Non UK based call centres

Tykey

Tykey

Tykey

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I've been trying for several days and calls to get something sorted regarding a simple issue with my mobile phone that I couldn't fix from my side. The 1st few calls were connected to non UK based call centres. It was like I was speaking Klingon to some of them and none of them helped whatsoever. I can understand they are much cheaper to operate from a business point of view but the quality of service i've just experienced was terrible.

I've today been finally connected to someone based in the UK (it was obvious by their accent and they confirmed they were UK based) and at last it looks like my phone problem will get sorted out. It shouldn't have been this difficult to get help. I will actively choose companies/services with UK call centres from now on. What are your experiences with these? Was this a 1 off? I've had iffy service from overseas call centres before but never this bad. It was for Tesco Mobile.
 
Unfortunately some things are cheap for a reason. I'm with Tesco mobile but never had to call them, but if it's a foreign call centre you might as well just not bother usually.
 
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tyke_ said:
I've been trying for several days and calls to get something sorted regarding a simple issue with my mobile phone that I couldn't fix from my side. The 1st few calls were connected to non UK based call centres. It was like I was speaking Klingon to some of them and none of them helped whatsoever. I can understand they are much cheaper to operate from a business point of view but the quality of service i've just experienced was terrible.

I've today been finally connected to someone based in the UK (it was obvious by their accent and they confirmed they were UK based) and at last it looks like my phone problem will get sorted out. It shouldn't have been this difficult to get help. I will actively choose companies/services with UK call centres from now on. What are your experiences with these? Was this a 1 off? I've had iffy service from overseas call centres before but never this bad. It was for Tesco Mobile.
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You should request their complaints procedure, and make a complaint.
You can go to the ombudsman after 8 weeks if you are not happy with the response.
Even though the ombudsman are not fit for purpose you still can get compensation.
Complaints cost the company money and time, best way to get something back.
 
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Tricky, sometimes a very strong Scottish or Welsh accent can be just as hard to understand.

I think it's admiral insurance who had a call center somewhere in Wales and I had to really listen in to grasp some of the things they were saying.

On the flip side I work with a lot of Indians, so I guess you get used to the accent.
 
Probably get usurped in the medium term by AI call centres synthesising speech in an accent agreeable to the caller. A lot of these offshore call centres are only trained / scripted to deal with common, basic issues which are exactly the sort that should lend themselves well to automation. People say "I want to speak to a real person" but an AI might be easier to understand and be faster at triaging an issue with appropriate training.
 
HangTime said:
Probably get usurped in the medium term by AI call centres synthesising speech in an accent agreeable to the caller. A lot of these offshore call centres are only trained / scripted to deal with common, basic issues which are exactly the sort that should lend themselves well to automation. People say "I want to speak to a real person" but an AI might be easier to understand and be faster at triaging an issue with appropriate training.
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This is what I posted in another thread.

Because the A.I ontology is pretty poor, this goes for most companies. And truly it is not an A.I, their NLP and MC are substandard.

There is not enough people out their that really understand A.I.

A.I design is not just about MC, there are many other components that make up the knowledge. Lack of knowledge ( being one instance of many) leads to very poor inferences, which is the main problem.
.
This is as simple as It can be explained without going technical and losing 99.99% of people.

Btw you all have just learnt an important condition in A.I.
 
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Don't mind speaking to foreigners from say India or the Midlands with their weird accents, it's the let me go and speak with my manager line that winds me up when your trying to get a discount
 
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Most call centers & phone-based customer services are useless regardless of whether they are based in the UK or not. The person has zero expertise with which to help you (if they did, they wouldn't be working at a call centre, harsh but true), they're just reading from a pre-written script, following a flow chart depending on the problem you're having. Type "customer service flowchart" into google and you'll see what I mean.

Often times you'll get better advice online through a forum like this one, or reddit or similar.

Or just find a customer service person you can speak to in-person as they will have quicker access to the technical advisers (people with actual knowledge/expertise) that you need.

A few examples from my experience:
In a previous property I was having regular internet connectivity issues, customer service not helpful at all. I upgraded to a business/commercial account and was able to get through to an actual engineer pretty quickly and solve the problem, then used the 14 day grace period to cancel and go back to standard domestic service.

My phone network is vodafone, customer service are all useless, so when I have an issue I just pop into the nearest brick & mortar vodafone shop, speak to a human, casually mention I might have to switch to another network if the issue isn't fixed, issues are usually fixed pretty quickly.
 
Lots of “discount” on mobile scam attempts - clearly a scam by the language used in the scripting and calling from a call centre.
 
Companies over a certain turnover should have to have UK based telephone support. So many huge companies quite literally make it impossible to get any support. There is no telephone support and their online support is a **** show that just keeps trying to kick you to their help pages.
 
I remember when I used to phone Sky you had to speak late in the evenings and you got put through to a call centre in Ireland at least they had some flexibility in their answers and actually understood the problem otherwise it'd be somewhere in the indian subcontinent and they were basically reading from a cue sheet with no real understanding of anything other than what was printed in front of them. These days they'd be replaced by AI chat bot I imagine because thats exactly what they were human bots
 
I had a nightmare trying to get a refund from Three a few years back. If you have something off-script these Asian call centers are totally clueless. I got nowhere so I eventually just went to the Ombudsman. My case was basically me saying Three support were incompetent, apparently they agreed because I got my money back :D

They don't have any skills or knowledge. They just go through a checklist.

UK based ones have always been more professional and helpful for me. You can also understand what they are saying which is a great start.

AI might seem like the solution, but it can easily be fooled. Like how ChatGPT can be tricked in to doing stuff it's not supposed to, like listing Microsoft keys lol
 
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Mrwong said:
This is what I posted in another thread.

Because the A.I ontology is pretty poor, this goes for most companies. And truly it is not an A.I, their NLP and MC are substandard.

There is not enough people out their that really understand A.I.

A.I design is not just about MC, there are many other components that make up the knowledge. Lack of knowledge ( being one instance of many) leads to very poor inferences, which is the main problem.
.
This is as simple as It can be explained without going technical and losing 99.99% of people.

Btw you all have just learnt an important condition in A.I.
Click to expand...

AI is funny. I think there will be a new range of jobs appearing, which is people who specialise in using AI. I just set up a t-shirt shop (PixelMinds Apparel) using AI. It still takes a lot of work, most of which is understand how to get the most out of the AI to get it to do what you want.

I posted similarly in another a little while back, but I've found ChatGPT to be a great tool for improving your output, but not necessarily for generating it. Combining a few such tools together can give great results. As always, though, **** in, **** out.
 
NTL used to have UK based call centres only. It was only when Branson got his claws into the company and renamed it to Virgin Media that things took a nosedive, especially recently.

EDF's offshore call centres are a complete joke and nothing else. I've learnt that the only way you can speak to somebody English is to say "energy ombudsman" when the system asks the reason for your call - you quickly find yourself talking to somebody in the UK who talks properly and politely.
 
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