I received a new Discover Card in the mail this week, and when I called tonight to activate it, something unusual happened. After entering the card code I was told "you will now be transferred to our customer care center in Utah." It took me by surprise because I have never been told, as part of a customer service call, where the call center is located. On top of that, when "Amber" answered my call, she said something again about being in Salt Lake City.
In all honesty, I don't care where a call center is located – put it on the moon if you have to, as long as I get good service. But my suspicion is that Discover Card is playing up the location of the call center in response to the backlash against call centers in many foreign places. I wouldn't be surprised if research showed that callers were nicer when they know the location of the person with whom they are dealing. Just found it interesting and thought I would share.
IBM has done the same thing for a couple of years…”Please hold while we connect you to IBM support in Atlanta, Georgia”. I am with you that I just want a good support experience, no matter where it comes from, but I do have more confidence that I will get it onshore.
Rob,
I experienced the same thing this week while on hold with Bluehost. I had the same thought, they are making sure I know that when my call finally does get answered, it will be someone from the US.
Michelle
I’m with you Rob. I’m tired of having to listen to those people with their weird accents and their incompetent ‘help’. Much better to have real Americans answering my call.
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Hilarious! I wonder if the call center is physically located in Utah, and the sole contents of the call center is a telephony routing manual for inbound calls . . .
Accents can be taught, and call center support systems can supply most of the idiomatic responses required of your typical support service. My own experience is that it takes several escalations to actually get a question answered, and the first couple of tiers is really an endurance and patience test to see if you are serious about getting support.
Prove your commitment, and we will open the magic kingdom of support!
There is a backlash – no question. Here’s the thing …
Inflation has been kept under control in large measure because the net beneficiaries of outsourcing and off-shoring is the consumer in the originating country. So if your job is lost, you are the loser, but the benefit of the transfer is not so much the employee in India or wherever, it is your neighbour!
Mike
My wife and I both experienced the call center routing to India from Macy’s the other day and ended up closing our account because they were harrassing us for paying 4 days late!! Even after talking with corporate, they didnt update their info and kept calling. After that whole debacle, I really think stating where the call is going can be a competitive differentiator (if in the US in this case).
REAL AMERICANS? and what is that supposed to mean, that we are fake americans? sorry but we are not trying to be like/become americans (wich is a really misuse term since AMERICA IS NOT USA ONLY)… i work for an outsourcing company, that works for a well known hotel booking agency, and i can tell that i myself have a strong accent and many of my coworkers do, but i also can tell that this is not the main source of disatisfaction. The policies for cancellations or changes are always depicted on the site before booking hotel reservations, but even though, people still insists in calling to cancel reservations after deadline… the typical “american” does the same all the time: calls the “800 number”, says that wants to cancel reservation assuming that there is no cancellation fee, plays the fool when you tell about penalty involved, then asks for a supervisor, and at the end, blames it on the accent… it is really ammusing to see all the “horrot tales” posted. To be fair, there are some cases in wich is evident that the error was made by the customer service agent, and it resulted in huge inconveniences for the guest, but this does not have to do anything with nationality, there is stupid people everywhere (USA is not an exception), and many of this errors are made by sales agents, who are actually in the USA, but still, the majority of complaints come from people that just decided to ignore the “NON-REFUNDABLE” policy and thought “maybe they are just kidding”… the company also has policies regarding changes that we are not able to override, for example promotional rates lost if changed, but all of this is on the terms and conditions of use, now, if you don’t want to read it… sorry