The trend was first set by the Prudential, who decided it would be beneficial to their customers if their call centres were relocated. This would result in a more economical work force, therefore, more support and more customers.

Since this revelation, masses of Internet, Mortgage Companies and Banks have followed suit. Is it worth it in the long run?

In my opinion, it is the worst decision these companies have ever made, and will probably result in the loss of customers.

I am a customer of a well known ISP company who recently relcoated their call centres to Gurgoan in Delhi.

Upon ordering a package I encountered many problems which resulted in me having to call their customer service line.

Firstly the staff greet you with names such as 'Steve' and 'Anne', when in reality you know that it's more along the lines of 'Satpal and 'Anudhra'.

Then they proceed to speak to the customer in a condescending manner while you are left there thinking,

'I only called for my missing start-up CD!'

For me, the straw that broke the camel's back was when I phoned (for the upteenth time) to ask why my line had not been enabled after I had installed my starter CD software.
I asked to be passed to a supervisor who didn't address my query and said to me in his thick Indian accent;

'Mam, I vill send ju a start up CD in de post today'

At this point I raised my voice, only to be replied by the dead tone of a phone in my ear. How preposterous! THEY hung up on ME.

The audacity of these people was exasperating.

I finally managed to get through to a UK based call centre, where I logged all of my encounters with the Gurgoan Call centre, only to find out that the number they had as my telephone number was completely and utterly wrong.

Which lead me to another question - how could they make such a huge error when every single time that I had phoned them, they made me confirm my home telephone number?

It amazes me that a country which does not care for customer service and customer satisfaction is the capital of inbound call centres.

Whilst working for a well known Antivirus software company, I encountered customers who would plead with me not to put them through to technical support as they were totally fed-up with being transferred to;

'them indians.'

I could completely sympathise with them.

My ISP company told me that they had had a mammoth number of complaints regarding the overseas call centres, but the bigwigs didn't care as it was 'cost effective'.

Well all I can say is that the effect of this decision, is going to cost them alot of customers in the long run.

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Article provided by Davina Chakal