closing cases as completed. My job was made easier, my clients were happier and my accounts (along with everyone else on my team) started hitting (and exceeding) targets again.

*n

 

[VIRII]

I thought you were a supporter of companies operating in "free market" conditions?

I am I want value for money and I am not 100% convinced that I am receiving it with foreign call centers. However the fact that I rarely need to use them means that they make a very small part of the overall service hence they don't factor too highly in my decision making.

 

[regulus]

Long live multi-cultural Britain and other countries I say... couldn't give a monkies about this really - if Brits are so worried about their culture disappearing or being overwhelmed maybe they need to start doing more than selling out, drinking beer and eating pies.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for patriotism and being proud of ones country, and believe it or not I'm proud of certain aspects of my british nationality very much so - however I'm very anti one creed cultures and very much for multi culturalism in all aspects. The Brits are taking over jobs of other people all around the world - so fairs fair really.

It sounds overly aggressive and somewhat xenophobic to me.

Absolutely.

Brits are running rampant like wild gazelle in places like Spain, Malta, Portugal etc etc. Some towns are now pretty much British only with only a few locals scattered here and there. Yet we don't have a problem with trouncing other people's countries and towns, but we balk when they come here and return the favour.

I love it. Bring them all I say!! We need more Poles!!

 

[Murf]

I'm with Penski on this. I've worked in several call centres and in every single one the slackers have invariably been of British origin. I'm not saying all British people shy away from their responsibilities, and fail to pull their weight mind you.


As for people who want the call centres to remain in Britain, fine. Just bear in mind that the people who are most likely to get off their backsides and work in those call centres are going to be foreign anyway! The amount of times when working at BT I used to have someone call me and thank god they got through to the English centre for a change, when in fact he called the same place in Newcastle but just happened to get through to someone with a local accent was ridiculous!

 

[basmic]

At the end of the day, if non-British workers want to flog themselves for tuppence, then fine - the average tight fisted person will be attracted to the savings the company can give to them.

But I feel better in myself, knowing that I can pick up the phone to an English-English (not Indian-English/American-English/...) speaking person, who works in Britain.

I do agree that some broad Scottish accents are hard to make out, though.

 

[willd58]

If british people were so concerned about this theyd avoid company's which offer cheaper products, but they dont, they want the best of both worlds.

 

[cleanbluesky]

If british people were so concerned about this theyd avoid company's which offer cheaper products, but they dont, they want the best of both worlds.

As said, some companies are swtiching back to UK call centres and advertising the fact as well...

I rarely use foreign call centres because I can rarely get what I want if I have anything more than a routine request.