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Posts Tagged “
Outsourcing
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complaints
outsourcing
U.S. Debt Collecting Being Outsourced To India
The New York Times looks at the blossoming foreign market for debt collection services, and describes a call center in India where the employees are reminded to bring up the 2008 stimulus checks when they call U.S. households, and where everyone claps three times when the first "deal" of the day is made (""Rajesh, for $35 a month for three months," the supervisor yells across the center.) More »
customer service
Convergys To Move Call Centers From Canada To Overseas
Convergys is a major supplier of outsourced call center services to big companies (Comcast is one of their clients) and it looks like times are tough for them up in Canuckiztan:Convergys chief executive David Doughtery told analysts "most notably we're being hurt today in Canada and we are taking action to close centres there and move work to other geographies." Many of the Canadian jobs will likely go to the Philippines and possibly India..Which we suppose qualifies as a resounding yes to the question, "can customer service get any worse?" More »
funny
Sprint Invents New "Concerned Department"
It's good to know Sprint is taking your concern very seriously these days. When Peter tried to get a corporate discount for his company, Sprint told him sure, then told him no because he already had a discount with them. He wrote back and pointed out that he was told the corporate discount would be in addition to the existing one, at which point he received the following helpful email. More »
readers
Consumerist Reader's Story Featured On NBC Nightly News
One of our readers appeared on NBC Nightly News the other night after his story was featured on The Consumerist. Bob Loncaric paid extra to fly direct on United and when he checked his reservation, he found it had been mysteriously changed to one with stopovers. He called customer service, but was barely able to understand the outsourced call center employee's version of English, except for the list of cities he didn't want to stay in spouting out of the guy's mouth.... More »
taking it seriously
Wisconsin Takes Printing Your SSN On Mailing Labels Twice Seriously
WHO: EDS Corp., a vendor hired by the State of WisconsinWHAT: The State of Wisconsin is responsible for citizens social security numbers being printed on mailing labels twice in 13 months. The company they hired, but did not adequately supervise, is now offering free ID theft insurance to those citizens of Wisconsin whose SSNs were exposed.
WHERE: Free ID theft Insurance Offered In Foul-up(scroll) [Milwaukee J-S]
THE QUOTE: "We take our responsibility in Wisconsin very seriously and we take this matter very seriously," Kenny said. "We regret that it happened." More »
outsourcing
How To Hire A Home Cleaning Service
Reader MecuryPDX left a detailed comment about how to hire a home cleaning service that was so good we thought it would make a great front-page article.
I had a bi-weekly cleaning service for the past 3 years. Unfortunately when I got laid off I had to suspend them too, but they should be back within a month (fingers crossed). This is a short guide on how to choose:
1. Seek out references. Do any of your neighbors or co-workers use a cleaning service? Ask them: How much they pay hour and how often they have them scheduled.
2. Ask Questions! When you get the service on the phone, ask, ask, ask, in no particular order...
More »
resolutions
Progressive Apologizes, Sort Of, For Leaving Customer Stranded Last Weekend
We've received a follow-up email from Chuck, who has spent the better part of the week trying to determine why Progressive's Roadside Assistance service—for which he pays an additional monthly fee on top of his normal insurance premium—sucks so badly that they'd leave a motorist stranded for 45 minutes on a busy Interstate on a weekend morning. More »
sub-prime meltdown
Countrywide Mortgage Adjustment Getting Outsourced To India
An excellent NYT article alludes to Countrywide Mortgage's AOL-esque culture of phone reps only concerned about boosting their personal stats, regardless of the ruin it would spell for its customers.
But don't worry, Countrywide is hiring more reps to help save homeowners from getting foreclosed...
At an investor conference on Sept. 18, Angelo R. Mozilo, Countrywide's chief executive, said the company would be hiring more staff members to do home-retention and loss-mitigation work. Those employees, however, will be based in India.If Dell's not hiring, just go down a floor.
Can These Mortgages Be Saved? [NYT]
(Photo: Meghann Marco)
insourcing
Indian Company Opens Call Center In Ohio
Welcome to "insourcing!" Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate, has opened another call center. In Ohio. More »
att
Avoid Outsourced CSRs By Asking For Someone Who Works At AT&T
A mysterious AT&T CSR tosses this little tidbit over the transom. You can get a non-outsourced CSR just by asking for one:The company is outsourcing customer service jobs on the sly, and have been for at least a few months. Not to India, because that would be obvious, but to Canada. Alberta- to be specific. The newbies are working with a company called Convergys. These people seem to be going through a real crash course, and seem to know only how to read the sample scripting our computer system spits out. We've been having problems with them screwing up orders left and right, misquoting (or not quoting) rates and fees, and generally mucking up everything they touch. The bad part for customers, aside from not knowing exactly what they're going to be paying every time, is that it seems like they're not as ready to credit accounts when it they need to. I'm not sure they have the authority to give more than a few bucks back, which doesn't always cut it.More »
blank
Best Blank DVDs
Are brand-name items any better than no-name ones? It's a question that shoppers have been asking themselves since before the markets were super. DigitalFAQ.com has endeavored to enlighten us as to the ways of the blank DVD. Where do they come from? Who makes them? Why are they purple? More »
frontier airlines
