Rant About Call Centre

[Fusion5]

i have been a customer of Littlewoods for a number of years and in the last week have noticed they have changed their call centre from northern England to South Africa. I did ask the lad on the phone if he was based in S.Africa ( though the accent was a giveaway). he said yes it was.

So have all those lovely helpful ladies from UK lost their jobs. ?

I have had to phone the call centre a few times this week and was not impressed with the service or lack of it.

[Bazile]

It's all down to costs and the bottom line

Like why pay a worker £ 5 per hour to make a tee shirt in the West , when you can pay a worker £0.50 per hour somewhere else

[Fusion5]

Thing is Brazile, they lose customers. Ideal World Shopping Channel has a. Indian Call Centre and the complaints on their webpage is tremendous.

They may save money in the short term, but long term surely it's not cost effective if your customers all disappear.

[Buenchico]

Littlewoods keep moving their call centres.

In 2004 six hundred of their staff lost their jobs when the call centres in Widnes & Leeds were closed down.

In 2009 a thousand staff lost their jobs when Littlewood's Crosby call centre closed.

In 2013 the closure of their Preston call centre resulted in the loss of 475 jobs.

I generally prefer to get put through to an Indian call centre, rather than a UK one, as you actually encounter staff who've got more than one brain cell between them. (UK call centre staff are often poorly educated. Indian call centre staff always have, as the absolute minimum qualification for the job, a good honours degree). However that assumes that the firm which uses their services has actually provided them with the tools to do their job; all too often they're given nothing more than a few set scripts to work from.

[whirlyhurly]

Same here Fusion, the chap I spoke to was from Cape Town. It's down heartening already for the young desperately seeking employment in GB.

[Jackdaw33]

It's all down to accent and understanding. I shall never forget when I rang my bank 6 years ago, and was put through to India. It got so bad that I asked to be transferred to the UK. Guess where I was put through to, Glasgow! I eventually asked to be transferred back to India.

[whirlyhurly]

Lol

[vulcan42]

I received a call recently from India. The caller started off with this call is being recorded for training purposes..... etc, then asked to speak to my wife. I explained my wife had been dead for over thirty years and the line went quiet for a moment and then "This call is being recorded for training purposes... I can only hope the person I was speaking to is the one receiving the training.

[kylesmum]

// (UK call centre staff are often poorly educated. Indian call centre staff always have, as the absolute minimum qualification for the job, a good honours degree //

Really? My daughter and her peers would have been thrilled that not only were they spoken to as scum they actually were thought of as being poorly educated !

Thankfully her current job as a Paralegal has put that nonsense to bed.

[Dee Sa]

I stopped buying from Ideal World shopping channel because they had an Indian call centre, & they rang me at midnight to confirm an order and woke me up when I said go away ring me back in the morning they rang again at 4am, thats when we parted company for good.

[askyourgran]

I've had a problem with an 02 account and called their on-line 'guru' for advice, I must have been chatting in India for an hour, each person who passed me on to the next one had unpronounceable names and none of them could advise me. Finally I was advised to phone the following day to the o2 customer service. They are a real shower.

[DaisyNonna]

I dread being put through to India.
My router stopped working just before Christmas and I phoned BT. Son (who works in IT) did some tests and agreed I needed a new router.
Person on end of phone for BT refused to listen and proceeded to go through all the checks (which included my crawling around on hands and knees checking cables and manhandling the BT box. After half an hour I was sorrowfully informed that I needed a new router.
Nothing could be done that evening as the relevant department had closed 5 minutes earlier. I asked for the phone number to call the next day only to be told that they had to call me. When? between 8am and 8pm. They didn't.
Took another 4 days to get the router, wasted them waiting for call or delivery. Too late to order things online for Christmas.
Thanks BT

[DTCwordfan]

Do you know why Indian women have those red dots on their foreheads when they marry?

So their hubbies can scratch them on their wedding evening and see if they have won a 7-11 store in the States or here, or have to carry on working in the call centre.

[DTCwordfan]

Tip Daisy, turn off the router for the duration of the call and call them - 'the router is dead' - they send you a replacement and you then have one in reserve.

[Jackdaw33]

Don't blame India, Daisy, blame BT. I worked for them. They have a computerised algorithm which all operators must follow or they are up on a disciplinary.

[sandyRoe]

De as, when it was 4am here it was probably about noon there. They were being quite considerate.

[Jackdaw33]

It doesn't just happen in call centres either. Ever been asked at the checkout if you would like help with your packing? They ask that because it's part of the script, and if a supervisor is passing and the assistant doesn't say she/ he is in bother.

I could go on for ever. "Would you like fries with that?"
"Would you like something to eat/drink with that?"
"Do you want any cashback?&c &c &c

[DaisyNonna]

No

[DaisyNonna]

DT, not exactly ethical

[DTCwordfan]

no but its practical.....

[DaisyNonna]

Chacun a son gout