A few bad apples spoil the bunch

I had an irritating incident with one of our own call centers who started giving call to my cell phone some 2 months ago. The telemarketing offer was for Indian channel subscription which I had refused bluntly, in the first call I got as it required 12 month contract and a down payment. I clearly told I won’t be here for long so it’s not possible for me. It was not the usual blunt “no, I don’t want to hear anything more” which you get used to because of many stupid things being sold by telemarketing. I was sort of looking for getting a subscription and so at least I listened, asked a few questions and had to say a no. Also since this was from a renowned US channel provider I was not too worried either. Now if the call center person senses the slightest inclination, you’re bombarded with all the marketing tricks in his/her sleeve. So I got another call next week and then the week after with the things getting more irritating with talks like “Arre apni wife ki hi sochiye woh to bore ho jaati hongi”, I said I don’t have a wife, “Accha aapki girlfriend ke liye hi le lijiye”. I was ready to stretch my hand and take scale blows for not having girlfriend than listening to this crap. And these quoted sentences were exactly like that and in Hindi. I could guess the lady there was Indian from the accent and she finally broke it anyhow. Finally after few calls she said “I shall confirm with my manager” and came back that I could have it my way.Now the story went worse from there when I saw that my account was deducted for an amount no where in the calculation told to me. In fact it was 10 times the monthly payment. I called up angrily and amidst lots of sorry, apologies, “I actually did not know that there was such a clause”, “Aapko ye paise 6^th month ke end pe mil jayenge” and what not, what I finally could get is that “We are outsourced to get customers but we cannot handle
customer complaints and you’ve to call up the channel provider directly”. This call center was given a target to sell hook or by crook. My experience with the direct call center of the channel was pretty smooth. They confirmed that there was no way someone could waive off the contract and hence the amount was deducted and they said if you’re not ok we would refund you the money and apologized for whatever happened. I was so mad that I left a complaint too and
they apologetically accepted that it was a third party seller.

This incident made me think of what kind of image we are developing where India’s
one of the largest market lies. A call center executive, who doesn’t even know the facts of the thing they are selling, is sure harm to their company more than the harm done to the customer. If it was in US the company CEO would be seeing shutdown in the few years of its inception. Anger directed at call centers which are mismanaged is already raging and these kinds of incidents leave people even more skeptical if their call is being handled by India.
Look at this article which lists down what kinds of frauds have tarnished the image of the Indian BPO. I think the problem lies with the new small players taking the plunge lured by the pie they could cut out of this boom. These don't even have proper means to hire good talent and that is if at all any sane head thinks of applying there. Employee retention is becoming a problem for the biggest back office players and so these small companies must be grappling with shorter training times and then losing those trained to these biggies. All this must be ending up in a fresher out of a college in Delhi time passing in a nukkad ka call centre for 2 months to make quick bucks to spend it all in Ruby Tuesday when he shifts to the big brother.

Now all this can be a one off incident and does not invite any analysis and Who knows the second call I made would have been from a very well accent trained Indian who handled my call well. Well that's what I am saying, a few small companies might spoil the whole impression. I think there is a need for consolidation in this sector to the extent that a few big companies handle it in a much better way. Maturing at this youth/middle age might go a long way in keeping the growth this sector is witnessing.