----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 10:36 AM Subject: RE: Race to the Bottom
> > I hear stories about phone support people off-shore, who place marbles in > their mouth while speaking to straighten out their accents. Phone support > people here complain if they have to be nice to customers. How hungry are > you to do this job? Try putting a marble in your mouth the next time you put > a headset on. This is what you are up against. Those foreign workers are > hungrier than you, and they are kicking your ass! I don't think Americans > are wanting to compete, they just want to complain about foreigners taking > their jobs, asking for special protections so they can maintain their lazy > lifestyle. I do hope they see the writing on the wall. Its time to move on. I'll have to disagree with you on this, Chad, and have some data to back it up. My wife works in reservations for Continental Airlines. Their market niche is being as good as possible in customer service/satisfaction. They have won numerous awards for this; and its a big part of their advertising campaign. Training in sales/customer service from other large Fortune 100 companies has been outsourced to them; and they've even outsourced sales/customer service from their agents to other large companies. Their VP told the reservations agents that they would not outsource offshore because of the need for customer satisfaction. They further stated that other companies are starting to retreat from outsourcing customer service. Delta had a reservations center in India, which they closed for this reason. One of the smaller rental car companies tried this, and it hurt sales, so they stopped it. Airlines might be in a different position than others because of their benefits. My wife, for example, works half time at Continental and is a psychotherapist with a MSW. She works for $12/hour more for the health insurance and fight benefits than for the net cash. There are a number of other folks, most of the part timers I think, who are in somewhat similar circumstances. Having traveled a decent bit internationally, I'd argue that customer service is more of a priority in the US than anywhere I've been in Europe. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
