coolangatta

Especially those which have been out-sourced to cheap labour in India etc.
I can't inform you of my experiences while contacting the 'Barclays Bank' help centre as I don't want to be INFRACTED due to bad language, non-implied racial overtones etc. However; the lack of local knowledge (read UK/residence understanding) and my difficulty in decerning the Indian accent really don't help things along
I feel really sorry for these people, it must be at least as stressful to those on the other end of the line as me.
god, give me a regional accent or even someone from London.

girl-in-a-scoob

We only deal with companies with UK call centres...

Royal Bank of Scotland & Direct Line

mrtheedge2u2

Are you telling me "Dave" isnt English when I talk to him????????????????????????????????????????

P1-Brad

Called up BT Broadband to set-up a direct debit for my 'Broadand Talk' account ... 20 minutes into the conversation i'd managed to confirm the spelling of my name and got halfway through the first line of my address. Working out that it'd take about an hour just to get past the data protection checks I hung up. He couldn't understand me, I couldn't understand him, and after saying and spelling my name at least 5 times I completely lost patience.

Ended up complaining online ... for a communication company to not be able to communicate with customers was both laughable and ironic

Got some money credited to my account though

Don't know if the call operator went on a training course or was moved to a 'back office' role, as i'd politely suggested.

davegtt

Que?

falkster

Companies with overseas call centres now must be seeing a downturn in revenue. Everyone I know will only insure their houses,cars, lives etc through companies with English speaking call centres as said above its a complete pain in the **** to try and explain things over and over.
We have a South African call centre that 'looks after' our Home Shopping compaints and we end up getting more complaints about the call centre.

Freak

Citibank are appalling on the phone...as are barclays.

Thankfully, american express are great.
Never had any problems with orange premier (all scousers) and the BA gold line is based in newcastle...

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Just had a call from HSBC regarding my company card. It seemed to be an 'offshore' call centre and my experience was excellent. The lady could not have been more helpful and polite. Also very easy to understand.

Must just be me then

girl-in-a-scoob

If you receive a call from HSBC its quite likely to be from the UK.. It is when you phone them you will get transferred abroad....

coolangatta

So it appears that Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp (HSBC) as out-sourcing too!

girl-in-a-scoob

yep... complete with videos of eastenders and lists of english names to pick

Lee247

I phoned HSBC the other day to cancel a standing order and spoke to a British person.

BT is the one that bugs me, can you imagine as Turbohot pointed out, a Geordie (me) and an Indian call person trying to understand each other. It was a joke

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

Well mine aren't too bad actually. Called BT Broadband, Netgear routers and Dell recently. All were on the sub-continent.

Problem solved each time, with no real language difficulties. All have been friendly, decent people.

They haven't pretended to be called Dave or James or Sarah either

Though one asked if it was the rainy season in the UK at the moment

Snazy

Fedex and Bangalore call centre......... POOR POOR POOOOOOOR!
I work in the UK end of things and the amount of errors caused by their work is unbelievable.

Also hate calling them too, I know its all scripted but thats half the problem.

Aaaah well, aint gonna change over night, but in the meantime I will stick with Direct Line and Orange Premier etc.

Snazy

Someone I was speaking to recently received a cold call from a phone company on one of these scripted sales calls.
Going for the deal the guy asked the caller if there was a cooling off period for the contract.

Stunned and confused by the question, the caller paused and replied "yes sir, very cool phone"

Jamescsti

I've had experiences on both ends of the phone, a good few years ago I worked for British Airways in their call centre, and my experience is they are awful places to work, modern day sweatshops, they time all your breaks to the second, they time the ammount of time you spend on the toilet! (I kid you not). They are awful places to work for to be honest pretty poor money, I'vce now got out and have a well paid job thank god, however I do sympathise with people that work in them. I can't condone cold callers though.

On the flip side I used to have a phone with 3, all was fine till the handset became faulty, twice. And their call centre was worse than usless, they couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand them, it put me off 3 for life no matter how good their deals are.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Regarding HSBC - the lady had a strong Indian accent and she could have been anywhere in the world. She was very good though.

When I worked for a big corporate the only direct complaint about offshored call centres was traced to a call that was made to a call centre in Liverpool.

girl-in-a-scoob

we had this with 3, told them they had to get somebody else to ring us back from the UK and they did

MattW

Called Bell Direct to change car over to interim run about.

Me: blah blah....the car is a Rover 213
Them: Can you spell that please
Me: R O V E R
Them: ok thanking you
Me 213
Them: Ok Thanking you
Pause
Them: That is Rover yes?
Me: Correct
Them: Ok I think I find it
blah blah

Brendan Hughes

The call centre for Virgin Atlantic lost luggage was crap. It had Indian-accented staff, who understood me without problem, but all the procedures were awful. Bad process management rather than inefficient staff IMO.

Fuzz

I speaka da english, I learn it from a book!

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I can well imagine that experience, as I had it first hand

I had the great pleasure of calling Dell on behalf of a customer. Got through to an Indian call centre where it was a challenge for them to get my name. Trying to explain that I want a single stick of 1Gb ram instead of 2 sticks of 512Mb took well over 30 mins. Only when I uttered the code words "oh, for ****s sake" when I thought the chap was not listening did a supervisor come on and sort it out

ScoobyDriverWannabe

Tried phoning AOL to sort out some problems with me aunties net connection the other day.

I have to admint they are quite well mannered & polite calling you sir etc, apologising for putting you on hold. apart from that though i couldnt understand a word they was saying.

After an hour on the phone her connection is still not working although i believe i did get a recipe for a chicken jalfrezi.

Gutmann pug

It appears ironic that alot of these call centre operators also claim to have the same sirname as me. This happens increasingly where there is a potential sale involved.........

Jaybird-UK

I just love this http://www.fonejacker.tv/soundboards/monies.swf reminds me of some of the call centres

Ghetto Dude3

actually quite a few based up here in newcastle

off the top of my head
bt (was given a direct line number once when i had problems, all sorted in 20 mins!)
2 x orange, one normal punter and one business
1 more orange in durham

there is more, but i just cant remember them at the moment (loads on the cobalt business park)

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

They did that at T-mobile where I used to work too!

When we moved house I had to call Admiral (car insurer at the time) to update my details. It took three calls and over an hour on the phone spread out over two weeks just to get this sorted! They kept updating my details with the wrong address, which probably meant that legally I wasn't insured at that time! On the last call I ended up escalating it to a manager, it was a joke! I'm now with A-Plan, always get straight through and have never had a problem. I've even recommended them to friends because of how friendly and efficient they are on the phone.

bish667

iTrader: (1)

Not so long ago when I was getting a quote for car insurance, I informed them it was a Subaru, they replied in a questionable tone and wrong pronounciation of the word 'Subaru' as if it was a never heard of before car make or word, I almost started to laugh

RB5_245

I like the way companies are starting to advertise UK only call centres now. I certainly ask now as I won't use companies with non uk call centres anymore.

scarey

TNT are in Gateshead