The call

I had posted earlier about my experiences with outsourcing while I was home in Toronto. Here's a new one to the list.

A couple of friends and I were planning a Vegas trip a few weeks back. Somehow the web thingy wasn't going through and we also had a few questions. So we decided to call the websites. The first one we called was Travelocity.

Agent: Hi, thank you for calling Travelocity. My name is XXXXX. How may I help you?
Me: Actually we were looking at the Sahara and there's this room we are getting for $$$. Unfortunately we are not able to book it online.
Agent: Do you want me to book it sir?
Me: Why else, do you think I'm calling you?
Agent: Let me have a look at it.
Agent: You can't book it.
Me: I can't? Why?
Agent: It's sold out.
Me: It's sold out? How can that be? Your website still has it listed.
Agent: No sir, it's sold out.
Me: Ok, in that case, could you suggest an alternate hotel for the same price? And one more thing, we want it on the Vegas Strip.
Agent: We have the Wild Wild West and...
Me: That's not on the strip
Agent: Yes it is sir.
Me: Do you know what the Vegas strip is?
Agent: We have a room in the Wild Wild West...
Me: Go on. We said no to that already.
Agent: We have a room at the Vene-ti-cian (it's actually the Venetian) but it's going to cost you $$$ more.
Me: We don't want it then. (The call's on loudspeaker and everyone's in splits by now)
Agent: ......

This call goes on for a few more minutes and all of us in the room are frustrated by the end of it. We tell him a curt goodbye and hangup.

We decide to call Hotels.com and give it a last try.

Agent: Hi, thank you for calling Hotels.com. My name is XXXXX. How may I help you?
Me: Actually we were looking to book a room in Vegas. We were looking for one on the Strip. Our budget is $$$.
Agent: We have rooms in Circus Circus and Sahara. You would have the mono-rail from Sahara as well. It's going to cost you $$$ ($10 higher than the Travelocity quote). Do you want me to book you there?
Me: Yes please. At the Sahara.
Agent: Could you give your credit card number?....

This call took exactly 5 minutes and we had our room booked.

Now, lets get to the difference in these 2 calls. The first was an Indian guy who had picked up the phone. And it was quite evident that he had no clue about hotels in Vegas. All he got was his machine telling him the costs. And while I don't have anything against the process, his tone just frustrated us. He just didn't know what to do. His pronunciation was pathetic. He might be an one-off case and it was our unlucky day but to a customer thats the only 'moment of truth'. I'm never going to Travelocity again. And the same goes for anyone who was in the room with me. I remember when I was a part of Tele-Sales, just out of college, I was told one basic thing. Your job is tougher since the person at the other end doesn't see you. So it's just your voice which has to do the trick. So even if you have accent neutralization, your tone still needs to tell the customer that you are getting the best deal for him. Doesn't matter which part of the world you are picking up the phone from. Do I care? No. All I need is my booking to go through and that I spend the least time explaining what I needed to get done.

In the second call, the person was American and his tone put us into ease - that he was going to get it done for us. Moreover, it's also got to do with relevance and experience. If I call an American here and ask him to book me in Coorg, he might have the same problem identifying with it as would an Indian, who has never been to Vegas, identifying with the Vegas Strip.

Bottomline is, irrespective of where you opt to run your business operations from, customer service is something you cannot ever run away from. And that has nothing to do with where you want to run it from. It has everything to do with the attitude and calibre of the person you speak to.

And yes, I did send a mail to Bell following my phone-calls with them in Canada (Blog link is in the beginning of this post). They sent me an email in 2 days telling me that our house phone number would not be called for promotions without our consent. So yes, companies do take it seriously. Maybe our Indian Banks can take a leaf out from Bell and not pain people with repeated phonecalls.