Death sanitised through credit
I've long hated the National Westminster Bank's most recent advertising campaign: "There Is Another Way" - the one that bemoans the fact that banking seems to have been taken online, that you can't speak to anyone directly anymore, that bank buildings were being turned into wine bars... you know the kind of thing. It always struck me as being targeted at the worst kind of people.
Now I'm sure of it.
Their most recent advert makes reference to the fact that all their call centres are based in the UK. What are we to make of this? That they are creating jobs in this great country?
No.
That's not it at all. What they are trying to say is that their call centres aren't based in India. That when you ring up you won't have to run the risk that will have to listen to an Indian voice that you might not understand (although in my opinion, no harder to interpret than brummie or scouse). Oh yes, bank with the NatWest and you'll deal exclusively with white people....
Turns out the Manics were right all along:
'Mein Kampf for beginners'
Now I'm sure of it.
Their most recent advert makes reference to the fact that all their call centres are based in the UK. What are we to make of this? That they are creating jobs in this great country?
No.
That's not it at all. What they are trying to say is that their call centres aren't based in India. That when you ring up you won't have to run the risk that will have to listen to an Indian voice that you might not understand (although in my opinion, no harder to interpret than brummie or scouse). Oh yes, bank with the NatWest and you'll deal exclusively with white people....
Turns out the Manics were right all along:
'Mein Kampf for beginners'
posted by swisslet @ 22:12
12 Comments:
At 9:08 am,
Robin said…
Having spoken to a few Indian call centres, I personally object to them not because of the accent, but because of the complete idiocy of the people.
Despite being (allegedly) mostly graduates or other such intelligent people, the phone operators have no idea what to do when they need to deviate from their script. Capital One is a prime example. I don't think I spoke to a single person in the UK when I was with them and they treated me appallingly, simply due to the fact that they can't cope with answering a simple query outside their scripted responses.
And if you do get someone with an ounce of sense, they then appear resentful that they're working in a shitty call centre for peanuts, being aggressive and even downright rude.
And how come "Dennis" from "Wales" who keeps trying to sell me a mobile phone contract has a Delhi accent?
At 9:26 am,
swisslet said…
you're generalising though. I've had unspeakably bad service from UK call centres and outstanding service from India (my helpdesk at work is Indian, and they are just fantastic). A UK based call centre does not automatically make it a good one any more than an Indian one must be bad.
ST
At 9:56 am,
Teresa Bowman said…
Hmm.
I apologise in advance for the length of this comment, but I think this needs to be said.
Having worked in a call centre myself (and no, I'm not proud of it, but it was the only job I could get at the time which fitted around my college hours), I feel I ought to speak up for the people called "call centre advisors" (oh yes) - whether these people are English or Indian, based in Delhi or in Durham.
"The phone operators have no idea what to do when they need to deviate from their script." Shall I tell you why that is? That is because they are not allowed to deviate from their script.
What happens is that when a call comes through, the script for that call flashes up on screen in front of you. This script has allegedly been written and designed by staff within the company whose calls you are taking (a company who are, by the way, based nowhere near the office in which you are working - whether that office is in the UK or not). Despite this, the script will as often as not contain no answers whatsoever to the questions the caller is asking you, and will probably be so badly written as to be completely unintelligible. It will also be written in a style more akin to some technical manual or legal contract than the way actual human beings talk. And yet you are told, very strictly, during your training, that (no doubt for "legal reasons") in no way must you deviate from this script. And there are team leaders and managers listening in on your calls all the time to make sure you don't.
Another thing that a lot of people don't seem to realise is that most call centres don't just take calls for one company. The one I worked for took calls for about 200 numbers, and you didn't know which company your next call would be for until the script flashed up on your screen. It could have been anything from someone requesting a holiday brochure, to someone wanting information about high-interest Unit Trusts, to someone (usually, and with reason, extremely irate) whose gas or electricity supply had been switched to another supplier without their consent. The amount of training you got on each of these calls was, to say the least, minimal. In those conditions I think it's hardly surprising that the person who takes your call doesn't really know how to answer your questions.
For the duration of that job (which was, I have to say, THE WORST JOB I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE) I always tried not to get upset or angry, but it is very, very difficult to maintain your composure when a caller is shouting down the phone at you and treating you like a complete retard when the truth of the matter is that you are an intelligent person restricted by the rules of your job to spouting paragraphs of automatic crap about something you know absolutely nothing about.
It doesn't surprise me that so many companies are outsourcing to Indian call centres - it appears that Indian call centre advisors are, relatively, paid a good deal better than their UK counterparts, for a start - but it is unfortunate that standards seem to have dropped so low these days. When British companies first started using Indian call centres they only employed people with an excellent level of English and plenty of knowledge about British companies and British customs and culture. Now - I suppose simply because so many call centre advisors are needed, and presumably because Indian ones are cheaper - it seems they'll just take on anyone who can say "Hello", "Yes" and "Thank you" in English and knows how to press a button on a telset.
Still, I hardly think you should blame the poor wretches answering the phone. Blame the companies who don't feel it's worthwhile having their own in-house call centres and giving their own staff proper training and decent working conditions, and farm out their enquiry lines to pi$$-poor cattle-markets like the one I was working in.
Sorry about the rant. I just don't like being referred to as an "aggressive", "rude" "idiot".
At 10:27 am,
swisslet said…
hear hear, Bee.
In my job I sometimes act as an escalation point for irate people who have an IT issue and have had no joy with the helpdesk. By the time they get to me, they are often furious and have been speaking to the IT director or some other big cheese (who dumps it on me). When I look through the log of their call created by the helpdesk, often they have started off by shouting and screaming at the poor soul who answered the phone. This person probably has nothing to do with the problem and is only trying to help, in my experience, shouting at them does no good at all, and marks you out as a knob of the highest order. Be nice - how can it hurt?
(amusingly, the last guy who tried this tactic out on the helpdesk had to tell me his system password - it was "BIGMAN". Oh yes. He was that kind of a bloke)
ST
At 1:05 pm,
adem said…
I read an article in the Independant a while back about a couple of business graduate types who had decided to leave their well-paid jobs in the city and move to India for a year to work in a call centre! Although the wages they received in India were miniscule compared to their previous salery they were enjoying it because the cost of living was very low, and they were experiencing a whole new country.
So next time you hear an english voice on the phone they may still be speaking from India.
At 1:47 pm,
Robin said…
When did we lose the capacity to travel to a local branch and talk to actual people in the flesh, eh?
Call Centres...Tsk.
Maybe I've just been talking to all the bad ones, and it may be that some of them were actually in Britain, but as Bee says, it's a crappy job which isn't helped by being reduced to morons by the script/boss.
Interestingly, coldcalls from abroad aren't blocked by the anti-adcall services promoted by BT.
At 2:32 pm,
swisslet said…
"Interestingly, coldcalls from abroad aren't blocked by the anti-adcall services promoted by BT."
I'd spotted that - I get lots of those recorded message ones with an american accented voice. I wondered if by doing this they skipped the regulations.
What is that Jeremy Clarkson advert all about though, eh? The one where he tells us about how BT has caller recognition and can stop you getting out of the bath to answer the phone, only to discover it's a call centre.
Er.
Wouldn't you have to get out of the bath to look at the caller recognition thing anyway? And would you know the number?
Struck me as a rubbish selling point.
ST
At 4:37 pm,
LB said…
If you want a "pay per view" football match on Sky you get a very nice man in Islamabad or somewhere similar.
"Can I order the Manchester derby please?"
"Is that Dundee United?"
sigh. I agree with Bee, if they employed people with some vague idea of British life, they'd know that wouldn;t they? It's like the survey OfCom did on the "118" services. I think they also asked for the number to Manchester United and something like 40% of the call centres couldnt find the number. "Is that the same as Manchester City?" one of them asked. (clearly these may not have all been in India, but it does demonstrate the general deterioration in service).
although, ST, how can you not avoid shouting at whichever representative of the company is taking your call, when those are the people put into bat to face those calls?
Yes, its not their fault, but you can hardly ring up and say "can I shout at someone important please?" can you?
It's the fault of the companies, putting the least paid, most unknowledgeable people at the front line, but if that is the way the company operates, you can only react to that, can't you?
i think all call centres are horrific. As Rick Wakeman once said on "Grumpy Old Men", when his bank ring him for soemthing he stops them and starts the conversation with:
"Press 1 to talk to me about my bank account. Press 2 to talk to me about my credit card. Press 3 to talk to me about my insurance" (and then he proceeds to hold the phone up to the radio for 15 minutes whilst they patiently hold on.)
At 5:08 pm,
Teresa Bowman said…
'Yes, its not their fault, but you can hardly ring up and say "can I shout at someone important please?" can you?'
... or you could, you know, just not shout at all.
At 5:26 pm,
swisslet said…
at this point I'd also like to add that I think internet banking is bloody brilliant. I hardly need to go into a bank branch at all anymore, and I consider this a massive step forward. If I don't permanently damage you with the mental image I'm about to conjure, I can do my banking at midnight and in the nude. That's got to be a good thing, hasn't it? I shut the curtains and everything. And no, that's not cockney rhyming.
I do wonder why, when I do an electronic transfer, the money leaves my account immediately, but when I'm having money put in, it takes 3 days. How does that work?
Otherwise, I think turning a bank building into a bar is a massive improvement. I think the same thing about churches too.
ST
At 9:55 pm,
LB said…
i entirely agree with you about internet banking but the banks have got to love it more, clearly.
it's a bit like going to a shop to buy a sandwich and them giving you two rounds of bread and a knife and telling you to get on with it.
and I'd have preferred mental images of you paying credit cards wearing the lycra, I think.
At 1:10 am,
Robin said…
The three day transfer thing is a con. Ever tried transferring money between two accounts with the same bank? Immediate. Why? Because they don't have to wait for WRITTEN authorisation from the other bank.
Oh yes, they send a letter. Oh yes.
And the extra three days interest they get doesn't hurt them, either.
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