Best of Reader Comments: BT slams offshore "bigots"

BT's comments earlier this week labelling customers who abuse Indian call centre staff as "bigots" has, predictably, provoked a massive and heated response from silicon.com readers.

Am I a bigot because I expect to be able to be understood?... I think the concept of offshoring is fine, you just need to offshore the right function and customer service is not the right function.

-- a silicon.com reader

Sadly many of those reader comments - which will remain unpublished - made for depressing reading and would appear to confirm the view of BT's chief procurement officer Meryl Bushell, who said she is sometimes "ashamed to be British" when she listens in on some of the customer calls with Indian staff.

But many other readers expressed a more general dissatisfaction with their experience of dealing with BT's offshore call centres, and questioned BT's motives for its offshoring strategy.

One problem centres on the scripts used by Indian call centre staff. An 'angry customer and shareholder' said: "Staff at BT's Indian call centres try to help but seem to be working to a faulty 'script' which does not permit them to deal with our actual problems."

Matthew, a director from London, agreed with Bushell's assertion that international boundaries don't dictate the quality of customer service but said he had negative experiences of using BT's overseas call centres. "I don't care where it comes from, I just need to be know that support is available when I require it, without compounding whatever problem it is I'm having," he said.

Others expressed frustration at dealing with Indian staff who appeared not to have enough training and resources to resolve customer queries and problems.

One reader said: "Am I a bigot because I expect to be able to be understood? It is imperative that a customer service rep should be clear and articulate when dealing with a customer's issue. I think the concept of offshoring is fine, you just need to offshore the right function and customer service is not the right function."

Technical architect Michael Carter from London added: "I've experienced problems with overseas call centres, not so much the language problems but just with the fact that they are so far removed from the business they're not empowered to do anything when a problem falls outside their range of scripted scenarios."

One reader close to the reality of the situation, a chip designer in Bangalore, said the abuse from disgruntled western customers is affecting Indian staff.

"I know Indian call centre workers are under fire from western clients. Call centre jobs are not considered as a career in India and you can see lot of people leaving call centres after a brief stint," he said.

But a marketing manager from Glasgow hit back at BT's comments. "To label any customer a bigot purely because they do not accept a substandard service due to language difficulties is ludicrous," he said.