Apple: Moving Tech Support to India. ⇒
28 March 2006, lunch time
Macintouch has been following this for a while. The xenophobia Americans exhibit when it comes to outsourcing is always amusing. There are plenty of comments to the effect of, "Indians can't speak English, and when they do I can't understand them." If only we could all be as well spoken as our American brethren.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
Amusing? Its disgusting. But you obviously have never run into some really poor support calls in India. I don’t know why but may be its because they try to speak like Americans that really gives it away. Or when they they give their American names or say they are calling from “Melbourne” (its pronounced “Melburn”). That dichotomy completely kills it.
On the other hand I have had some really great support calls. HP has one of the best in Bangalore (I believe that’s where the Apple one is shifting). He was brilliant because he was not faking anything. Amex had another pleasant woman who used her real name.
And yeah stop generalizing that some fuckwits at some dime a dozen mac site are somehow representative of an entire population.
by Sunny on March 28 2006, 6:01 pm #
Macintouch isn’t a dime-a-dozen Mac site, but that’s really besides the point. The sentiments expressed are the same sentiments I read all over the Internet, and in newspapers and magazines. You have a handful of, “There are worse things in like than Indian call centre’s,” mixed in with a lot of, “God damn Indians are taking all our jobs. And I can’t understand what they are saying.” I don’t think i’m generalizing in the least. I think Macintouch provides a good sample of people.
Also, the fact that they force Indians to speak in faux-American accents rather than speaking how they would normally talk strikes me as backwards-ass. It’s a very lame attempt to preempt an ignorant reaction from the customer.
Shima can tell you about all the “great” customer support she’s enjoyed from Apple Canada, speaking to fellow Canadians. You can get crap service all over the globe, but people like to pick on India, and usually for less than brilliant reasons.
by ramanan on March 28 2006, 6:22 pm #
I wonder if most of these people bitching are even Mac users! I always thought / believed Mac users were cut from a different cloth. Just like the MacBook’s battery life, if Apple can continue to provide a similar, incosistent support system, everybody will be happy!
I should take back my insult of macintouch. Seems very good but I usually stick to macsurfer.
BTW what happens when all of these jobs get replaced by AI? Then there will be some interesting forum discussions (well people won’t have anything else to do)?
by Sunny on March 28 2006, 6:56 pm #