Call centers won't go away - American Idol notwithstanding

I wonder if these people voting for the worst, realize the impact they have on the deserving contestants lives?

At the end of the day, overseas call centers may save $$$ but are a disaster for customer service. How can a bunch of people in India ultimately care about satisfying customers in a society and community (the U.S.) with which they have no connection? How can there be any serious quality control? The world is turning into call center hell!

I get it! I get the joke: Vote for the worst! It was a bit humorous to see a minimally talented performer make it to the final 12.., then to the final 10. Now, its no longer funny. Now legitimately talented people are in jeopardy of losing their opportunity to showcase their talent in favor of this played out farce. Its also kind of unfunny to see this kid put on the brave face and embarrass himself way beyond his 15 minutes...

Rich,
I think you mean "voice mail hell". The people manning the Indian call-centers are very curteous, try very hard to be helpful, and are studying our culture to be even more responsive. We on the other hand spend very little effort to understand anyone else.
Peace

I THINK MALAKHAR SHOULD GET HIS ASS KICKED OFF NEXT WEEK FOR SURE AND WHAT HE DID TO HIS HAIR WAS A DISGRACE TO ME AND MY PEOPLE. THE CHEROKEE, HE WAS MAKING FUN AND IT WAS NOT FUNNY. I AM SURE HE WILL HEAR FROM ALL KINDS OF INDIANS, AND HE DESERVES IT. THANK YOU

I work for an inbound customer service company, and I don't see why people are so afraid of companies in India getting jobs. My company handles customer service for over 40 Fortune 500 companies, and many of our main clients will never go to offshore call centers. And the biggest international clients that we use our call centers in the states (Texas/Illinois/Iowa), Montreal, Phillipines, and in India. In the US, we can train a class of 40-50 people for a particular CS job, and by a month after the class graduates training there is only about 5 or so people left, and that number dwindles down to 1-2 after another month. But our call centers in India and the Phillipnies don't really have this kind of issue as much as we do... these are just jobs that a lot of American's dont want. What do you expect companies to do??

I do not know where you are geting your info about Indian Call centers not affecting unemploment appreciably here. I have to many friends in the Airline industry alone that have been replaced by people from india.
On a separate note If you think that your company is saving money by using these centers I must tell you. When a company employs workers contractors and other wise. that cannot speak english Clearly you are sending me a message that my business is not important to you. That is fine with me. You wanna know why? Because your competitor likely wants it instead. And if I call and I get business that dont even have the decency to hire American workers to see to their customers need. I find another business that does want my money. We have Americans that do need to eat here and when we ship enough jobs over there.do you think the dollar per hour they make is going to stretch far when they vacaton here?

Scott, I am looking at the upside of all of those positions you train these people for and I count workers HERE tht need to eat. I see people that are being diminishd in ways that sicken me.
Re" All of the idians are courteus and friendly and helpful. I have 2 words going through my mind BULL is one of them.

The supposition that just because the unemployment rate in the U.S. has not risen significantly, Indian call centers must not be affecting U.S. job opportunities is WAY off base. First of all, the way the unemployment is tracked in the U.S. is WAY off from reality and only factors workers currently collecting unemployment into the equation. Most workers are no longer eligible to collect unemployment at the end of six months and are therefore factored out of the equation even though they are obviously still unemployed. Secondly, if over the course of the year, 5 million U.S. workers lost $10-11/hr call center jobs and were forced to take $6/hr Walmart & fast food jobs, none of this would be reflected in unemployment statistics since unemployment statistics do nothing to track the quality of jobs people are doing and simply report the percentage of the workforce collecting unemployment benefits at that time. So your suppositions are entirely too simplified and don't take into account the true nature of U.S. unemployment statistics. The reality is that the poverty rate has gone through the roof during the Bush administration, and outsourcing of jobs to places like India and China is one ot main things pushing this upward trend in the U.S. poverty rate.

SIMPLY,HANG UP WHEN YOU GET A CALL FROM INDIA.SOONER OR LATER A AMERICAN REP WILL. CALL.SIMPLY TELL THE CALLER YOU CAN'T EXCEPT CALLS FROM INDIA OR OTHER COUNTIRES,THAT ARE CALLING FOR AMERCIAN COMPANIES. PLEASE BE POLITE. ALL CALLS ARE RECORED SO SOONER OR LATER THE COMPANIES WILL SEE THEIR MISTAKE.

When I call customer service, I want someone knowlegeable. But if I can't understand a word they are saying, it doesn't matter if they are knowledgeable or not. I simply hang up. But what I'll do from now on is tell them I can't understand a word they are saying so it is recorded. Sheldon, I can't see how you can say they aren't taking jobs away from us. Get a clue buddy!

Hi Scott

Scott would you let me know where I could
apply for CR position with a call center that hires here in the states with a decent wage?
Thanks!

WHY NOT DO THIS ?? When "FOREIGNERS call, tell them to immediately put you through to their supervisor,
(which is also recorded) and tell the supervisor,
that if an AMERICAN COMPANY wants to do business with you then for them to connect you immediately to an AMERICAN TELEMARKETER OR CUSTOMER SERVICE
REPRESENTATIVE LOCATED "IN" THE UNITED STATES otherwise you do NOT wish to talk to OR do business with that company ever again !!
THIS will get the message out MUCH faster if every recording they hear HAS THIS MESSAGE !!

Mimi, I hate to tell you but the call centers in the States don't really have a decent wage, unless you upsell products to customers who call in. Anyway, some of the ones that i can think of on top of my head is Talk2Rep, Call Source, TelerX, Affina, Afni.. just depends where you live. What I love is that Americans are the only ones that have the problem with this.. And I'm sorry, that will not help you at all. All calls are not recorded, many times it depends on our clients needs/requiremenets. And if they all, only a minority of them are monitored for quality assurance of our reps. And do you know what the team leads/supervisors (the people who do the monitoring) do when the hear you griping about outsourcing? We laugh, then move on. Grow up people, it's a world economy now. If you don't want jobs to move out of the country, then become a more valuable workforce.

In addition to that, job growth projection has our jobs expanding at a rate faster than we can actually FILL jobs in the US. A lot of people may be unemployed, but that doesn't mean they are really looking for work.

You comments about jobs going to India and not affecting our unemployment rate is just plain wrong. My last two employers were major corporations that moved in to our area, built call centers stayed about 4 years and then closed down, losing about 600 jobs and 500 jobs respectively. One was a major personal finance company that I was at from 1994-1997 and that same year a major computer company set up a new call center and I was there from 1997-2001. Both companies shut down several call centers at the same time and if you call them today, their calls are answered by far East Indian reps. Hundreds of us were laid off at the same time, try getting a job when all tech support reps are on the street at the same time. I know first hand how our unemployment is affected by Indian call centers. The majority of employees were very happy there, made decent money and loved our company and the work environment. We did not have a choice. I am all for US companies hiring US reps in US call centers.