offshore call centres - and the broken green cable box

OFFSHORE CALL CENTRE

Why  oh why do we have to suffer the frustration of trying to explain technical and non-technical problems to people in offshore call centres ?

On Sunday I happened to spot that the green cable box in my street had been trashed ! When I say trashed, I am talking lid off , cables exposed !

The more I sat and thought about it, the more I felt that I should do something about it so I went to ring my telephone , tv and internet service provider to report the state the box was in as I could see people in the area suffering a loss of service should the local gang of cable box trashers decide to pull the cables out !

I picked up my phone- landline which appeared to be ok and dialed the number that I needed to dial.

here is what happened :

Ring ring ! ring ring ! Hi you are through to ********* to deal with your call efficiently we have 4 options 

•  If you want to make a payement or would like to talk to us about anthing else to do with your account press 1.
• If you whish to let us know you have moved house or are thinking of leaving us - press 2
• If you have trouble accessing any of your services or want to report a faul press 3
• For anything else press 4                                                                                                       I thought righ ok I will press number 3 , so I press number 3 and I am greeted by ' ok lets get you some help quickly' then bugger me I am then greeted with 4 more bloody options. Then after the phone has rang for sometime on the option that I pressed I am greeted with 'Good afternoon my name is Pete can I take your name please (Indian accent). Pete takes my name, my phone number, my password and then asks 'and what can I do for you today madam'. I tell him about the damaged green cable box out in the street , then he asks me and is your TV box working madam, I respond with yes my TV box is working. He then asks have you any problems with your internet madam?, I respond by saying no thats fine. He then asks 'have you any problems with your phone madam'. I reply 'no I am talking to you on it, but if you dont get the green box fixed then I might not be for much longer !                                                                                                         I was asked a series of questions such as location of the box so on and so forth . Pete said he was filling out a form and would send an engineer out to fix it !                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

The next day I pick up my landline to make a call bugger ! No dialing tone.

Phone is as dead as a dodo that has been dug up !

Green box still damaged , cables hanging out like its got more snakes that Medusa's head!

I get my mobile and ring the same number to report the same problem plus that I now have no landline !

I go through the same processes except when I get through I am greeted with 'Good afternoon, my name is Katie (Indian Accent), what can I do for you today'.

I go through the same process as I did the day before except she wanted to know what type of green box it was !

How the bloody hell do I know - I am not a bloody cable engineer.

Then I was asked ' madame what is your email address ' 5 times I repeated it , 5 bloody times ! 

I asked how long will it take to get an engineer out to fix the box and plug me back in - 'oh it could be some time madam'.

In the end I manage to get a whopping £12.00 line rental waved for the next month which I would bloody refuse to pay anyway as I still have not got any landline and today is thursday !

I feel exasperated , I have spent my weekend speaking to Peter and Katie in an offshore call centre somewhere in India and I feel as though I have been put through the ' report your fault' trial - Well I was a ****** ***** customer , now get me out of here ! 

......... and if the green box is not fixed by tomorrow , I will be calling the retentions department , changing my name to Mrs Branson and telling them if the green box is not fixed immediately - I am sacking them as my provider and going else-where ! 

GREEN CABLE BOX