Apple outsourcing techsupport to india

The problem though is that while Indian workers might be efficient and proficient at their jobs, they can't communicate well with American consumers, especially those in need of support.

The language and cultural differences are just too great. In the end it ends up frustrating the customer more and the stop buying a companies products. That's exactly why many companies are starting to repatriate their support operations to the US.

I think Indian workers are great for programming or back-end operations, they do a great job. But direct customer interaction is their weakest point. Most companies that went there for the cheap labor are starting to see their mistake.

Yeah they do great work but just the understanding part is when English fluent speaking people get frustruated. (i hope i spelled that right, lol)

I have no trouble understand Indian tech support... doesn't help that I'm Indian, though... but I don't speak with an accent, unless American is an accent, which it would be in Britain... oh I'm confusing myself. I guess I can understand them because many of my relatives have accents so I grew up around the accent. I can switch back and forth between normal American and an Indian accent.

BlindingLights said:

I have no trouble understand Indian tech support... doesn't help that I'm Indian, though... but I don't speak with an accent, unless American is an accent, which it would be in Britain... oh I'm confusing myself. I guess I can understand them because many of my relatives have accents so I grew up around the accent. I can switch back and forth between normal American and an Indian accent.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how to solve the accent problem. I used to be unable to understand someone with a thick Spanish accent until my fiancé's parents talked with me on a regular basis. Although familiarity with Spanish accents is far more prevalent that Indian in the States.

lol true... but it's not THAT hard to understand them, is it? maybe i'm biased because of my background, i don't know...

schweb said:

The problem though is that while Indian workers might be efficient and proficient at their jobs, they can't communicate well with American consumers, especially those in need of support.

The language and cultural differences are just too great. In the end it ends up frustrating the customer more and the stop buying a companies products. That's exactly why many companies are starting to repatriate their support operations to the US.

I think Indian workers are great for programming or back-end operations, they do a great job. But direct customer interaction is their weakest point. Most companies that went there for the cheap labor are starting to see their mistake.

Click to expand...

I agree 100%.
I don't doubt the technical ability of these workers one iota.
The problem is that when someone calls for support, they are already having difficulty. That person is concerned with and focused on one thing... getting their technical issue resolved. They are already frustrated and confused enough as it is.
When you have to factor in things like language and cultural barriers, it only serves to make the process that much more frustrating to the consumer. Nobody wants to have to worry about trying to understand some alien technical concept along with trying to make out what someone is saying on top of that. This is why outsourcing phone tech support fails. The average US consumer is going to have a hard time understanding someone with a thick accent, no matter what it is. I used to work with a guy who is Scottish and people would have difficulty understanding him at times, and English is his primary language... just with a different accent.
This is not people bashing those of Indian descent or heratige, it is simply people pointing out a fact... overall, it is more difficult to understand a foreign accent (in a tech support entity) than it is to understand someone with a native accent (American, in the US).
:black:

D3v1L80Y said:

I agree 100%.
I don't doubt the technical ability of these workers one iota.
The problem is that when someone calls for support, they are already having difficulty. That person is concerned with and focused on one thing... getting their technical issue resolved. They are already frustrated and confused enough as it is.
When you have to factor in things like language and cultural barriers, it only serves to make the process that much more frustrating to the consumer. Nobody wants to have to worry about trying to understand some alien technical concept along with trying to make out what someone is saying on top of that. This is why outsourcing phone tech support fails. The average US consumer is going to have a hard time understanding someone with a thick accent, no matter what it is. I used to work with a guy who is Scottish and people would have difficulty understanding him at times, and English is his primary language... just with a different accent.
This is not people bashing those of Indian descent or heratige, it is simply people pointing out a fact... overall, it is more difficult to understand a foreign accent (in a tech support entity) than it is to understand someone with a native accent (American, in the US).
:black:

Click to expand...

I agree - understanding everyday conversations with foreign accents can be trying but the topics are common. It's easier to understand someone talking about their day at work than explaining a problem that requires techie speak and concepts the person is already having trouble understanding in the language they are used to. And by language I mean accent

good thing whenever i have a problem i go straight to the apple store and not the phone! it is beyond frustrating dealing with overseas tech support at times

BlindingLights said:

I have no trouble understand Indian tech support... doesn't help that I'm Indian, though... but I don't speak with an accent, unless American is an accent, which it would be in Britain... oh I'm confusing myself. I guess I can understand them because many of my relatives have accents so I grew up around the accent. I can switch back and forth between normal American and an Indian accent.

Click to expand...

Just to make it clear, it's more than just the accent. It's the cultural differences and how you react to different situations. Different cultures react differently to different emotional stimuli.

Because of that the ability to truly show empathy is also hindered. There are huge cultural differences between US and Indian culture. Indians, unless they've lived immersed in US culture for a long time will just not "get it" and won't be able to relate on a deep level with their caller.

When someone is already frustrated that can be a bad thing. So it's so much more than an accent problem.

schweb said:

I think Indian workers are great for programming or back-end operations, they do a great job. But direct customer interaction is their weakest point. Most companies that went there for the cheap labor are starting to see their mistake.

Click to expand...

Actually there is a rub about that too. For the most part, outsourcing to India and Pakistan has been either for legacy programming support or (primarily) front line help desk support and some backline functions.

The problem a lot of companies are having with using Indian programming companies goes right to the core of their business.

Lets say you are a manufacturer and you outsource all your programming to an Indian firm. Guess what? All your competitors have access to that same firm.

If you come up with a great idea that leverages your IT systems to increase your productivity, guess what's going to happen to your idea? Yup, you guessed it, pretty quickly anyone using that firm to outsource their programming to is going to be introduced to that idea.

Then there is the question of security. Programmers write the code to pay your bills, send out bills, pay your employees, process all kind of financial information. Would you like some guy you never met over in India doing this for your company?

For the most part, I see a lot of outsourcing of help desk functions, backline network and infrastructure support, and programming maintenance for older legacy systems. More and more companies are pulling their core programming functions back to the states.

Recently had another tech problem that required the use of HP's tech support (for a laptop). The call center people were excellent on this go around, and the accents were quite understandable and all of the people I talked to were good. The actual repair on the laptop was utter crap though. I had to ship it to them three times to get it repaired properly, and the second time it came back, they'd put the wrong mother board into it and the USB ports were missing-- just big gaping holes in the side. The call center people thought that that one was pretty funny (I was joking about it, and wondering what sort of QC the thing had had before it was sent out).
They connected me to a US QC rep and everything got handled quickly after that, so I'll give them credit for that, but their repair department sure dropped the ball (Located in Indiana BTW).

Like I said in the OP, it can be really hit or miss with outsourced call centers. Sometimes it's fine, other times it's terrible.

its not so bad. Sometimes you can get more out of these guys because they dontknow what they are doing

Few comments

1. If Apple would outsource purely to save their dollars, they'd most likely outsource their tech support to China, not India. The reason? The Chinese constitution gives the government a totalitarian authority, and the Chinese government keeps their currency at very low relative value to encourage exports. Indian currency however, is strictly regulated, and it simply does not make a sense to outsource to India (especially when China is quite nearby, and way much cheaper) if the sole motive was to save (=make) money.

Just because Apple has outsourced to India, I guess they're probably trying to preserve the quality while going for lower cost.

2. I'm not an American, arrived in America about one year back, and could make out at least three accents in the "americans". One is a white accent, another is a black accent, and yet another is a hispanic accent. (I apologize for not finding the right words here). Each time I had to call the company on phone, it was a horrible experience as I'd not understand the accents of the white guy, the black guy or the hispanic guy. Though I have kinda adjusted to this now (took me entire one year), I still prefer to email the company to avoid contact with "american" accent.

3. I've been to India, and I can tell one thing for sure. It's not one country. It's like a collection of thousand countries. Every 50 miles or so - everything changes. The language, the dress, the culture, the food, the accent too. I've had special difficulties in understanding the accent in South India. North Indians generally do a good job, probably due to wide western exposure in North India.

4. Apple is an international company based in America. Indians buy apple products too, and they'd be quite happy over this move by apple. And combined with the Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Bhutanis, and Nepalis, I'm sure Apple is going to earn a huge spectatorship (= business boom for apple in south asia). So while we cry for our discomfort, let's not forget that someone would actually be benefiting from that accent!

5. If you don't buy applecare protection plan, you'd be eligible for "phone" tech support for three months only, right? Three months isn't that much of a time, and personally speaking I never had the chance to call Apple tech-support because of any of their products so far. I have had three iPods, (my macbook is shipping this week), and they are absolutely flawless in performance.

Yes Anil, but right now Apple has pulled their operations from India.

This is a small part of the reason I left Dell. (the main reason was I was sick of Windows, but that is another issue) Today I had to do a follow-up on an order and I could hardly understand the girl I spoke with. I tried to explain to her that we had a tax-exempt status and that I faxed our form to Apple, she had no idea what I was talking about. It is interesting that I spoke to a guy in the U.S. to order the computer, but for support I'm shipped to someone I can hardly understand, very frustrating!

I had a terrible experience with Apples current Indian tech support.
My brand new iMac G5 was going to sleep whenever I worked it hard.
Online chat support had me do a disk repair, booting from the dvd.
I had upgraded my iMac to Tiger shortly after I bought it.
Indian tech tells me to boot from my Panther disc, don't use the Tiger disc, you always use the disc the computer came with.
Disk repair says there's a bad sector on the drive.
After two new drives and months of headache, Apple support in the states finally reviews the notes from my ongoing problem and tells me Panther doesnt recognize journaled Tiger drive's, it will find a bad sector every time.
It was a cracked motherboard, btw.

During this whole debacle, Indian tech support had me entering command lines to reset eprom and fcsk(?) disk checks etc. After running the last test my fans spun up to top rpm, my iMac sounded like it was launching off a carrier deck. I got into Online Support and asked how to quiet the fans so I could still use the Mac until I took it to the shop the next day.
Chat support wouldnt answer my question, they replied,"Your unit has been marked for repair"
I replied,"I know, but I need to use the machine for a couple of hours before I lose it for a week. How do I quiet the fans"?
"The unit is to be sent for repair" they reply.
"I know, how do I quiet the fans"
"This unit is marked for repair"
"I am taking it in, in the morning"
Round and round we go.
Chat support finally tells me,"There is no way to reset the fan speed"

I called Apple at 6 am, the tech at Apple tells me how to reset the fans in about 4 seconds.

Wow, long thread.
Clearly an issue which attracts a lot of interest.

Having read most of this thread, which is very long....I'm not going to repeat what everyone has already said from one angle or another on the language/cultural side of things.

Instead, I'll offer my observations on the issue, having worked for a major telecommunications company here in the UK, from a purely business POV.

The telecommunications market here in the UK is VERY competitive, as it is all over the world. Although pricing does vary from network to network, there is a de facto guideline of pricing which all of the networks stick to.
When you work in such a competitive market, every single, minuscule detail is important and every time the customers make even the smallest interaction with the business, it HAS to be positive.

So for example, [X] Telecommunications company outsources their tech support to India, or any other far away country........In theory, this is great for business, the company cuts their budget for customer services by a mile and everyone is happy......

But what happens when your customers call up after the change-over and experience a totally different style of customer service (because they will, regardless of whether it's 'good' or not)? Every aspect of the customer service they recieved before has to be upheld. From efficiency in standard procedure, to the ability to communicate, understand, resolve....And as others have previously mentioned, even the ability to share cultural understandings HAS to be maintained.
If the business does not keep to their existing standards, or even better them.....Sooner or later a fair share of customers will become dissatisfied.....And with the level of competition on offer, consumers QUICKLY look elsewhere....especially in this market, they are VERY VERY hard to please (which goes back to the issue of even the finest detail DOES matter).
This issue is even greater in the business sectors of customer services, where the expectations and requirements far outway those of the support in the consumer market. So if a business customer calls up and feels like he is having a horribly rigid, scripted conversation with someone half way round the other side of the world, sadly this will make a negative impact.....regardless of whether it should or not on a moral basis or anything like that, (an aggressive and demanding consumer does not take that into account) he or she will look somewhere else.

So in a lot of markets, from a purely business POV, although I don't profess to know the definitive answer....My guess is that often it isn't smart for business. Because it's the difference between a 5 star service and a 4 star service, when cultural understandings (and everything associated) can easily make the difference between 4 and 5.

On a personal level, I think it completely depends on the end product and what the standard of service is.....As with most things, I expect some out sourced tech/customer support is excellent and some is completely appalling. I don't think it's as black and white as we might think (i.e. Good or Bad, universally).

i scanned a bit of this thread and was mostly saddened.

i work in server support and computer operations for a large american company with assets in canada and china, and deal with support (both onsite and offsite) from companies such as HP, Microsoft, AT&T, EMC, EDS, IBM, Qwest, etc.

i've spoken with tech support from around the world, mostly in the us, canada, and india. in all my experience, location has little to do with quality of support. i've dealt with as many idiots in the us and canada as i have in india. and also found stellar support at times from each country and from different support teams (different companies' support).

it is one world. the sooner we all realize that, the better.

I used to do tech support for TWC RoadRunner's high-speed Internet service.. I know all about outsourcing.. It's not a good place to work.. At least the place I worked at made m life very stressful...

It's sad to hear such horror stories from a company that makes amazing products...

Globalization will only make the world better.

As long as the quality support and service is maintained. I don't care where they base their techsupport. End of the day, it's what they provide that matters..and that's a good service apple is known for.

I doubt apple will simply toss it all over to india and ruin the quality image they are known for. Especially for customer service.