Feeling the outsourcing

When I'm in India, there's quite a few irritating calls that come from banks etc. pestering you to go in for some stupid thing after the other. The sporadity has come down a bit, but it still leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Now, picture this.

A call comes on the home phone here in Toronto. Its a private number (here, you usually don't pick it up if you don't recognise the number but since my dad gets calls throughout the day from different people we do end up picking up a few) and I consider not picking it up but then my mom asks me to pick it up. Its a call from Bell - our home phone company.

Agent: Hello Mr. Saha.
Me: He isn't home, can I take a message.
Agent: You would be a family member, won't you.
Me (reluctantly): Yes, tell me.
Agent: We called you to tell you that high-speed internet is now free with your connection.
Me: Sorry, we already have Rogers and we do not want to change service providers.
Agent: But its free.
Me: So what?
Agent: You can keep 2 separate internet connections at home.
Me: No, thanks.
Hang up.

Got me irritated. Will come to it in a moment.

In another couple of hours, one more call.

Agent (different): Hello Mr. Saha. I'm calling from Bell.
Me: He isn't home.
Agent: You would be a family member, won't you.
Me: I have already spoken to your colleague.
Agent: We would like to provide free internet...
Me: Don't want it, told you guys once, don't call again.

Now. Both these calls had come from India. With strong Indian accents saying 'I'm Bryan and I'm Ryan'. And these guys were cold-calling. Not updating their system for a customer who has already said no to a promotion. Now, I was more forgiving. Screamed at them and hung up. Had second thoughts to call Bell in Canada. Didn't. In countries like this people have a huge thing for privacy and they just want one excuse to sue someone or create a hue-and-cry for anti-outsourcing. If you ask me, if I were a Canadian and got these calls in a space of 2 hours, I'd be very pissed and quite agree with 'why-is-somone-in-India-calling-me-about-something-I-already-said-no-to' shake of the head! Why doesn't call centres in India be more meticulous about systems, agents who call? I guess accents might not be an easy thing to change overnight, but atleast update the systems and logs!!! How difficult is it? And how can 2 agents have the same number for a cold call? I did it when I was out of college, but back then it was a small outfit and we brought our own leads. So it was quite possible if the same person got 2 or more calls. But don't tell me, agents bring their own leads of Canadian phone numbers when they come to work! If thats a yes, then the Queen is Elvis himself!!!

In all of this other people who get calls from Bell, might call Bell's Canadian offices and complain about these calls. This in return could reflect badly on the whole outsourcing thing and as recent examples show, companies have been forced to pull out operations from geographies or switch vendors.

Just for a stupid phone call. Twice!!!

On a parting note, what about this statement:

Agent: You can keep 2 separate internet connections at home.

When did someone have 2 different internet connections at home!!!!??? Do you???? How dumb can you get!