Tag Archives: India

Bank of America Support Chat FAIL

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19

It’s actually quite fun to torture them.

This chat transcript says it all.

Current Transcript of the Chat Session
In this window hotkeys have been activated to allow for quick navigation between the chat transcript and the chat text edit areas. Alt + Arrow Up will set focus on the last text message in the chat transcript and Alt + Arrow Down will set focus on the chat text edit. An audible alert will be played when a chat agent has posted a new response.

Welcome to an online chat session at Bank of America. Please hold while we connect you to the next available Bank of America Online Banking Specialist. Your chat may be monitored and recorded for quality purposes. Your current wait time is approximately 0 minutes. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you for choosing Bank of America. You are now being connected to a Bank of America Online Banking Specialist.

Alfredo: Hello! Thank you for being a valued Bank of America customer! My name is Alfredo. I will be assisting you with your personal accounts today.  

You: Your Web site times out too quickly, requiring me to log in again and again. This is a huge waste of time and very frustrating. How can I adjust the timeout interval?

Alfredo: I certainly understand your concern regarding the Web Site.
Alfredo: May I have your full name and last four digits of the account?

You: It’s not one account. It’s all accounts. And I already entered my full name.

Alfredo: Please provide me the last four digits of one of your account and your full name?

You: I really wish they’d let you people think for yourselves and not read off a script.
You: #### Maria Langer

Alfredo: Thank you, Maria.
Alfredo: Maria, We need this information to verify your account information, It is for the security of your account.
Alfredo: To increase the timeout level I request you to please contact directly to our Online banking department.

You: The question I’m asking has nothing to do with my account. It’s your Web site.

Alfredo: They will be able to do this for you.

You: So you can’t help me.

Alfredo: Yes, I understand you.

You: So you wasted my time, made me provide information you didn’t need.

Alfredo: I really wish I could resolve this for you via chat, however, I really apologize, I do not have necessary tools to do that.

You: Why did you ask for information you didn’t need? You had my question. You could tell immediate that you couldn’t help me.

Alfredo: I request you to call at the number they will assist you with this.

You: Why did you continue a conversation that would go nowhere?
You: And what number? You didn’t provide one.

Alfredo: You can call them at 1.800.933.6262. We are available from 7 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Eastern Time.
Alfredo: “Please be assured that we know your time is valuable. We would not direct you to contact us by telephone unless it were absolutely necessary. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

You: Why is it that every time your Web site offers to help with a chat, no help is provided?

Alfredo: ”

You: Nice copy and paste, “Alfredo.”

Alfredo: I really wish that I can resolve this for you, However their is a separate department for this.

You: How long do you expect me to be on hold when I call that number?
You: How many buttons will I need to push?
You: Or will I need to talk to a machine and hope it understands me?

Alfredo: I regret but this is not copy and paste I actually wish I can help you with this.

You: Why is it that Bank of America continues to fail so utterly with Customer Service?

Alfredo: You will get an option to talk with a live person.

You: Is your name really Alfredo?

Alfredo: Yes, My name is Alfredo.

You: Where are you based? India?

Alfredo: I wish I could resolve it for you!
Alfredo: Yes, I am in India.

You: Exactly what I thought. This transcript will make good reading on my blog. Anything else you’d like to add?

Alfredo: I really apologize that I was not able to assist you, I hope you understand that.
Alfredo: I wish your issue would be resolved as soon as possible!

You: What I don’t understand is why BofA has a chat support feature that NEVER seems able to provide any assistance.
You: It’s a complete waste of customer time.
You: Yet so is calling them. I know I’ll be on hold for at least 15-20 minutes AFTER entering all kinds of numbers into my phone.
You: Then they’ll just ask me for the same information — like you did.
You: My time isn’t valuable to the bank.

Alfredo: I really apologies that I am not able to assist you this time but it is not like this every time.
Alfredo: Please be assured that we know your time is valuable.
Alfredo: They will be able to resolve this for you.

You: It’s cheaper to hire overseas “support” personnel in India than to employ Americans who can answer questions without reading a script.
You: Are you happy that you’ve taken away a job from an American?
You: That unemployment here is high because people like you have our jobs?
You: And you can’t even do them very well?

Alfredo: I really apologies if you think so.

You: I really think you should let your supervisor read the transcript for this chat.
You: Maybe someone will understand the frustration of BofA customers in America.
You: Maybe someone will get the idea that we don’t want to participate in time-wasting chats when all we need is someone to pick up the freaking phone and talk to us.

Alfredo: I will provide this chat transcript to my supervisor.

You: I’ll be posting this transcript on my blog. My readers will love it.
You: Anything else you want to say?

Alfredo: I request you to call at the number and they will be able to resolve the issue for you.

You: Sure, I’ll do that.

Alfredo: i apologize that you are not satisfied with our service.
Alfredo: I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you by this.

You: It’s not your fault. You’re just doing one of our jobs. We could do it better.

Alfredo: I hope you understand that it is not me to do so.
Alfredo: I regret I was not able to resolve the issue for you.

You: Well, I’ve wasted enough time with you. Now I’ll waste some on the phone. You’re free to go.

When it became apparent that he would never end the chat, I did.

I need to be clear about something here: I have no problem with Indian people. I do, however, have a problem with companies like Bank of America sending support jobs overseas to places like India just to save money. (I also have a problem with pop-up chat support offers that waste time, but we won’t go there.) This kind of policy has fed our unemployment problem.

My sister, who was in banking at CitiGroup, was a victim of this twice in the span of three years when her job was sent to India. The first time, CitiGroup found another job for her; the second time, they didn’t and she was unemployed for six months. She’s underemployed now after losing another banking job to the financial crisis two years ago.

If all the jobs we sent to India and Pakistan and god knows where else were to come back to the United States, we would have no unemployment problem and no financial crisis. We’d have no deficit, either, because all these people would be earning money, spending money, and paying taxes.

Instead, we have a crisis fed, in part, by big business maximizing profits by sending American jobs overseas.

What’s even worse, however, is the quality of the work done by these people. They often have little understanding of our language and rely on computer scripts to answer questions. The above transcript makes this very clear. My initial question could have been answered in seconds by someone familiar with the language and not required to follow a script. (I almost always get better customer service on the phone when the customer service representative is US-based. I say almost because sometimes even the Americans in the job aren’t very good; it depends on how strictly they’re required to follow a script.)

So, as a result of practices like Bank of America’s we get inferior customer service and fewer jobs for Americans.

Who wins?

Technical Support FAIL

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Comment

Staff that can read, understand, and reply to requests in English would be helpful.

Two weeks ago, I needed to access a restricted area on a Web site operated by a major software vendor with beta software I needed. I’d been given an invitation link that should have gotten me access, but it didn’t work.

After searching the site, I finally found a link I could use to send feedback. Because I’m under nondisclosure for this project, I’ve redacted some of what I sent, but you can get the gist of it here:

I’m supposed to have access to the [redacted software] beta. I got an invitation. I filled out the form and it said the invitation was invalid. My contact is [redacted contact], at [redacted PR firm]. The error code I got when I tried to get a product key following the instructions of my [redacted PR firm] contact was 2f1dc2b1-4e83-4dc5-8c3b-8988079801af. I need access to the software. Can you please help me?

Several days later, I got the following response:

Hi Maria,

The reason you are getting this error is because the [redacted acronym] with which this invitation is associated is no more a valid [redacted acronym] hence to fix this you need to follow following steps:

1. The account for which the [redacted acronym] no longer exists will need to be merged with an existing (valid [redacted acronym]) account ,
OR
2. You need to create a new registered account in [redacted service] with which, we can merge this existing account.

Thank You!

[redacted name]
[redacted company] Team

I had no freaking idea what this meant, so I responded:

This information does NOT help me. I cannot get the software. Can someone PLEASE help me resolve this? It’s been going on for nearly a week and I NEED the software ASAP.

Nearly two weeks have gone by. In the meantime, I was suddenly able to access the software. I no longer had a problem. Yet today, I got the following message:

Hi Maria,

The reason you are getting this error is because the [redacted acronym] with which this invitation is associated is no more a valid [redacted acronym]. Every invitation is associated with users valid [redacted acronym] and in your case there is no [redacted acronym] a/c showing and hence to fix this issue there are 2 steps:

1. You give us a valid registered [redacted acronym] and we will merge it with your account for which the [redacted acronym] no longer exists. OR
2. You need to create a new registered account in [redacted service] with which, we can merge this existing account.

By merging we here means that all the permissions which your original [redacted acronym] had will be transferred to this new [redacted acronym] of yours.

Thank You!

[redacted name]
[redacted company] Team

Look familiar? It should. It’s almost exactly the same message I got two weeks ago. It’s even purportedly from the same person.

One thing is obvious to me. The support system of this major software vendor is broken — possibly because it’s hosted in India where the people sitting at keyboards don’t understand English. They might consider getting some English-as-a-FIRST-language support staff to help their English-speaking customers.

Cutting Off Their Noses to Spite Their Faces

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4

I still can’t understand it.

The other day, one of my editors told me that the book I’m currently writing will be laid out in India. As a matter of fact, last year’s edition of the same book was also laid out in India.

She went on to tell me that the production department for the company had been downsized from 168 people to less than 20, with the majority of those jobs going to India.

What followed was a discussion of what the company could possibly be saving by making such a change. Sure, the Indian workforce is probably making a lot less per hour. And there’s a huge reduction in other payroll costs for things like vacation pay and health care and employer taxes.

But don’t they consider the cost to the U.S. Economy of putting 148+ people out of work? People who may not get jobs? People who may contribute to the home mortgage crisis by failing to pay their mortgages? Who may need to burden the country by requiring economic assistance to live and get healthcare? People who are a lot less likely to spend disposable income on things like books simply because they don’t have disposable income?

148 people, you say. That’s nothing. How is that going to affect the U.S. economy?

Well, it’s not just one company shipping jobs overseas. It’s hundreds or thousands of them. That equates to thousands of people out of work, many of whom may become unable to afford the goods or services offered by the companies that let them go.

How ironic. By acting in such an idiotic, short-sighted way, these companies are actually reducing their customer base. So while their costs are lower, their sales are likely to be lower, too. Net effect? Zero change in the bottom line!

When I was a kid, we called that “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Wikipedia has this to say about this particular phrase: “Cutting off the nose to spite the face is an expression used to describe a needlessly self-destructive overreaction to a problem.” Although it usually refers to an act of revenge, I think it could apply to this situation, too.

How can companies reduce their bottom line without shipping jobs overseas? It’s pretty simple: use freelancers.

One of my other publishers has a very small in-house production staff. But it also utilizes a number of freelance production people all over the U.S. When the in-house staff is busy putting books together, it turns to its freelancers and assigns books to them. They get the job done right in a timely manner. They have to — if they don’t do the job satisfactorily, there’s another freelancer waiting in line behind them to do that job or the next one.

Freelancers might get a higher wage than in-house people, and they surely get a higher hourly wage than overseas workers, but they only get paid when they work. So you’re not paying them to hang around the office during slow spells, when there’s no work to do. And, if you pay by the job, rather than by the hour, you only pay for the work done — not time hanging around the water cooler or spending a few extra minutes at lunch.

Employers don’t have to pay taxes for contract labor like freelancers. They also don’t have to offer benefits like vacation time or healthcare. There’s no need to send them for training or to maintain a big human resources department to keep track of them.

And since many freelancers work from their homes, they’re not commuting to and from work. That means they don’t contribute to traffic, pollution, or greenhouse gases.

And since they do work and they do get paid, they have disposable income to buy consumer goods and services. (I’ve been freelance for 18 years now and I can assure you that I’m quite a consumer of goods.)

So my question is this: why don’t more companies explore the possibilities of using freelancers instead of shipping jobs overseas?

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