Bad experience with Directv call center in the Phillipines.

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vibraro

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Mar 18, 2017
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Staunton, VA
I've had Directv for at least 15 years. I've always had great service when I've called with problems. Over the last 24 hours I've had to deal with what I was eventually told was a subcontractor in the Philippines while trying to get technical help. This not only involved serious communication problems because of language barriers but also being repeatedly lied to. The last person I talked to answered "yes" when I asked her if Directv had moved all their call centers out of the U.S. Does anyone know if this is really true? Has anyone else had similar experiences?
 
I've had Directv for at least 15 years. I've always had great service when I've called with problems. Over the last 24 hours I've had to deal with what I was eventually told was a subcontractor in the Philippines while trying to get technical help. This not only involved serious communication problems because of language barriers but also being repeatedly lied to. The last person I talked to answered "yes" when I asked her if Directv had moved all their call centers out of the U.S. Does anyone know if this is really true? Has anyone else had similar experiences?
No they have not .... there are many in the US.
I have been told that if you call late in the day youll be sure to get OUT of the States.
 
Up until recently the protection plan used to guarantee a US call center but even that is gone. To be clear, this is not a directv call center, it's att


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
In my experience, in spite of what Jimbo has stated, I've called DirecTV over various times of both weekdays and weekends, and frankly, have only ever talked with folks who clearly do not speak English as their first language (though what's spoken is otherwise more than clear), and who've consistly had "American-sounding" first names.

Now, for the snowflakes on this forum reading what I've just stated, you might get offended. And if that's the case, then I'm offended that you're offended. Seriously.

My point is that it rings strange to me that DirecTV made this switch over the past few years, and now no matter when I call, everyone has an accent. I wouldn't mind this except that, today, I had to explain my question several times before kindly asking to speak to a supervisor. Quite nicely in return, "Grace" stated that the supervisor would give me the same answer. After some coaxing (apparently DirecTV does everything they can to keep escalations from happening), she relented. The process of transferring the conversation was exceptionally sloppy. Then, I speak to a supervisor named "Megan," who, to her credit, resolved my issue in five minutes. However, in listening to her and comparing these two ladies, it was beyond obvious that "Megan" is simply an offshore person who had a lot more experience than "Grace".

I have no problems with DirecTV offfshoring CSRs; I only have a problem when they don't listen the first five times (literally). I find it funny that it seems quite obvious that DirecTV is "covering" for offshore folks by giving them "American-sounding" names. It's almost patronizing, except I know that some folks who hear a completely "foreign" name would immediately get turned off by them.

Once again, if you can resolve a customer issue quickly, then I don't care where you're from. The problem here for me is that this doesn't consistently happen, and if you're VP of Costumer Service, there are zero reasons not to get this done.

Edit: cinsu: The above was DirecTV. Last time I called AT&T Wireless, there were fewer accents, but maybe that's now changed, too.
 
No they have not .... there are many in the US.
I have been told that if you call late in the day youll be sure to get OUT of the States.
What's late in the day, 10AM CST? Since I've merged my accounts I have yet to get someone that doesn't have a non-CONUS accent.
 
What's late in the day, 10AM CST? Since I've merged my accounts I have yet to get someone that doesn't have a non-CONUS accent.
I haven't called in awhile for anything ...
I HAVE used the Chat with great luck.

Now I said that the call centers still exist in the US, that is true as whenever I call I ask them where they are at, particularly when it sounds like an American.
I didn't say that there were not call centers elsewhere.
 
I have called weekends and evenings and never spoken to someone with an "accent". Now I have gotten some people from the Deep South that I couldn't understand to save my life
 
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I very rarely call customer service about anything when it comes to any company. Last fall when I called to replace my HR34 with an HR44 it was the first time I called DirecTV in two years and I was talking to a CSR in New Mexico. (Albuquerque, I think). During the phone call I inquired about the price of NHL CI, and while she was processing the order we made small talk about hockey and she mentioned was originally from New England and grew up a Whalers fan but moved to the southwest when she was a teenager and how almost nobody in that region follows hockey.
 
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Interesting thread. Yes, they have at least moved some of their call center activity to the Philippines. I can't remember why I called, but it was a couple of weeks ago and the person at the other end of the phone was clearly reading from a script and had no idea of what satellite TV was about. Her accent was so thick I could barely understand her (and I can usually understand the Filipino accent having been stationed there for two years back when I was in the service).

The VOIP connection was bad as well. This was my second call since the first one failed with the help-desk person not being able to hear me. To make matters even worse there was a cacophony of voices that drowned out the voice of the customer service rep I was trying to talk with. I finally asked her where she was located -- Philippines -- and what kind of building they were located in. She said they were in a large warehouse and apologized for all the background noise. It was distracting enough that I just hung up and decided to do further research on the internet.

So yes, some calls are being handled by agents in the Philippines. How long this will continue is up for grabs. I suspect it is an attempt to lower costs and the whole thing looks like it was thrown together rather hastily. This seems like a drastic change in the really good customer service I have experience in the past. Maybe we have AT&T to thank for this.
 
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Interesting thread. Yes, they have at least moved some of their call center activity to the Philippines. I can't remember why I called, but it was a couple of weeks ago and the person at the other end of the phone was clearly reading from a script and had no idea of what satellite TV was about. Her accent was so thick I could barely understand her (and I can usually understand the Filipino accent having been stationed there for two years back when I was in the service).

The VOIP connection was bad as well. This was my second call since the first one failed with the help-desk person not being able to hear me. To make matters even worse there was a cacophony of voices that drowned out the voice of the customer service rep I was trying to talk with. I finally asked her where she was located -- Philippines -- and what kind of building they were located in. She said they were in a large warehouse and apologized for all the background noise. It was distracting enough that I just hung up and decided to do further research on the internet.

So yes, some calls are being handled by agents in the Philippines. How long this will continue is up for grabs. I suspect it is an attempt to lower costs and the whole thing looks like it was thrown together rather hastily. This seems like a drastic change in the really good customer service I have experience in the past. Maybe we have AT&T to thank for this.
They have had call centers in the Phillippines and other countries for YEARS, this is nothing that just started.
Next time, kindly ask them to transfer you to the USA.
 
wrong South Park character

that's Mr. Mackey that says MM'Kay, not Mr. Garrison who you posted the pic of.
I'm sorry. You have reached my Phillipines based complaint center. Please hold and someone who is making 10 cents a year will register it. :nana
 
The language issue was extremely frustrating. I have no problem with a foreign call center--I just couldn't understand them very well. But what really got my goat was being lied to. Obviously these reps are under some sort of pressure or incentive to get the customer to give up a cellphone number. I was given four completely different reasons by different people about why I needed to. They said it was to verify my account. I said I had been a customer for many, many years and never needed to give a cellphone number before and how was giving them an unknown cellphone number going to verify my account anyway. Then I was told they needed my cellphone number to text me information about the outage. Then someone else told me it was an FCC rule. Finally, someone further up the food chain told me the only reason they did it was because it was a "client request." The client being AT&T. She also said they didn't really need it for any other purpose and I didn't have to give it. I asked why was I then repeatedly harassed about it. No real answer. I was also told they couldn't say what country there were in for "security" reasons though reps I talked to later immediately told me they were in the Phillipines. I was also repeatedly told my outage was due to weather. The next day I had service again but local channels were gone. I finally got a tech guy on the line who initially said it was weather but when I pressed him he said the "engineers" were doing work on the system the night before that caused the problem. I had him repeat that to me just to be sure I heard him right. I asked him and the next person up the chain why, if this was the case, they had not informed the reps. No answer. All I really wanted to know was what was going on to make sure it wasn't something on my end.
 
The language issue was extremely frustrating. I have no problem with a foreign call center--I just couldn't understand them very well. But what really got my goat was being lied to. Obviously these reps are under some sort of pressure or incentive to get the customer to give up a cellphone number. I was given four completely different reasons by different people about why I needed to. They said it was to verify my account. I said I had been a customer for many, many years and never needed to give a cellphone number before and how was giving them an unknown cellphone number going to verify my account anyway. Then I was told they needed my cellphone number to text me information about the outage. Then someone else told me it was an FCC rule. Finally, someone further up the food chain told me the only reason they did it was because it was a "client request." The client being AT&T. She also said they didn't really need it for any other purpose and I didn't have to give it. I asked why was I then repeatedly harassed about it. No real answer. I was also told they couldn't say what country there were in for "security" reasons though reps I talked to later immediately told me they were in the Phillipines. I was also repeatedly told my outage was due to weather. The next day I had service again but local channels were gone. I finally got a tech guy on the line who initially said it was weather but when I pressed him he said the "engineers" were doing work on the system the night before that caused the problem. I had him repeat that to me just to be sure I heard him right. I asked him and the next person up the chain why, if this was the case, they had not informed the reps. No answer. All I really wanted to know was what was going on to make sure it wasn't something on my end.
Welcome to the site !!!
At first glance I thought you were someone else.

IF the engineers had been working on something, everyones service would have been effected ... you would have seen it all over the website of others discussing it.

As for the Cell phone, when you signed up you used a phone number of some kind, give them that one.
If they still want a cell, tell them you don't have one.
 
IF the engineers had been working on something, everyones service would have been effected ... you would have seen it all over the website of others discussing it.

In that case their tech guy lied to me. That is without question what he said. I had him repeat it and then I repeated it back to him and asked "is that what you're saying?" He answered yes.

As for the Cell phone, when you signed up you used a phone number of some kind, give them that one.
If they still want a cell, tell them you don't have one

As I said, I was eventually "escalated" to someone who told me I didn't have to give them a number. That doesn't change the fact that their reps flat out lied to me trying to get me to give them one.

At this point I have no idea what happened, if it could happen again and if I'll get reliable help if it does. Over the years I've had great customer service so it's a big disappointment.
 
Thanks for all the input:
The end of the story: I called all day today during East Coast Business hours and couldn’t get a non-Asian rep and they all said they could not transfer me to a North American center. I went ahead and talked to "Harry" from India who first tried to tell me I lost my local channels on Saturday morning because of a "contract dispute." When I forcefully said I didn't think that was what happened he switched gears and told me that "everyone in my area" had lost local channels that day for some other unspecified reason. I then called a customer retention number I found in another forum and was able to get to a U.S. based tech guy. He said there was nothing in the area that happened and that I had lost local channels because of the interruption in service. After going through all the options the only explanation we could come to was that the very,very light (no accumulation) snowfall that night had accumulated on my dish. I’ve had two feet of snow before and never lost contact but I guess there’s no other explanation for the long 771 interruption.
 
Thanks for all the input:
The end of the story: I called all day today during East Coast Business hours and couldn’t get a non-Asian rep and they all said they could not transfer me to a North American center. I went ahead and talked to "Harry" from India who first tried to tell me I lost my local channels on Saturday morning because of a "contract dispute." When I forcefully said I didn't think that was what happened he switched gears and told me that "everyone in my area" had lost local channels that day for some other unspecified reason. I then called a customer retention number I found in another forum and was able to get to a U.S. based tech guy. He said there was nothing in the area that happened and that I had lost local channels because of the interruption in service. After going through all the options the only explanation we could come to was that the very,very light (no accumulation) snowfall that night had accumulated on my dish. I’ve had two feet of snow before and never lost contact but I guess there’s no other explanation for the long 771 interruption.
A normal snow typically won't effect much, as in light snow, 2 ft or however much, if the dish is pointed well.
However, a Wet snow will cause issues much quicker.
 
The CSR's are "tiered"... tech and billing agents are outsourced. Sales and retention agents are in the states.
 
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