Hello optus help desk, how may I be helping you?

[madtuna]

You know when you ring Optus or Telstra and you get Raj in New Deli? this is the view from his office window.
No wonder the big telcos outsource to India..they are obviously communications experts!

[Screwdriverone]

Hey, thats not too bad, at least they are be answering the telephony handsette. I like the blue high speed communications devices hanging from one of the cables in the last photo, is that the teleworkers commuting device?

Chris

PS. I found a promotional shot of one of their call centre operator's taking a "live" call from Australia in their state of the art Customer Call Centre....:D

[skwinty]

Yep, and heres a picture of Raj.
:doh:

[netwolf]

Steve, no doubt it does not look pretty but it works. A country of 20million is much easier to keep pretty than one with 1 billion with 1/3 the land mass. With all its problems they still keep it running. Raj may have less empathy for our internet connection being down, when he has to mange to be the soul bread winner for a larger combined family. And he is following a script and that script is not for him to question, as there are many waiting in line to replace him. Frames of reference can be vastly different creating an absence of empathy, capitalism at its best.

[iceman]

Well said Fahim!

[Phil]

You got to be kidding. Being a Electrician we would get shot if we ran cables like that.
Phil

[GrahamL]

A friend showed me some pics he took in mexico.. were all the cast iron light poles have had holes knocked in the bottom of them so the street vendors can get to the power .. surpriseingly no one bats and eyelid at it and no one gets zapped to often either...strange what we see as odd is commonplace somewhere else.

[CoombellKid]

I got that in an email sometime ago LOL,

A Laser company I used to work for did a laser show in India in the mid
90's. Part of our requirement was to have a 64 amp 3 phase power source.
When the boy's rocked up to the site to begin the installation of the
system. They went looking for the power source and found it laying on the
ground. They followed it to see where it went, through a fence across a
small highway with trucks and cars running over the unprotected cable and
it was wired into a power pole on the other side. The site electrician
thought it was perfectly alright. I was just glad it wasn't our 100m 3 phase
being used, they're not cheap to replace.

I used to have photo's of it but they were lost when a HDD storing them
failed on me.

regards,CS

[koputai]

10 out of 10 Fahim, it's all too easy for us to sit here and ***** isn't it.
My wife works for one of the big IT mobs and goes to India quite often. I've accompanied her to Bangalore and it's an amazing place.
What people in the West don't realise is the amount of good these big companies do for their Indian workers. Of course, keeping your workers healthy and happy is good for your own business, so it's not exactly philanthropic, but they definitely look after their workers.

Cheers,
Jason.

[madtuna]

Firstly, I will sit here and cast **** all day long at any company who when I ring thier local help desk pops me in a cue for two hours.

When my call is finally answered I think the money I have paid for the service I am not getting should entitle me to speak to someone without a language barrier making it almost impossible for either of us to understand each other.

Be it India, Morrocco, Berlin, Nepal or who knows where, I expect honest answers no matter what script he is working from and no matter how many mouths he has to feed.

I am sick of being told the problem is with my modem and there is no problem at the exchange when everyhouse in my immeadiate neighbourhood has also lost phone and net.

I am sick of being told you cannot get broadband where you are when I've had it for 3 years.

Just some of the reasons I have switched to a local provider with local English speaking help desk staff.

Lastly..you have to admit they are damn funny pictures that would give any sparky a nightmare! ;)

[renormalised]

I thought they were rather funny:D

It's not about casting aspersions or deliberately putting others down for the state their in, it's about having a go at companies from supposedly "advanced" societies outsourcing their "menial" jobs to countries where the infrastructure has a lot left to be desired. Taking advantage of their low wages, lax service standards and ramshackle methods to provide a service of rather questionable standards to people here who pay good money for those services, and don't deserve to get fobbed off like that. Why should anyone have to try and explain themselves to someone they can hardly understand either because of a poor command of their language or no language skills to speak of. There's plenty of people here who need and want jobs. How about the big telco's putting them into jobs instead of trying to cost cut for their big wig's wage packets and shareholder's hip pockets, by employing people in other countries where they pay them peanuts for the privilege of having something to do. That's just exploitation of those unfortunate enough to be poor, just for the sake of corporate profits. Plus it's unfair on us as well, both job wise and as a service.

Quite frankly, those people in India aren't to blame for their ramshackle telco and electrical services. There should be services for them to fall back on that will install and maintain it for them. But unfortunately, the Indian governments, both state and national, would much rather spend the money they have on more important things...like having a big army with nuclear weapons or lining their own pockets, than spending it on trivial matters like making sure the people are well catered for and have adequate services and food. India is big, yes, but it's not impossible to fix things up. It just takes time and the will to put the effort into doing what needs to be done.

[ving]

bah! i have spent far too much time on the phone to optus to feel empthy/sympathy or anything... I am a friendly enough guy but when thier "expert" is ignoring every thing you say and treating you problem straight from a tick sheet or text book.... aggghhh!

i mean language barriers aside... arrrghhh!
they are good for retrieving passwords tho.

[Screwdriverone]

I am all for companies looking after their workers, but I dont think this has anything to do with the laughable picture that was originally posted. As it has been said, it is a logistical and safety nightmare that all of us must recognise as being very dangerous!

On that topic though, whilst it may be great cost cutting for Western Companies to employ the offshore services of people who may need the money or can provide the service, it is certainly not something that the average Western customer could consider equal value service. Nobody could possibly agree that these people who answer the calls from Australian customers could perform better at solving someone's problem when their own "network" looks like this!

If this sort of thing continues in the "service" industry, sooner or later thousands of customers with genuine problems and complaints will end up jumping ship to companies with local call centres with good service, low wait times and expert operators who can speak the language and understand complex (or even simple) problems and resolve them.

The problem is: They don't exist here.......they used to, but practices like offshore call centres have killed them.

So guess what.......everyone has to make do with this debarcle until such time as companies recognize that its not all about making billions of dollars per year but actually providing a quality service that customers will remain loyal to for years and not just for the 2-3 years the CEO works for the company and then "retires" with a multimillion dollar payout for all the profits returned from such shoddy business practices.

I, for one, am not going to be holding my breath! :sadeyes:

Chris

[mark3d]

as above, vote with your wallet!

if you really want to, let the respective companies know why you left and joined.

:)

[cahullian]

The first time they call mr Mr Perking instead of perkins I just hang up and have a chat with my local computer firm.

Gazz

[skwinty]

I agree. The government is more concerned with weapons of mass destruction than they are in providing sanitation services for the people.

I will never visit India again after witnessing the conditions and behaviour of people in places like Delhi and Bombay.

I certainly hope that South Africa doesnt import the methods and technology espoused by India.

Imagine the chaos when a bus knocks one of those telco poles down.
Must take months to solve the cabling issues.

The amount of people who live in India and the size of the country is no excuse for the conditions that exist there.

[Alchemy]

i will stay on the politically correct side of the fence and leave he indian people alone for criticism, as far as the optus situation goes... they charge you good money for a service, and you should expect a fair return for your money, and in this country that means intelligable conversation and a response to your problem that rectifies it.

i think its part of a larger problem where the profit return for shareholders is put above the interests of everything else, and eventually its the people that suffer... even the whole of society, the greed is good attitude does not end up well. in this country everything from telecomunications to the power companys, food companies etc i could go on.... is up for sale, service is gone, you become a number in a queue on the line that says

please hold the line we value your whatever

there is an old adage which in this day still holds up...

what you sow you reap.

so sooner or later there will be an accounting for how our society has gone

[Zuts]

I agree, I thought that was why you posted them.

It must be bloody easy to get a free phone service in Bombay, a pair of pliers and a handset, even i could do it :)

Cheers
Paul

[netwolf]

Clive you are right there.

Greed is the underlying evil, regardless of its disguise.
We all contribute when we expect our shares, super funds, manged funds, investments, etc etc to grow. But we dont care how they grow.

Regards
Fahim

[renormalised]

Hey Fahim...I noticed you've got 2 Borg refractors....nice scopes....I was going to say when you goto use them, do they say to you "resistance is futile, you will be assimilated":D:P:D

[Screwdriverone]

:lol::lol::lol: very funny, 7 of 9!

[netwolf]

They do say that but the weather makes it hard for them to assert the proposition. ;)

[renormalised]

Oh well, the next time we see you wandering around with 100mm lenses in place of your eyes and a GEM in place of your midsection, we know what's happened!!!!:D:P:D