HP sets up India call center. (Don't worry. This is good for us.)

[Renew Deal]

Bangalore center will offer post-sales support to U.S. customers

By John Ribeiro, IDG News Service February 11, 2004

BANGALORE, INDIA -- Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has set up a contact center in Bangalore that will offer post-sales support to U.S. customers of its consumer products, according to an executive of the Palo Alto, California-based company.

This is the first time that HP is setting up a wholly owned contact center for post-sales support of its consumer products sold in the U.S., according to Mohan Garde, vice president of HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) Americas Customer Operations, who added that the center will also serve as a research and development (R&D) facility for developing and testing new support processes and technologies.

The Bangalore center will offer all after-sales support, including tech support, for all of HP's consumer products. "Our support is self-contained, and we will have multiple layers of experienced people in this organization, so that the (call) escalation path will be within the center itself," Garde said.

The center, which will have 600 staff by June, will offer voice-based support in English to start with, according to Krishnamurthy Purushottam, director of the new center. "Down the line, we plan to also offer e-mail or chat-based support," Purushottam added.
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http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/11/HNhpindia_1.html

[SlavesandBulldozers]

1. hooray for HP

"Our support is self-contained, and we will have multiple layers of experienced people in this organization, all of whom have jobs at the expense of American workers - and all of whom who speak English about as well as an epileptic cat. Basically, we're talking about a 45 minute call just to have a software driver installed. But we're saving a shitload of money."

[still_one]

2. Maybe Carley can be offshored also

[mouse7]

3. HP has had customer support in India for 6 months

I know. I had to deal with them several times with this computer.

For the record... The workers there on the phones are excellent, but they can't do anything when an unusual problem occurs that doesn't appear in their scripted response handbooks. It was a real nightmare to get the problem solved as a result.

This is an area that it become painfully obvious that Fiorini was a history major in college, and knows nothing about technology. I want to be able to support women breaking the glass ceiling, but technology executives should have credentials in engineering or science.

[silverlib]

4. Even longer than that...

My HP is about three years old. The support may not have been in India, but it certainly wasn't in America.

[Gin]

5. are the products made in India or some other country than the US?

I won't buy an HP product.

[markus]

6. I got a call from Gateway last night

on the anniversary of a PC purchase, asking me if I wanted to extend my warranty.

From the voice on the phone, its very possible that his call was being made from India. It was certainly someone with with a south asian accent.

It took every ounce of willpower not to ask: "so, how's the weather in India?"

[patricia92243]

7. I'm glad you told me it was good for me - I was about to get upset-sarcasm