DDD email cust service outsourced to India and they suck!!
06-28-04, 01:59 AM
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DDD email cust service outsourced to India and they suck!!
DDD erroneously cancelled one of my coupon orders. A rather large order. The message I got announcing the cancel was that it happened as per my request. I immediately wrote back and said that I had made no such request and that they need to reinstate the order immediately.
Well, I got back a response a few hours ago (yeah, after midnight on Sunday night). The response said, "The item you had ordered has been discontinued,so it has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused." It also had some garbage across the bottom, non-ascii characters and what-not.
So, first they cancel the order and blame me. Then they ignore the fact that they blamed me, but instead of fixing the problem, they blow me off with a typical low-reading-comprehension response.
So, I'm thinking to myself, "messages after midnight on a weekend, and sound like they were written by an idiot." Must be from India. And sure enough, check the headers for the message and the sender's timezone is listed as IST - Indian Standard Time...
Looks like DDD got snookered into thinking that hinglish speaking customer service, with no personal experience regarding DDD's daily operations can do just as good a job as Americans in the same building (or at least the same state) as the rest of DDD. If the Americans have less than a 4th grade education, then maybe that's true. I've seen this kind of disconnect between promises and reality before and it is never a good sign for the American company. I hope they are at least aware of the poorer than promised quality they are getting by outsourcing and cancel their contract before it takes a big toll on them. Sure hope it doesn't spread to phone support either - I called them on wednesday about something else and the lady who answered was clearly very aware of the way DDD's processes work (and break), something that no one on the other side of the planet could ever match.
PS - anyone who thinks I am bigoted, read it again, my complaint is with level of service as a result of standard failure modes for outsourcing to india. I married a girl from Gujurat (who only speaks hinglish at home) so I have a better perspective on this kind of thing than most.
Well, I got back a response a few hours ago (yeah, after midnight on Sunday night). The response said, "The item you had ordered has been discontinued,so it has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused." It also had some garbage across the bottom, non-ascii characters and what-not.
So, first they cancel the order and blame me. Then they ignore the fact that they blamed me, but instead of fixing the problem, they blow me off with a typical low-reading-comprehension response.
So, I'm thinking to myself, "messages after midnight on a weekend, and sound like they were written by an idiot." Must be from India. And sure enough, check the headers for the message and the sender's timezone is listed as IST - Indian Standard Time...
Looks like DDD got snookered into thinking that hinglish speaking customer service, with no personal experience regarding DDD's daily operations can do just as good a job as Americans in the same building (or at least the same state) as the rest of DDD. If the Americans have less than a 4th grade education, then maybe that's true. I've seen this kind of disconnect between promises and reality before and it is never a good sign for the American company. I hope they are at least aware of the poorer than promised quality they are getting by outsourcing and cancel their contract before it takes a big toll on them. Sure hope it doesn't spread to phone support either - I called them on wednesday about something else and the lady who answered was clearly very aware of the way DDD's processes work (and break), something that no one on the other side of the planet could ever match.
PS - anyone who thinks I am bigoted, read it again, my complaint is with level of service as a result of standard failure modes for outsourcing to india. I married a girl from Gujurat (who only speaks hinglish at home) so I have a better perspective on this kind of thing than most.
06-28-04, 04:30 AM
#2
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Re: DDD email cust service outsourced to India and they suck!!
PS - anyone who thinks I am bigoted, read it again, my complaint is with level of service as a result of standard failure modes for outsourcing to india. I married a girl from Gujurat (who only speaks hinglish at home) so I have a better perspective on this kind of thing than most.
06-28-04, 07:37 AM
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Shannon - customer service is what matters when things go wrong with an order. You don't interact with it until you've already had a problem with an order.
In this case, the decision to outsource to what is apparently a bottom-tier provider is likely to compound problems rather than alleviate them, aka customer dis-service.
As the ability to speak and read English by default is one of the major claims of most Indian outsourcers, it is appropriate to focus on the fact that the English the average Indian uses is far from what most Americans would call English. Outsourcers that rely on their employee's own English skills without significant (expensive) augmentation can not provide a satisfactory level of service, no matter what they promise their American clients.
In this case, the decision to outsource to what is apparently a bottom-tier provider is likely to compound problems rather than alleviate them, aka customer dis-service.
As the ability to speak and read English by default is one of the major claims of most Indian outsourcers, it is appropriate to focus on the fact that the English the average Indian uses is far from what most Americans would call English. Outsourcers that rely on their employee's own English skills without significant (expensive) augmentation can not provide a satisfactory level of service, no matter what they promise their American clients.
Last edited by Jah-Wren Ryel; 06-28-04 at 07:45 AM.
06-28-04, 09:14 AM
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I don't do business with companies that outsource
http://dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread....hreadid=316883
06-28-04, 09:20 AM
#7
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06-28-04, 10:37 AM
#8
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Originally posted by Jah-Wren Ryel
Shannon - customer service is what matters when things go wrong with an order. You don't interact with it until you've already had a problem with an order.
In this case, the decision to outsource to what is apparently a bottom-tier provider is likely to compound problems rather than alleviate them, aka customer dis-service.
As the ability to speak and read English by default is one of the major claims of most Indian outsourcers, it is appropriate to focus on the fact that the English the average Indian uses is far from what most Americans would call English. Outsourcers that rely on their employee's own English skills without significant (expensive) augmentation can not provide a satisfactory level of service, no matter what they promise their American clients.
Shannon - customer service is what matters when things go wrong with an order. You don't interact with it until you've already had a problem with an order.
In this case, the decision to outsource to what is apparently a bottom-tier provider is likely to compound problems rather than alleviate them, aka customer dis-service.
As the ability to speak and read English by default is one of the major claims of most Indian outsourcers, it is appropriate to focus on the fact that the English the average Indian uses is far from what most Americans would call English. Outsourcers that rely on their employee's own English skills without significant (expensive) augmentation can not provide a satisfactory level of service, no matter what they promise their American clients.
By the way, if you married an woman of Indian descent, why didn't you just get her to help you with the translation problems?
06-28-04, 11:12 AM
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Dude, after 10+ years of exposure to her family *I* can speak hinglish after a fashion. Doesn't help a bit when the problem is the level of reading comphrension on their end. If I sent them a message in broken English with a few phonetic Hindi words intermixed it ain't going to help them. Maybe if the message were entirely in Hindi, but you can't do that with regular ascii, its a whole different character set.
The problem is two-fold:
1) Poor reading comprehension
2) Lack of familiarity, and lack of the ability to become familiar, with DDD's processes because they are on the wrong side of the planet from most of the implementations of those processes.
As for my original post, read it again, I made no derogatory descriptions of Indian workers. I did make critical statements about the quality of the work already performed, "written by an idiot" but that is independent of the source of the work. However, crappy work plus weird times is a pattern already well established as indicating foreign outsourcing, usually to India. Bestbuy is another example of a vendor with similar levels of piss-poor reading comprehension and oddball times on customer service email that has been confirmed to be at least partially outsourced to India.
The problem is two-fold:
1) Poor reading comprehension
2) Lack of familiarity, and lack of the ability to become familiar, with DDD's processes because they are on the wrong side of the planet from most of the implementations of those processes.
As for my original post, read it again, I made no derogatory descriptions of Indian workers. I did make critical statements about the quality of the work already performed, "written by an idiot" but that is independent of the source of the work. However, crappy work plus weird times is a pattern already well established as indicating foreign outsourcing, usually to India. Bestbuy is another example of a vendor with similar levels of piss-poor reading comprehension and oddball times on customer service email that has been confirmed to be at least partially outsourced to India.
06-28-04, 12:31 PM
#10
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Originally posted by Groucho
How did you find that thread? Anyway, where in the thread does it say I do business with Wal*mart?
How did you find that thread? Anyway, where in the thread does it say I do business with Wal*mart?
Originally posted by Groucho
No offense to John Doe, but he's an idiot. I've never had a problem locating what I wanted in a Walmart.
No offense to John Doe, but he's an idiot. I've never had a problem locating what I wanted in a Walmart.
Last edited by conscience; 06-28-04 at 12:35 PM.
06-28-04, 10:40 PM
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Originally posted by Groucho
Good to know. I don't do business with companies that outsource, and will not be ordering from DDD in the future.
Good to know. I don't do business with companies that outsource, and will not be ordering from DDD in the future.
www.cnn.com/loudobbs
06-29-04, 04:31 AM
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Originally posted by strife
Good luck with this. I have seen a list of companies it is really long. Lou Dobbs of CNN has a list on his page.
www.cnn.com/loudobbs
Good luck with this. I have seen a list of companies it is really long. Lou Dobbs of CNN has a list on his page.
www.cnn.com/loudobbs
06-29-04, 04:40 AM
#14
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Originally posted by chrisih8u
I dont see Walmart on the list. Or DDD for that matter.
I dont see Walmart on the list. Or DDD for that matter.
06-29-04, 09:49 AM
#17
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Re: DDD email cust service outsourced to India and they suck!!
Originally posted by Jah-Wren Ryel
Looks like DDD got snookered into thinking that hinglish speaking customer service, with no personal experience regarding DDD's daily operations can do just as good a job as Americans in the same building (or at least the same state) as the rest of DDD.
Looks like DDD got snookered into thinking that hinglish speaking customer service, with no personal experience regarding DDD's daily operations can do just as good a job as Americans in the same building (or at least the same state) as the rest of DDD.
06-29-04, 10:03 PM
#19
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I just had to deal with DDD customer service for the first time....i had placed an order under the first 20% off mistake sale, then they shipped at full price. I returned the package and emailed to cancel the preorders...within 12 hours or so i had received two emails and the order was cancelled, so i have no problems with them. Grammar seemed good enough to me.
06-29-04, 10:07 PM
#20
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Re: Re: DDD email cust service outsourced to India and they suck!!
Originally posted by Shannon Nutt
I read it twice...I still think you have some racist issues you need to admit and then deal with. As for DDD, I've never had any problems with my orders.
I read it twice...I still think you have some racist issues you need to admit and then deal with. As for DDD, I've never had any problems with my orders.
you need help...
"Hamerica" 