Outsourcing outrage:Indian call-center workers suffer abuse

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12832

Noida, India -- While irate calls are a mainstay of customer service work in any country, many Indian call-center workers say they regularly face particular abuse from Americans, whose tantrums are sometimes racist and often inspired by anger over outsourcing.

This vitriol has fueled a "searing anger" among the Indian employees, says Vinod Shetty, a Bombay lawyer who has formed a collective for call-center workers. "A lot of trauma is caused."

Debalina Das, 22, a computer help-line agent in the city of Hyderabad in south India, punched the button last winter for a call from the United States.The caller greeted her with a torrent of racial and sexual slurs, accused her of "roaming about naked without food and clothes" and asked, "What do you know about computers?" The diatribe ended with the comment:"This company is just saving money by outsourcing to Third World countries like yours."

Boy, we Americans sure know how to make friends the world over.

ahead of all other issues. And save some rage for the politicians who enable it all...

It is a problem, American business is eating its own future. At least the incessant clamor for higher stock prices has abated momentarily, but from personal experience, the business community lets itself be flogged to minimize cost in order to maximize quarterly statements. Now who does that benefit ? Stockholders. Who are the ones making the most money ? The rich. It's so amusing to see Marx's view of the world as divided into holders of capital and productive classes be brought to life before your eyes. His solutions may not have been optimal, but his analysis was spot-on. The hogs who "lead" the business community would sell their own body parts if the price was right (just as folks at the opposite end of the economic scale do), and their cohorts, enablers and beneficiaries in government are equally to blame. Industrial policy ? What's that ? Labor policy ? What's that ? Aren't we all convinced yet that the free market, and self interest (without that inconvenient requirement that it be enlightened necessarily present) are the optimal way to structure not just trade but society in general ? When we're all wallowing in filth I'm sure we'll agree.

...human nature & greed

complaining about their outsourcing, and the loss of American jobs.. The guy on the phone said they did it for "my convenience" because in other parts of the world, it's daytime when it';s night here, and I could call at 3 am for service. I reminded him that LOTS of Americans work nights, and it's only a phone call, not an in-person visit.
Told them I would never buy Dell again, and would counsel my friends against Dell too..

He "thanked me for my input" and then hung up on me:)

to ANY other country. Looks like we are headed for a period of 'isolationism' and it won't be by our choice.

...Indian call centers to be both knowledgeable and polite. What's the problem with outsourcing tech support?

nothing more annoying than having to keep asking, "what did you say", again and again!

That's 'what's the problem with outsourcing'.

Americans are ticked off at losing their jobs and then these call centers want them to buy and they can't get it!!!

PLEAAASSSEEE!!!

I'm not happy with outsourcing, but I'm not going to take it out on someone just trying to earn a living.

And I've known too many smart & educated Indians over here to doubt the abilities of those still at home.

What I wish we could do is somehow get the Indian rank-and-file workers to join forces with us. I imagine that just might happen when India's economy starts being higher-level, and then the Indian techs/phone operators have to ask for higher wages to get along, and then the whore corporations abandon THEM and move on to greener pastures.

Because that is exactly what Indian call center folks are: SCABS.

I don't condone racial epithets or personal abuse, but I don't blame people for being indignant and wanting an American operator.

As usual, the skinflint corporations are more to blame for this than the hapless Indian SCABS.

will turn around and shop Chinamart just the same. Dumbasses.

Some of it is just plain old racism, but as you say many are pissed off at the stealing (outsourcing)of American jobs.

phone line!!! I pay for it!!!

The call centers in the article are ones that accept calls from Americans who need computer help. They are not telemarketers calling us.

raping, big, corporations. Oh, those corporations might be incorporated in the U.S., but they are not Americans. They couldn't care less about this country, except as something to exploit.

Every Indian call center worker is manning a job stolen from an American. It doesn't matter to me that they didn't steal it themselves, because there is a legal concept called "receiving stolen property" that applies. They may not have made the choice, but I sure don't see them objecting to the moves.

I don't get racist, but I do politely tell them that I refuse to deal with offshore operators and request to be escalated to an American. 90% of the time, they willingly comply. I've caught a few lying, and several outright refused the transfer. In the cases where they refused, I do admit to getting very rude (again, not racist, which this article says that many people do).

"this call may be recorded" ticks me off.

I usually ask to be 100% sure the call IS being recorded and get the recording ID or call log ID or whatever, and then tell them what's really on my mind about the company.

This usually does not include digs at the call center or people unless they've been rude or stupid - most are very polite and scared to death that a crazy phone caller will make them lose their job.

Then I ask what they are going to do immediately after I hang up - are they going to file a report or send someone an email to discuss the issues I brought up?

I've had a couple of outright hangups, but a few have actually gotten someone to send a letter or call addressing the issues.

I especially hate weekend calls before noon or weekday calls after 7:00. That's my time and I have eaten the raw quivering livers out of jehovah's witnesses for a lot less.

.....at one time, my company began some outsourcing of calls to India but after a few months they decided to quit doing it. Yes, in India they do speak english but they still don't fully understand the way Americans speak and that was the reason why they stopped it.

And Americans are upset by the outsourcing done by some companies. When they are trying to deal with a customer service issue, they're already upset and will look for any excuse to become more upset. The language issue is just one more excuse.

I don't think racial slurs should be acceptable in any business. Customers may have a right to be upset for legitimate reasons but they don't have the right to be abusive.

I can't imagine how bad it is if you're in India.

Or, worse, an Indian working in a US call center who is a citizen but has the accent...

Yikes...

Get this:

My girlfriend works in a call center. The hold times can sometimes be an hour, usually at least 15 minutes...

She has a friend there who is also black, and one day he got a call from a guy who insisted on speaking to a white person. He said he was tired to talking to black people and wanted him to conference him on with a white person.

So, her friend said, "Ok, sir, here's what you're gonna do. I will release the call, you're gonna hang up. Then you are gonna call back, and you are going to pray to God that a white person answers."

people will say whatever they want when they're already upset. And at the call center I work at, it's a big no-no to release a call. We are supposed to help the customer and if we can't help, we're supposed to transfer them to an agent above us.

If your girlfriend's call center hold time is an hour, that's pretty bad service, in my opinion. At my call center we normally do not have calls holding and if they are on hold, it's usually a minute or two. It's very rare that we have calls holding as long as 15 min.

Bogota, that is. Brinks Armored Vehicle. Am I being bad?

I watched them bring brazillians of dollars in currency into a counting facility daily, keep employees there 14 - 16 hours at a crack, not let them go to the bathroom, eat, shove them, slap them in the face for asking questions, and otherwise treat them like you wouldn't treat a garden slug.

They claimed it was the "South American" way of doing things, but also said things would be a lot easier if they could do that here. I asked them why they didn't set employee and management standards and they basically said that Brinks was a tony job and that they could do whatever they darn well wanted with their employees.

I still have issues with that - it's not Colombia. It was Brinks.

Just you wait. This country is already owned by the large, greedy, corporations. Now they've got the White House and the congress, too. They're aiming for the courts.

What in the hell will stop them, with that much power, from abusing American workers the same way those people you saw were abused? Nothing.

It's all going down so slowly.How do you boil a frog?

To call them. I've stopped buying all products where the companies outsource. As you can guess, all of my clothes are second hand, I do my grocery shopping at the farmers market, for the most part, and I spend very little money.

Then again, I make very little money, so I'm not being virtous, ust practical.

...jobs that have been outsourced to them because of the roaring greed of U. S. corporations willing to do anything to squeeze out the last micro-ounce of profit. Additionally, the money that is being paid to workers in foreign-based outsourced call centers is being pumped back into THEIR economies while our workers are being laid off or forced to take less pay as well as less benefits.

On a personal note, I have grown sick and tired of trying to talk to people about technical issues that not only know nothing of the products and services they are being paid to support, they also have a very difficult time making themselves understood.

If you have a problem with the overwhelmingly negative American reaction to the foreigners manning outsourced call centers, then I suggest you start contacting the Fortune 500 CEOs and demand that they keep those jobs in America instead of outsourcing them.

If they did what they are doing in this country that's what we'd call them.

It's unfair to make them the primary villains in this but they are, in essence, scabs.

Leave it at the back of the store with a note explaining your protest against the evil empire. The employee putting stuff away on unpaid overtime will surely understand.

Next--order sushi & don't pay.

Ah, the thrilling life of a Suburban Radical!

I would make about the computer, etc. They were always polite. So was I.

But the last time I encountered an Indian on the phone, it was when I called my (Amoco/BP) motor club. I was trying to explain the location of the broken-down car which I needed towed. It's not easy to explain a bunch of little residential streets in a city in the American south, to a person who is literally on the other side of the world.

I mentioned a Chevron station, which was near to the broken-down car, as a point of reference for its location. The person asked me to repeat the word "Chevron". She was unable to spell it, so I spelled it for her. It was clear that she had never heard of Chevron.

I found that odd, given that Chevron is one of the biggest, most intrusive, American companies, ever.

The whole thing was unpleasant, very long, and very drawn out, though both she and I managed to keep our cool. Frankly, I'd just as soon have someone who can understand me (and whom I can understand) to talk to when I call my motor club--for which I PAY MONEY--to get help towing a car.

But we must all sacrifice so that "The Economy" is buoyed up. And those profits are gonna trickle down to us, aren't they? I just know they'll finally start drip-dripping all the way down to me VERY SOON!:)

People don't realize how rude they are over the phone, unless you mirror them; then, somehow, it clicks, and they often apologize and it's back to normal. Odd.

I've refrained from the racism at least, and reserved my scorn only for the stupid ones that are obviously incapable of performing tech support without a script.

Yes, those people deserve some heat for receiving stolen property (our jobs) but the real scorn should be reserved for those most responsible-- the companies that profit from it, and the government officials who give them tax incentives to encourage it.

But my anger is invoked by good old fashioned incompetence at the other end of the phoneline.

Me: Should I download this file WidgetFix.exe?

Tech: No! No! No! Hit the link for the company home page.

Me: Okay

Tech: Now, hit the button marked "tech support." Then hit "Downloads." Okay, go to the "products" page. Now hit "Widget." Now download the file named "WidgetFix.exe."

Me: You stupid asshole, that's what I asked if I should do five minutes ago!

overseas computers?

there have already been several incidents of indentity theft and worse.

congress needs to do something about international privacy rights.