Telemarketers from India.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

Just got a call from one.

1) The connection sucked. It was all static.
2) Even if the connection was clear, I still couldn't understand a goddamn word this woman said to me. Her accent was so thick that I wasn't completely sure she was speaking English at all.
3) I hate goddamn telemarketers to begin with and I'm on the Do Not Call registry.

I swear to god, if I owned stock in a company that announced it was going to put its customer service overseas, I'd pull my stock immediately, and that's even ignoring the principle of leaving Americans without jobs. They spend all this money on a crap infrastructure to put their operations overseas, drop excessive amounts of money just to communicate half way around the world, and then multiply their inefficiencies by putting people who you can't even understand on the phones.

In summation, these asshole CEOs spend tons of money on infrastructure to piss off their customers on more levels than you can even imagine? Yeah, sign me up! The stupidity astounds me.

[kcwayne]

1. I cancelled my DSL subscription with SBC because of this

I called for technical support and was connected to someone in India that I could not understand. When I asked them repeatedly to repeat what they just said they got angry.

When I spelled back to them a word that they were saying repeatedly that I could not understand, they gave me a smart ass reply.

I determined that not only could I not understand them, they couldn't understand me either.

So now SBC understands that I am no longer a customer, and this is the reason why. When I called the sales department to cancel my subscription, I spoke to a native English speaker who understood my problem. She said they hear this all of the time, and tell their management, but management does not care.

I guess they figure the loss of business can be justified by raising the price of their subscription since they will have fewer customers.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. This is the very definition of "penny wise, dollar stupid"

They say, "ooh, look at all the money that can be saved on labor!!" Yeah, but ignoring all the money lost on pissed off customers, inefficiency, and increased operating expenses.

[jburton]

3. Interesting...sales department is in USA

Tech support is overseas.

Betcha if the sales dept was overseas, few people would sign up to begin with!!!

[auntAgonist]

4. We had just signed up for sbc DSL

and had exactly the same problem. We cancelled right away.

[tjwmason]

5. I frequently get close to being rude

I realise that the poor sod sitting on the other end of the 'phone has done nothing wrong, and so I shouldn't get angry with him, but it's just so damn irritating.

It's worse when they pretend that they're not in India by making comments about the weather or some such.