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Post by Vinny on Jul 10, 2023 12:27:49 GMT
Is it time companies operating in the UK were banned from operating overseas call centres?
Or are they a good thing?
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Post by Orac on Jul 10, 2023 12:35:04 GMT
Good question
However, it is over twenty years too late. You will be lucky to get any sort of call centre in the near future.
You will be told to talk to the chat bot and there is no telephone number.
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 20, 2023 13:20:51 GMT
The reality (i speak as a developer of the scripts for many) is that the unintelligible Indian with the undecipherable digital interference on the phone line is almost certainly operating out of a god knows how much it cost contact centre on the Leeds / Bradford boundary built by HSBC for First Direct and hugely underused from day one it now outsources its services via non geographic telephone number reassignment and VERY badly clipped Voice Over Internet to shoehorn the signal into an overworked virgin cable ….
If the voice is using unmistakably English grammer with an accent of the Middle to Far East you're talking to the genuine article via a T1 sprintlink to Chennai.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jul 20, 2023 22:20:26 GMT
The reality (i speak as a developer of the scripts for many) is that the unintelligible Indian with the undecipherable digital interference on the phone line is almost certainly operating out of a god knows how much it cost contact centre on the Leeds / Bradford boundary built by HSBC for First Direct and hugely underused from day one it now outsources its services via non geographic telephone number reassignment and VERY badly clipped Voice Over Internet to shoehorn the signal into an overworked virgin cable …. If the voice is using unmistakably English grammer with an accent of the Middle to Far East you're talking to the genuine article via a T1 sprintlink to Chennai. Ah so that is why I can't hear the bastards. VoIP. I thought it was just crappy Indian telephone lines. |
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 20, 2023 23:13:52 GMT
The reality (i speak as a developer of the scripts for many) is that the unintelligible Indian with the undecipherable digital interference on the phone line is almost certainly operating out of a god knows how much it cost contact centre on the Leeds / Bradford boundary built by HSBC for First Direct and hugely underused from day one it now outsources its services via non geographic telephone number reassignment and VERY badly clipped Voice Over Internet to shoehorn the signal into an overworked virgin cable …. If the voice is using unmistakably English grammer with an accent of the Middle to Far East you're talking to the genuine article via a T1 sprintlink to Chennai. Ah so that is why I can't hear the bastards. VoIP. I thought it was just crappy Indian telephone lines. it’s not just VOIP though. The problem is cheap VOIP digitisation just DOES NOT go with the digitisation they invented for mobile phones, it is clipped something horrible and it is often literally like the Rowan Atkinson sketch that goes ‘shoggodaddit shoghodaddit beware the one calld terry wogan shoggodaddit bloddy tesco batteries …’ |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jul 21, 2023 1:20:04 GMT
Ah so that is why I can't hear the bastards. VoIP. I thought it was just crappy Indian telephone lines. it’s not just VOIP though. The problem is cheap VOIP digitisation just DOES NOT go with the digitisation they invented for mobile phones, it is clipped something horrible and it is often literally like the Rowan Atkinson sketch that goes ‘shoggodaddit shoghodaddit beware the one calld terry wogan shoggodaddit bloddy tesco batteries …’ I get tired of hearing about the stupidity of this country and its complete inability to make anything technical work properly. You go on about your crappy Chinese phone but over in China they say the Internet is rock solid and blindingly fast.Naturally the audio is as good as the data performance and much of its down to the firm we banned. Have you ever seen the film Dumb and Dumber? It's that kind of thing over here. They can run a huge robotic mining operation over the phone in that country. Huawei chuck it all in a container and stick it next to the mine. Like a data centre in a container. |
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 21, 2023 6:55:10 GMT
it’s not just VOIP though. The problem is cheap VOIP digitisation just DOES NOT go with the digitisation they invented for mobile phones, it is clipped something horrible and it is often literally like the Rowan Atkinson sketch that goes ‘shoggodaddit shoghodaddit beware the one calld terry wogan shoggodaddit bloddy tesco batteries …’ I get tired of hearing about the stupidity of this country and its complete inability to make anything technical work properly. You go on about your crappy Chinese phone but over in China they say the Internet is rock solid and blindingly fast.Naturally the audio is as good as the data performance and much of its down to the firm we banned. Have you ever seen the film Dumb and Dumber? It's that kind of thing over here. They can run a huge robotic mining operation over the phone in that country. Huawei chuck it all in a container and stick it next to the mine. Like a data centre in a container. well that would of course make sense were it not for the ethnicity of the company providing the two incompatible systems …. Or have you forgotten which country was told its contribution to our comms infrastructure was no longer welcome The specific technical issue was first reported in INMARSAT standard A in 1992 and found to persist in the Hutchisonn Telecom GPRS phones launched by Orange circa 1994 so it’s hardly a new issue. And yes, United Kingdom based telecomms engineers were doing this while your beloved chinese were up to their ears in rice paddies. I know because i know both the telecomms designers who were working with me at Inmarsat who were enticed to China to copy the technology. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jul 21, 2023 10:51:13 GMT
I get tired of hearing about the stupidity of this country and its complete inability to make anything technical work properly. You go on about your crappy Chinese phone but over in China they say the Internet is rock solid and blindingly fast.Naturally the audio is as good as the data performance and much of its down to the firm we banned. Have you ever seen the film Dumb and Dumber? It's that kind of thing over here. They can run a huge robotic mining operation over the phone in that country. Huawei chuck it all in a container and stick it next to the mine. Like a data centre in a container. well that would of course make sense were it not for the ethnicity of the company providing the two incompatible systems …. Or have you forgotten which country was told its contribution to our comms infrastructure was no longer welcome The specific technical issue was first reported in INMARSAT standard A in 1992 and found to persist in the Hutchisonn Telecom GPRS phones launched by Orange circa 1994 so it’s hardly a new issue. And yes, United Kingdom based telecomms engineers were doing this while your beloved chinese were up to their ears in rice paddies. I know because i know both the telecomms designers who were working with me at Inmarsat who were enticed to China to copy the technology. China is launching 6G space hardware now. They said something about it operating in the terahertz range. Yes it was backwards when we were forwards, but China does not go backwards having moved forwards, at least not under the current government controlling China. You'd have to look up your history books for some dirt there.
I hear Radio 4 did a long discussion today on why we should hate them. My view is my government and its press shitters are a bunch of total wankers who have zero care about the prosperity for the UK and are all over-paid cunts. Something is very wrong with this country now.Intelligence is no longer an employment plus point. They look to employ cretins like themselves.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2023 18:40:56 GMT
Is it time companies operating in the UK were banned from operating overseas call centres? Or are they a good thing? This is a tricky subject on so many levels but one worthy of discussion. One problem with foreign call centres is that they involve outsourcing jobs to other nations where labour costs are cheaper. This inevitably removes such job opportunities from people living here. When I was in the Labour party I many times argued with party members over this issue. The working class ones whom in my experience tended more often to be on the left on economic issues, tended to believe in British jobs for British workers and hated the use of cheap labour from elsewhere being used to deprive working class Britons of job opportunities. We still believed in a Labour party on the side of the British working classes. But more middle class and affluent members who tended to be more centrist, who themselves would regard working in a call centre as beneath them, tended to see great virtue in outsourcing working class jobs to India, since this gave opportunities to the poor of India who are much poorer than anyone here, and if we complained about it they thought we were racists. Helping the poor of other nations even at the expense of our own indigenous working class whom they tended to hold in contempt anyway was seen as the way to go. Those that think the latter and care little for our own working poor are sadly now the ones in total control of the Labour party. Of course there is another major problem with foreign call centres which is this. English is rarely the first language of their employees, and their accents can sometimes be so strong that it can be a struggle to understand them, which must be a serious problem for the hard of hearing. Simple cultural differences or misunderstandings that would be unlikely from anyone based in the UK can also be a problem. One example is when I used to get my TV from virgin media, and Channel 5 was down when I wanted to watch something on it. I called the helpline and got through to someone in India. I explained that Channel 5 was not working. He kept asking for the name of the channel. I said it was called Channel 5. He said that he didnt want the number of the channel, he needed the name of it. Again I pointed out without apparently making myself understood, that Channel 5 was actually the name of it. We went around this circle several times getting nowhere. So I hung up and went for the only option that used to get a speedy response from someone in the UK, which was the "are you thinking of leaving us" option. I was then able to report the fault after explaining why I couldnt on the fault reporting line. The point is that the guy in India had no idea there was a UK channel called Channel 5, which anyone based in the UK would have known. And this is another example of the kind of communications problems that can arise with foreign call centres. |
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Post by Fairsociety on Jul 26, 2023 20:40:13 GMT
I don't know where Sky customer service is based, but I had to ring them the other week, the agent was obviously foreign sounded Indian, I can honestly say they were one of the most polite helpful respectful people I've ever encountered at a call center, spent ages going through everything, in fact the call lasted 45 mins, I'm sure if it had been someone English they'd have got bored and hung up.
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Post by walterpaisley on Jul 26, 2023 21:14:24 GMT
I don't know where Sky customer service is based.. Pride Park, Derby. Both of my sons did stints there between school and uni'. |
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Post by besoeker3 on Jul 26, 2023 21:57:13 GMT
it’s not just VOIP though. The problem is cheap VOIP digitisation just DOES NOT go with the digitisation they invented for mobile phones, it is clipped something horrible and it is often literally like the Rowan Atkinson sketch that goes ‘shoggodaddit shoghodaddit beware the one calld terry wogan shoggodaddit bloddy tesco batteries …’ I get tired of hearing about the stupidity of this country and its complete inability to make anything technical work properly. Then why don't you move somewhere else instead about winging about UK? ? How about to China? |
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Post by johnofgwent on Jul 28, 2023 12:49:58 GMT
Is it time companies operating in the UK were banned from operating overseas call centres? Or are they a good thing? This is a tricky subject on so many levels but one worthy of discussion. One problem with foreign call centres is that they involve outsourcing jobs to other nations where labour costs are cheaper. This inevitably removes such job opportunities from people living here. When I was in the Labour party I many times argued with party members over this issue. The working class ones whom in my experience tended more often to be on the left on economic issues, tended to believe in British jobs for British workers and hated the use of cheap labour from elsewhere being used to deprive working class Britons of job opportunities. We still believed in a Labour party on the side of the British working classes. But more middle class and affluent members who tended to be more centrist, who themselves would regard working in a call centre as beneath them, tended to see great virtue in outsourcing working class jobs to India, since this gave opportunities to the poor of India who are much poorer than anyone here, and if we complained about it they thought we were racists. Helping the poor of other nations even at the expense of our own indigenous working class whom they tended to hold in contempt anyway was seen as the way to go. Those that think the latter and care little for our own working poor are sadly now the ones in total control of the Labour party. Of course there is another major problem with foreign call centres which is this. English is rarely the first language of their employees, and their accents can sometimes be so strong that it can be a struggle to understand them, which must be a serious problem for the hard of hearing. Simple cultural differences or misunderstandings that would be unlikely from anyone based in the UK can also be a problem. One example is when I used to get my TV from virgin media, and Channel 5 was down when I wanted to watch something on it. I called the helpline and got through to someone in India. I explained that Channel 5 was not working. He kept asking for the name of the channel. I said it was called Channel 5. He said that he didnt want the number of the channel, he needed the name of it. Again I pointed out without apparently making myself understood, that Channel 5 was actually the name of it. We went around this circle several times getting nowhere. So I hung up and went for the only option that used to get a speedy response from someone in the UK, which was the "are you thinking of leaving us" option. I was then able to report the fault after explaining why I couldnt on the fault reporting line. The point is that the guy in India had no idea there was a UK channel called Channel 5, which anyone based in the UK would have known. And this is another example of the kind of communications problems that can arise with foreign call centres. You’ll love this My last freelance contract in a 20 year stint was at Barclays Bank’s Information Reporting Centre of Excellence on an industrial estate in Warwickshire I was hired to claw back commission overpayments made to staff In short, bank staff advising customers on certain product lines were given a bonus payment. If the customer then cancelled inside the cooling off period the commission should have been withheld. It was not. After fifteen years the bank chose to unpick this and deduct any overpaid commission. By taking it off the November 2004 and December 2004 pay packets. The bank had already outsourced almost all its functions to a software house but they (the software house) demanded they be allowed to recruit a freelancer to implement this clawback because the employee resentment was going to be higher than the software house was prepared to accept. The bank was told to lie to any who complained that an external freelance consultant was hired and made the recommendation to implement the clawback in this way And then just as my clawback was rolled out, the bank outsourced the outsourcing away from Birmingham, to Chennai The managers at the centre who were all Barclays permanent staff were told to choose redundancy now or a year’s overseas relocation to tell the Indians how to do their job, and then redundancy after that. The four freelancers were called to a meeting and told their contracts were cancelled at the end of the notice period which varied from a week to a month. Three of us were asked if we would be prepared to be re hired if everything went tits. My reply was the only one i could really give as a professional which was that if they needed me again feel free to email me and if i was available i saw no problem in considering their offer… !! In fact the only really pissed off people were the employees of the birmingham outsourcing company who were of course all going to get P45’s being temps anyway. As always i received several enquiries of the ‘so how do i go freelance like you have’ and i told each the same, that there were several pitfalls which i’ll happily explain over a beer but if you remain keen after hearing them i’ll get my agent to call them. God those were the days when the agent worked for you !! The work went to India and they utterly failed to do it. Two years later i had a desperate call from my former project manager saying the outsource was a disaster, the staff were returning, the project had been cancelled and was i available to help build a team for a new one I had to regrettably decline having just taken a permanent job with another bank IT dept but it did make me smile a bit. |
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