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Apple pulling support out of India

At last...apple pulling out of India

Hi...like most people who have replied to this I am not in the slightest bit racist but I have been so incensed over the past month due to having a faulty macbookpro and applecare but no one understanding what I am saying or able to help me. As mentioned there is a 3 second delay on the calls so having a conversation is nigh on impossible. The customer care people are all very nice and apolegetic but alas I havent found them in the least but helpful in terms of sorting my problem out. I also have a problem with forking out so much money on apple care but having to spend 10p a minute to speak to someone in India when the upshot is that the call has cost me over £4 yet I was no further forward in getting the problem resolved. Come on Apple make the customer care is good as your products and retail environment 🙁
 
I've never had any problems with the support I've received from people in, (I presume), Bangalore, India.

My electicity services company seems to re-route my calls there when I call from the UK.

On one occasion, I was mildly interested to find out where the person I was speaking to was based. The conversation went something like this:

RodThePlod: "so... if you don't mind me asking, where are you actually based?"

Operator: "Oh.. I'm based in London."

RodThePlod: "Oh... really?! lovely weather we're having today isn't it?" (I was lying - it had been raining heavily for most of the day and it was supposed to be the height of summer 😱)

Operator: "Yes - wonderful weather isn't, it?"

RodThePlod: "So - which part of London are you actually based in?"

Operator: "Ummm.... Birmingham, Sir".

😱

I wasn't really concerned since they were helpful - I just thought it was funny 🙂

RodC
--
www.expodition.com - for iPod users who love to travel
Check out my lens at Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/PodSnapShots
 
FooledYou.jpg


HA HA! FOOLED YOU!​
 
RodThePlod said:
I've never had any problems with the support I've received from people in, (I presume), Bangalore, India.
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Then you have gotten lucky. Buy a Dell product sometime. Call them up. My company's helpdesk is based out of India. They aren't bad...even though they can't spell...deployed worth a dang. Dell's reps? I'd have an easier time understanding white noise. Heck I can understand a thick Scottish accent more easily then I can an Indian one. Of all the places on the world WHY did it have to be India that companies are outsourcing too? As best as I can tell Indians speak quicker which is part of the problem. But that coupled with the accent makes things doubly as difficult.
 
SiliconAddict said:
Of all the places on the world WHY did it have to be India that companies are outsourcing too? As best as I can tell Indians speak quicker which is part of the problem. But that coupled with the accent makes things doubly as difficult.
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One reason for doing it.... very cheap labor from very technically minded people. Admittedly, India has some top notch IT schools so they have good resources for learning the technical material. There is a huge focus/push to have kids over there to either become engineers or doctors. So when you have over 1 billion people with a big push like that you have practically unlimited resources to pull from to acquire your tech support base (and for relatively cheap). So, on paper they seem very qualified technically. Allbeit they may lack interpersonal skills when talking with a westerner, or may still have some issues understanding our accents/terminology. The ones that are bad are probably either really new or have to deal with so many different kinds of issues that it becomes difficult to become an expert on any of them. Not trying to justify--just making a conjecture based on my own experience. Still, companies can hire around 8-10 Indians per U.S./Western employee. Not to mention they probably don't have to pay other benefits like health care insurance and such. That turns into a significant cost savings.

Not saying that it's very nice for the U.S./Western employees, but it makes sense as to why they're doing it. One drawback is you have the language barrier along with some cultural differences that Indians may not understand about westerners and vice versa so that causes a fair amount of malice/uproar. Customers want more than anything to feel like they are getting the attention they deserve or at least getting their money's worth and are getting valuable help. As long as they see an outsourced support center as providing lower quality service they will continue to believe that they are being undervalued and being cheated by the company supporting them. I guess, in a way, that's good for me because that provides me with a bit more job security.
 
I'd much rather hear and Indian accent than a southern US accent any day of the week.

In my experience the better informed support comes from overseas, and I think I know why:

In the US, level one phone support is generally given by people who can't do better, or who are at the bottom of whatever career ladder they're climbing. In India, to get this sort of work you already have to be well above average, and have a drive to be educated.

I might be making generalizations, but my experience backs this up.
 
Nikkobengco said:
Well, demoman, you see, most of us tech support technicians, already have the answer or solution to the problem, but the problem is finding it in our system. You probably don't get it, because you are not working in a contact center, but heres how it goes. If we know the answer, we have to find the answer in our own system for us to be able to log it down. Example, i know that the solution to the prob of the customer is to just press the power button for 6 seconds. But you know what the problem is, we have to search thru millions of articles to find that answer, in our system. It seems odd. Or a delay to the customer, because why couldn't just we tell that to the customer and have to wait til we finally be able to find the steps in our system?

well, indians, from what i've read from the internet, have a tendency of sounding like they are reading from a script, because the steps or solution they have on the screen, they just read it, and never rephrase it.

well, we filipinos, have an advantage on that. We don't sound like we are reading from a script. have you ever spoken with a filipino over the phone? try calling bestbuy hotline, at 1800bestbuy.
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seriously...get off the filipino thing. im sure your tech support is great but you've posted about it four times now.
 
^^^^^Personally, I've had a couple of lousy experiences calling the Best Buy support line. The people sounded very disaffected and disinterested--like I was inconveniencing them for calling....

Granted, I've also had a few nice people at their PartSearch dept, but their support ain't anywhere near perfect. 🙄
 
I really don't care where the call center is at, as long as the person can speak english clearly and fluently. Like someone here has said, I've had as much trouble with someone from the deep south as I have with foreign call centers.
 
mmmcheese said:
Some of the worst tech support I've ever had (as far as language barrier) was with someone with a really thick southern US (Texas?) accent.
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it5five said:
I've had A LOT more trouble understanding texans/other people in the south than I have indian tech support.
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Some Indian customer service reps are trained to speak with a very thick Texan/Southern American accent in order to cover up their real accent.

And here is proof:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said:
Because of a backlash from American, British and Australian clients, however, most Indian call centers no longer ask employees to try to imitate Western accents. Fake Southern drawls with an Indian tinge are out.
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It's very likely that any time you've been annoyed with a southern sounding person, they're actually an Indian person trained to speak that way.
 
BenRoethig said:
I really don't care where the call center is at, as long as the person can speak english clearly and fluently. Like someone here has said, I've had as much trouble with someone from the deep south as I have with foreign call centers.
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Larger financial/social issues aside, that's the bottom line to the consumer. And that's really the unfortunate issue with English--there is no "right way" to speak it. There are plenty of wrong ways, but there are dozens of perfectly acceptable accents depending on where you live. In fact, even some Indian accents can be considered to be legit, since it's evolved that way after the past century or so of British influence.

Case in point: I work with a very bright youngish Indian guy studying here in the US for his Masters. He graduated from IIT, a very prestigious technical university system in India. He's fairly well off, and even at home says that he spoke basically two languages all his life, one of which was English.

Now, he is 100% fluent in English--speaks it just as comfortably and gramatically accurate as any born-and-raised American. But he has an Indian accent (including the occasional amusing British-influenced expression). Not because he learned to speak English and couldn't drop the accent, because that's the way it's spoken there, and has been for a long time. No different from a Southern accent, or that highly amusing (to everybody else) Minnesota accent.

As for the call center issue, it comes down to this: 1st level tech support is as much customer service as technical work anyway, since most of what they handle are "dumb" questions that can be answered from a script anyway ("Where do I plug in my iPod? How do I eject a CD? My Mac won't turn on."). Having an easy-to-understand accent that is common in the country you're handling calls from (and preferably some cultural familiarity as well, to help with communication) seems like I should be as big a priority as being able to handle the questions. And I'll note that while a lot of Northerners have a tough time with a strong Southern drawl, thanks to movies I don't think most Southerners have trouble understanding a Yankee. Sad, maybe, but a fact. I'm guessing (though I could be totally wrong) the same applies to a "proper" British accent in England versus folk with a strong Scottish or Welsh accent.

It's the same reason I wouldn't hire someone with a very strong accent to anchor a news program, or man the front desk at my company--you want that person to be easy to understand. Now, once I get up to level 2, where it's tehncial prowess that counts, I could care less what accent the person has as long as they know their stuff.

Thanks to the internet soaking up a lot of "DIY" help, you basically have two kinds of people calling 1st level tech support: People who have no idea what they're doing and need a lot of handholding, and people who know what they're doing and have a serious problem that either requires warranty service or escalation to a more experienced tech. The ones who've already exhausted the online info that is probably the same as the script being read from don't want to be forced to go through a dozen steps they've already tried just because the list says so, and the inexperienced ones are only going to get even more frustrated when they can't clearly understand the person on the other end of the line.
 
i think the true irony of the thread are the posters that say: "I am not racist but..." I am intolerant of others (southerners or indians).

The actual problem has nothing to do with language. It is cultural, Europeans and Asians communicate their feelings differently. This is reason why you feel like the Indian is dissing you, when in reallity she just has a different way of expression. This would be evident in any language.

... but I have black friends.
 
KEL9000 said:
i think the true irony of the thread are the posters that say: "I am not racist but..." I am intolerant of others (southerners or indians).

The actual problem has nothing to do with language. It is cultural, Europeans and Asians communicate their feelings differently.
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The cultural issue is very real, but frankly we're talking about low-level tech support here, so it doesn't come into play that much. The problem comes when my 80-year-old dad calls up the tech hotline and can't understand what the guy on the other end of the phone is saying.

And I repeat, just because I'm a young guy who happens to be good with acents thanks to being married to a Japanese woman and speaking two languages at home doesn't mean it's that easy for everybody who calls tech support. When you've got a midwesterner who's panicking because their computer isn't working, AND just spend 30 minutes on hold, the last thing their frayed nerves need is a tech support person they just can't understand.

And it has nothing to do with tolerance--my mom's very tolerant and quite bright, and my wife speaks English at least as well as most Indian tech support people, but sometimes she just can't figure out a word that seems perfectly clear to me.

Again, when you're trying to help out someone who in all likelihood is calling tech support because they're confused by their computer, trying to figure out an accent on top of the explanation is just plain frustrating.

Oh, and there's nothing racist about wanting as much money I spend on a computer as possible to go back into the economy of the country I live in--most of it already ends up in Taiwan, China, or Mexico, at least the support jobs could be in the country of purchase. I'd expect someone from India, Japan, or Iraq to feel exactly the same way. It's self-interested, maybe, but not racist.
 
Makosuke said:
Oh, and there's nothing racist about wanting as much money I spend on a computer as possible to go back into the economy of the country I live in--most of it already ends up in Taiwan, China, or Mexico, at least the support jobs could be in the country of purchase. I'd expect someone from India, Japan, or Iraq to feel exactly the same way. It's self-interested, maybe, but not racist.
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I think you'll find most of the money ends up with the shareholders of Apple and their partner companies shareholders,I find it difficult to understand the loyalty to the piece of dirt you live on,to be honest your being ripped off by capitalists wherever they live.
 
Pulling outof India? Excellent idea!!!!!!

I am a Mac guy 100% but my wife has a Dell Laptop and I have had to call Dell Service quite a few time over the last couple of years. I get switched over to tech support in India. I can't understand but every fourth word they say. I dont care how helpful and knowledgeable they are if they can't communicate.

I want tech support in ENGLISH! SPEAK ENGLISH!!PERIOD!!!!!!!
 
aprilfools said:
I am a Mac guy 100% but my wife has a Dell Laptop and I have had to call Dell Service quite a few time over the last couple of years. I get switched over to tech support in India. I can't understand but every fourth word they say. I dont care how helpful and knowledgeable they are if they can't communicate.

I want tech support in ENGLISH! SPEAK ENGLISH!!PERIOD!!!!!!!
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Have you ever considered the possibility it may be you who can't communicate.

PS 350 million people in India speak English most of them better than Brits let alone Americans.
 
Peterkro said:
I think you'll find most of the money ends up with the shareholders of Apple and their partner companies shareholders,I find it difficult to understand the loyalty to the piece of dirt you live on,to be honest your being ripped off by capitalists wherever they live.
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I think it has something to do with the fact that you want to know that jobs are available for you in the event that you need one. Not to mention, you want to know that your economy is strong (or stronger) because that most likely means there are meaningful/useful/decent-paying jobs available. Lastly, as someone who provides tech support, I don't want my job to be taken away from me. 😀
 
Peterkro said:
Have you ever considered the possibility it may be you who can't communicate.

PS 350 million people in India speak English most of them better than Brits let alone Americans.
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I am an Apple specialist and beside the point...... I can communicate just fine buster! If I buy something here in the USA, I want USA to support it. If I wanted your opinion I will ask you for it!
 
Apple aborts Indian tech support facility

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4515/945/


By Sufia Tippu
Sunday, 04 June 2006

Apple tech support is closing down its Indian operations, which had barely begun to be established after its announcement of the new facility two months ago in April.

This is a premature death of Apple's embryonic plans of offering its own tech support in India. The centre had not gone live, not a single phone call was made, just about 30 support staff had been hired out of a planned 600-plus headcount for the whole year.

Apple had been offering and still continues to offer tech support from another third party BPO provider, TransWorks based here in Bangalore.

In April, when it had taken up 40,000 sq ft of commercial space in a leading software park and had announced plans to recruit 600 people by year-end, and later roped in a high profile former head of Dell International Services India, Mohan Kharbanda, to head the Indian operations, it was big news.

Then came the blog blitzkrieg. Apple's Mac and iPod users envisioned poor experiences as a result of the outsourcing of its support centre. They had taken to expressing through blogs, their strong disapproval and disillusionment with the company they felt they all owned because Mac and iPod users constitute a world of their own with a deeply embedded streak of loyalty.

Apple tried to allay fears of transfer of jobs from the US to India by clarifying that its US call centers would continue to grow and India was as good as any center to offer support services from.

Now, Apple is back again in the news. This move of shutting down the operations of its two-month old subsidiary, Apple Services India Pvt Ltd, seems to have come out of the blue.

While announcing its decision to lay off all its employees, senior Apple officials told them: "The company is re-evaluating its operations and has thought of pulling back its Indian operations." Apple is giving employees two months salary as a severance package.

According to Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling said: “We’ve re-evaluated our plans and decided to put our support centre growth in other countries."

But sources claim that this has nothing to do with the kind of quality of service that the India tech support would offer. “I think it has more to do with financial feasibility of the centre rather than the quality of service. You have to keep in mind that no work had started – basically it was just mid-level support staff that had been hired apart from Kharbanda who was expected to grow this the Dell way.”

Dell has about 15,000 people in India – who offer tech support through its captive centres as well as through other third party providers like Exl Services, Wipro BPO and Genpact.

“I think the company stock has also been on a southward route. Apple has realized that it makes business sense to work through a third party route rather make more capital investment here in India at this point of time,” sources said.

Dell was another company that was in the news three years ago for pulling out some of its work from its Bangalore tech support center but later on it was proved that support for only a couple of its products was moved back to the US. Just about 100 seats out of its 5000 seats at that time had moved back to the US. Much before that it was Lehman Brothers that had pulled out tech support from Wipro Technologies.

More recently, UK company Abbey moved a part of its operations back to home turf. However, according to sources, it was a very small part of their operations, although media reports had said that the entire operations had gone back home.
 
aprilfools said:
I am an Apple specialist and beside the point...... I can communicate just fine buster! If I buy something here in the USA, I want USA to support it. If I wanted your opinion I will ask you for it!
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You have apparently not noticed this is a forum,Buster how very quaint.
 
Peterkro said:
I think you'll find most of the money ends up with the shareholders of Apple and their partner companies shareholders,I find it difficult to understand the loyalty to the piece of dirt you live on,to be honest your being ripped off by capitalists wherever they live.
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alright marx take it easy...

jeez some people around here are so bitter.
 
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