Apple outsourcing techsupport to india

[Kar98]

The tech guys in India are the best in THEIR field (from a price-competence POV)

They are simply the cheapest and that's the end of it.

 

[yogi]

I bet you can find cheaper IT guys in Ghana.

Or, in other words, do you feel the tech support in India is less capable than the one in the U.S.? Is it because they might have had a better education? DID they really have a better education? How would you know...

Them being a good cost pint is true, or outsourcing wouldn't make sense, but other from that, a language shoudn't pose a problem. If it was such a problem, they wouldn't choose India. If they didn't speak what was defined as coomonly applicable English, they wouldn't pick it.

 

[digital john]

its sad

Unfortunately for companies to compete with eachother they must do some things to keep them ahead of the game, and outsourcing is one of them. Last year when I called apple care for my iMac and spoke to an American and I believe that is the way it should be. So many Americans have lost jobs due to outsourcing and that isnt helping our economy at all. We can also help George Dubya Bush for allowing it to go on but thats a whole different discussion in itself.

 

[kaidomac]

I don't think most of us care where the call center is. And I don't think we have an issue with other Non-Americans or other races helping us. We just have a couple of needs. Especially when we are paying for it:

1) We need to understand what the other person is saying and just as important, they need to understand us. This goes beyond just speaking english. Yes it's important that the accent is not so heavy that we can only make out every 3rd word. Both the customer and the support person need to understand each other well enough to get the ideas across. For example, someone might speak and understand english very well, but have no clue why an American Joke is so funny. Granted, this should not be as big of a problem discussing technical issues, but depending on how the customer and support person are trying to get their ideas across, it CAN still be a problem. Context is important! There needs to be Effective Communication, and since the support person is being paid to help the customer, they really need to be highly effective in communications, people skills as well as be a bit flexible since each customer is not going to communicate the same way.

2) Skill and Competence is Extremely Important. However, Certified __________(Fill in the blank) is not always a good measure of how competent a person is in whatever they are certififed for. Good Old Fashioned Experience is the best teacher. I've met many people that have degrees and certs coming out of their ears, but would take 3 days to understand and solve a problem that someone with some decent experience could solve in 10 mintues. I've also met people that had great experience and skill that did not have or need any type of Degree or Cert in the technology they work with that might not even be able to pass the certification testing without a lot of preparation, but they were still great at troubleshooting and solving problems in their area of expertise.

Bottom line is, a Competent tech support person should be able to effectively communicate with the majority of their customers, they should have enough knowledge and skill to be able to properly troubleshoot a problem with the customer and adapt as necessary. Making a customer go through an entire script (and I'm sure many here know what I'm talking about) to get to a point where maybe the customer already provided enough info to jump to that section of the script. Or maybe the script needs to get set to the side and REAL troubleshooting take place. Maybe the support person needs to get some help from the next level of support or engineering. I think most of us would be ok with that if we just knew the person on the other end of the phone was really striving to help us more than they are trying to impress us with what they think they know compared to us. The customer cares about one thing, and one thing only. Getting their problem solved, and get it solved properly! Standard canned answers like, "oh...I've never seen that..." or "You need to reinstall your OS" or "replace___________", etc. are NOT good examples of quality or knowledgable support unless some REAL HONEST EFFORT and troubleshooting has taken place.

If there weren't so many cases of bad tech support that's been outsourced, there wouldn't be so many people complaining about it, no would there be so many jokes, etc. It's a big enough problem that people spend the time writing about it and poking fun at it.

My 2 cents.

When I think of tech support in India, two terrible experiences immediately pop into my mind, one with D-Link and the other with Dell. Recently I ordered a 2005fpw monitor and it was defective. I had to go through no less than 4 tech support agents spending a total of over 2 hours to get diagnose my monitor and get a new one sent out. In my opinion, ANY tech support agent should have the following 3 qualities:

1. Good communication skills in the caller's native language.
2. Technical skill & knowledge to assist the caller with the problem.
3. Personal responsibility - taking it upon themselves to solve the caller's problem rather than fiddling with it, or making sure they get routed to a person who can solve the caller's problem.

It wasn't until the fourth tech support agent at Dell that I got my problem solved. He took it upon himself to help me solve my problem, spoke with the appropriate people, and was able to get me a new monitor sent out after diagnosing my existing monitor. His communication was clear enough that I easily understood him and didn't have to struggle with language barriers. His technical skill consisted of more than reading from a script; he was someone who knew what he was doing.

I don't have anything against tech support in India or any other foreign country; I do have something against companies who improperly train and hire employees to provide an essential service to their customers. It was absolutely ridiculous that I had to spent 2+ hours between 4 tech support agents at Dell just trying to get a monitor replaced; it will definately make me think twice before buying from them again. I sure hope Apple's tech support doesn't go down the drain because of this decision.

 

[chuckalicious]

OKay, have to reply to this one

Some good and some bad points made in this lengthy thread. I'll add mine, you can make up your mind whether it's good or bad

I hate call centres in general, because you normally get someone who is just reading through a script. The difference is the understanding of the other person in making the call more enjoying and satisfying for the customer, whether or not the end result is any better.

I have 2 examples here. One is from O2 (a mobile phone company in the UK) and the other is from Sky Digital (a satellite TV company in the UK).

I have had my fair share of issue with Skys customer service, but nothing that couldn't be discussed and some kind of resolution be found, because I was able to talk to the person and say "look, I'm not happy with the way this situation is being dealt with, I'd like to speak to a manager, or someone who has the authority to change this situation." Now, in the UK, that's cool, they will, if able, try their best to pass you to someone who can help. At one point Sky agreed to have my name put on the account holders list in order to allow me to deal with them instead of my wife. Great.

I recently had to call Sky again and got put through to a non-UK based call centre. Reading from a script is one thing, but repeating the question because you didn't understand the response is not acceptable. The conversation went something like this:

Sky: "Hello Sky digital, can I take your home telephone number?"

Me: "It's xxxxxxxxxxxxx" (and don't be smart and say that's why he didn't get it, because I said all xxxxs )

Sky: "can you confirm your address and full name please"

Me: "address is.... and my name is Mr....."

Sky: "sorry Mr...... you are not a named account holder, I must speak with named account holder"

At this point you have to deviate from a script to provide good service

Me: "I was told by Mrs X from Sky care that my name was now on the account and I have had this verified. I should be allowed to discuss the account with you"

Sky: silence..... "Please can I speak to the account holder"

Me: "I am supposed to be the account holder, I have written confirmation that I was added"

Sky: "Please can I speak to the account holder"

eventually, they passed me though to someone in the UK, who amazingly, saw that I was on the list, had a laugh about it, then we moved on and got it dealt with. This kind of thing happens all the time with Sky. I was so angry with them I cancelled my account and now have a different provider.

Similar situation with O2. Not only are they useless on the phone, but can't read emails either. I sent support issues, explaining the problem very clearly, stating all the things I'd tried, the errors I was getting, all my account details etc.

I got the same response each time with either someone asking questions to all the things I'd just asked, or answering a different thing all together.

All the names at the ends of the emails were not UK based.

Yes you're right, you can get bad support anywhere, but the ability to hold a conversation with the customer is vital to making the support call as pleasant as possible.

I no longer use O2 or Sky, and aim to always stop buying from companies that use offshore call centres. Matter of principal.

 

[Kar98]

Apple sacks staff, bids adieu to India
The company has decided to put its support centre growth in other countries
Sunday, June 04, 2006

BANGALORE: Apple Computers had pulled out its software development and support operations in India and sacked its staff, a report said.

However, the firm's 25-men strong sales and marketing arm would continue operations here, the Times of India reported today.

Apple had commenced operations on April and hired about 30 people for its subsidiary, Apple Services India Pvt Ltd. It had planned to hire 3000 people in the country by 2007.

The company decided to pull out after it re-evaluated its operations. An Apple officer conveyed this to the employees on May 29. The sacked employees would get a severance package equivalent to their two months' salary.

The exact reason behind the pull out decision was not immediately know.

"We've re-evaluated our plans and decided to put our support centre growth in other countries," the newspaper quoted Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling. The report did not mention the 'other countries.'

According to a sacked employee, the company had told them that its operations would now head back to the US.

"It started off with building dreams. We were not given any warning," the employee, who was not identified in the report, said.

Another employee said that the Apple officials on May 15 were "highly appreciative of the workforce and the task it would execute in India."

Meanwhile, BV Naidu, director of Software Technology Parks of India (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) told CyberMedia News that he was unaware of the development.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, was expected to visit India in September this year after he postponed his April visit.

 

[coltssaturday]

what i think is that we will have to see how bad it is or how good it is..

but i hope its not like AOL'S or Dell's

hopefully....

 

[tenbellys]

oh dear god someone please change it!

Anyone that has had to use Dell technical support cant possibly think this is a good move.

Im all for cutting costs, getting different groups/genders of people involved in projects but its just the language barrier thats so diffucult to get round. I call up dell, the line is crap. the guy at the other cant understand me, i cant understand the guy. so i say bye and email. even then i have trouble.

 

[coltssaturday]

oh dear god someone please change it!

Anyone that has had to use Dell technical support cant possibly think this is a good move.

Im all for cutting costs, getting different groups/genders of people involved in projects but its just the language barrier thats so diffucult to get round. I call up dell, the line is crap. the guy at the other cant understand me, i cant understand the guy. so i say bye and email. even then i have trouble.

i feel sorry for you but my experience with dell was ok but i still hate them

 

[yogi]

He's going to move it elsewhere... but where?

 

[tenbellys]

i feel sorry for you but my experience with dell was ok but i still hate them

at where I work I have over 500 peices of equipment with dell stamped on them. It causes me nothing but headaches.

 

[coltssaturday]

at where I work I have over 500 peices of equipment with dell stamped on them. It causes me nothing but headaches.

thats funny

 

[schweb]

Here's another story:
http://news.com.com/Apple+hangs+up+on+India+call+center/2100-1047_3-6079967.html?tag=nefd.top

 

[schweb]

He's going to move it elsewhere... but where?

If I had to guess it would be the US or Canada.

 

[schweb]

i feel sorry for you but my experience with dell was ok but i still hate them

I hate dealing with Dell's call center so much I'll never buy another product from them. Actually I try not to deal with any company with an Indian call center. There's just too much of a language and cultural barrier. They just can't empathize and understand as well. For backend operations or other things that don't involve direct customer contanct I think Indian centers are fine.

 

[yogi]

If I had to guess it would be the US or Canada.

I don't think Apple is moving out because it fears the qualitiy of support. Possibly India is already getting expensive. Maybe they'll move it to places like the Far East or Africa.

 

[coltssaturday]

I don't think Apple is moving out because it fears the qualitiy of support. Possibly India is already getting expensive. Maybe they'll move it to places like the Far East or Africa.

I think that is least likely to happen that they move to Africa or the far east except the Phillipines because India, China and all those 3rd world countries have cheap labor and poor american acecent understanding ablities its hard. I think Apple should just stay here to have their customer support at its best. And not worry about outsourcing yet.

 

[BlindingLights]

what's wrong with tech support to india?

 

[Kar98]

what's wrong with tech support to india?

 

[NikBhat]

We should all learn to give credit where credit is due. Indian workers work with an efficiency and proficiency that is often forgotten in America. Additionally, IT specialists being hired by Apple (dell, microsoft, or otherwise) are all highly trained professionals. Some of the top engineering and software design students are the ones employeed. And almost universally the IT buildings are located in Mumbai, Banglore or New Dehli, 3 of the most developed cities in the country. You will not be speaking with peasants and farmers, but college degree holding professionals.

Also, props to those who realize that english is essentially a national language of India now, taught universally in all schools from grade 1. So they have an accent? get over it.