87 Minutes of Outsourcing

It amazes me that business only look at the cost savings of outsourcing and think it is a good idea. Yes the cost of labor overseas is cheaper and that is what the business's customer is going to get - "Cheap customer service!" Sure businesses can teach a script to people answering the phone. What happens when the so called script gets thrown a curve-ball? What happens is -"The customer gets the runaround". Most outsourcing call centers pay the employees on how fast they can end the call. How many times do you think the customer gets lied to or transferred without his or her issue being resolved?

The other day I had the luxury of talking to Norton's customer service center. They billed me twice for a renewal. It's funny because in order to get the phone number, I had to go online and fill out some basic information. They in-turn, supplied me with a priority ID number to refer to when calling. Imagine my surprise when the guy in India told me he couldn't help me with my present situation and said he needed to transfer me to another department. At this point, I agreed and I let him transfer me. He then gave me the number that he was transferring me to in case there was a problem.

I was thrown into an internal hold cycle that was never going to end! After listening to the automated voice tell me how busy the call center was, I noticed that the phone number the customer service rep in India gave me was the same darn phone number that I used to call him in the first place! The most aggravating part was that I waited for 87 minutes for someone to answer- 87 minutes and still waiting for someone when I hung up! Shame on me for holding that long!

Oh, but it gets better. Since nobody ever answered the phone, I had to call back! This time I used a number supplied by my bank. Well I still had to wait on hold for a bit, but I finally got to speak to a live person (in India of course). We spent 20 minutes on the phone without being able to resolve the duplicate billing. You see, he couldn't find the credit card number that it billed to give me a refund! Amazingly enough, the company was able to find it when they billed my bank in the first place! He then tells me how sorry he is and his supervisor would call me back within 24 hours. He tells me I didn't have to worry that he promises his supervisor would call. HA HA HA -The joke once again is on me! Do you think his supervisor called me back? Hell no! It took me hours of meditation to ease my stress!

Needless to say they have lost me as a customer and I don't need to be the best psychic to know I won't be the only customer they lose to their cheap customer service "outsourcing". I am a fair minded individual and I know people overseas need jobs too. However, if any company wants to retain my business or anyone's for that matter, they had better get back to the basics! It is no wonder that big corporations are hurting! I know there are millions of similar shared experiences out there!

So for all you executives out there who start to drool at the savings for your company's bottom line, the bottom line is people are getting sick and tired of the run around! When your bottom line falls due to the lack of production within your own company or you lose customer after customer then you will finally know what it feels like to be the victim of outsourcing! If only it took 87 minutes for that to happen!