Call Centers in India :: The Pain

The supposed IT revolution for India is good enough in numbers for the big bosses sitting high up in the corridors of power. How many times I heard the people swooning over the revolution that is happening! Well, this post is related to the call centre experience I had recently with a computer majors IBM and HP.

Over the past few days, IBM has been advertising its servers and computers rather aggressively. The entry-level laptops have fallen down to realistic levels given the cuts in the duties. In this backdrop, it is difficult to comment on the bare bones system that these companies are offering because the price quoted is never inclusive of taxes.

Well, calling up IBM first. Some chick at the other end spoke up in a husky voice. It went like this:

“This is xxxxx, how may I help you?”

“I called up to know about the laptops that you are offering. I read in the advertisement in Times of India that the price cuts have been announced. Could you tell me about the specifications please?”

She says, “Which city are you calling from?”

I replied, “How does that matter miss? All I need to know is the specifications of the model number I just gave to you”

Well, she insists that she needs to know about the city. Therefore, I do not reveal my original city and blurt out, New Delhi.

She says, “Sir, you could contact our channel partner for the same. His number is…”.Before she could speak out, I cut her in the middle. “If I had to call up your channel partner and pay for the call, what for are you people sitting in the Toll Free number!” With this, I hung up.

My next port of call was HP. After a prolonged wait and some kind of an instrumental music, the voice came on the other end waking me up in the process. It was almost 8 minutes before anyone answered my call. “This is xxxxx, how may I help you?”.

I repeat the same query about the laptops. The dingbat asked me about my contact number and place where I am calling him. I said, “Sorry dude, of late I am getting a lot of spam calls and I won’t give out my number”. He refused initially to process my enquiry.

“Sir, we NEED to have your number”, almost crying out on the other end. I then for a mater of course told him specifically, “Dude, you won’t get my number. If you still insist on the same, escalate the call to your manager or I d email the top management that you are insisting on something with which I am not comfortable with.” It was enough to shut that poor chap up.

Finally, it came down to the matter at hand. Said.” Sir, what kind of laptop are you looking for”? I said, something, which is entry-level one. Then in their characteristic tone said, “Sir, May I put you on hold while I retrieve the information”? My patience had almost run out after waiting for so long before my call was answered. I said, “I dialed the number options for laptops. I expect you to handle the query on your own without looking around for information. In any case if I need printers, I would dial the relevant option straight away”.

I have no idea but somehow that guy managed to speak out the specs. It was asinine to argue with him on any of the technical aspects. He droned on and on about the cache and the chip speed and what not. Finally, I asked him, “What version of Linux are offering for the entry level laptop”? He said, “Sir, Mandrake 9.1”. I reminded him that I am using 10.1 and would it be possible to upgrade the same?

He almost went apologetic. Said, “Sir, well that is the company policy! We don’t ship anything else in Linux!”

In that case, I asked him, is it so that the company will not refuse warranties if I loaded up any other version of Linux, like the free version of Knoppix or Debian? Check out his reply. He said,” Sir, the software that you load should have a valid license with serial number and not be pirated”!

So much for their application of mind. I was in no mood to argue or perhaps correct him that the versions I just mentioned are free to be reproduced and installed on any number of machines without any kind of license. All I could do was just hang up the phone and curse myself for wasting my time.

It is a sad reflection of times and the way labor market is organized. I have read horror accounts of how these people are treated without any break whatsoever. To be frank, there is nothing wrong with those people. All that is wrong is with the companies that hire them without giving them any proper training for handling queries that are not routine. I believe that they ought to have some people who are willing to learn and put them on the growth trajectory or be made to handle calls that are beyond the understanding of a normal employee. And I am not a male chauvinist but women usually draw a blank as far as technology is concerned. They are good enough on the phone to sound husky enough!

So much for the Indian IT revolution!