Would you pay extra if Dish followed Dell's example?

[Slamminc11]

Just thought I would ask since so many here complain about Dish's "overseas" CSR's.

Dear Dell: Customer service should be free | The Digital Home - CNET News

 

[E*Dude]

I wasn't aware Dish had overseas CSR's; that doesn't sound right. Every call I've ever made has gone to Colorado, but perhaps it's based on what region you're in.

 

[WiCkeDuDe]

I would be willing to pay a little bit more but I think in this case its not comparing apples to apples. I wouldnt be calling dish much like I would be if I needed PC support. I only have reason to deal with dish 2 or 3 times per year and Ive found that using the online chat usually produces the correct results with minimal effort. I can see Dell's point if you were calling in for support constantly.

 

[bross]

I think if they want to sell their services in this country they should be required to have customer service in this country.

 

[allargon]

They already follow Dell's example. Corporate customers who pay more get service in the US. Dish customers that pay more get the US call center.

 

[Quantum]

Face it, most calls are to CS are because they messed up the bill or the service. Have you ever waited on hold for 30 minutes for the Executive Resolutions Dept? Keep in mind this is supposedly where only the bad problems end up. And from their background noise it always sounds like they have at least 30 ESRs there! And the dept is open 24/7!

If they could just take care of things correctly (they never did solve my problem after a month and over 25 hours on the phone), they wouldn't have half the call center overhead.

 

[WiCkeDuDe]

Face it, most calls are to CS are because they messed up the bill or the service. Have you ever waited on hold for 30 minutes for the Executive Resolutions Dept? Keep in mind this is supposedly where only the bad problems end up. And from their background noise it always sounds like they have at least 30 ESRs there! And the dept is open 24/7!

If they could just take care of things correctly (they never did solve my problem after a month and over 25 hours on the phone), they wouldn't have half the call center overhead.

Let it go already........

 

[Quantum]

I sit here every night without TV because of Dish's fsckup, and you feel I should 'let it go'?

Would you let it go?

 

[bingo564]

I've only had to call CS a few times over the years. Only once did I call and feel that I was talking with someone very loooong distance and that was when I didn't call from my home phone...so, if I do get to talk to a CSR in the USA because I'm a "big spender", they must recognize the phone number associated with the account.

 

[MikeD-C05]

The foreign call centers are the number one reason that DISH has not won the coveted" NUMBER 1" in customer service award in years. People hate talking to someone that they can't understand or be understood by. Most people only call the csrs when they have a problem that they are already angry about. Talking to Baghdad "Bob" pushes them over the edge much quicker, since they are already pissed off when they called and this leads to more cancellations. DISH is just being penny wise and pound foolish by continuing these foreign language csrs.

 

[8bitbytes]

I stopped calling a while ago. Online live chat is much more effective.

Call for call at the first level for customer support, Foreign CSRs are better than US from my experience. I've found US CSRs at the first level to generally be disinterested, ignorant, or even arrogant. After a complaint is escalated, you are talking to someone who is better trained and paid more so it really doesn't matter where they are.

Given the typical intelligence level of today's customer, I don't put much stock in Support Awards either.



Chat has been much more helpful.

 

[BuddyBoy]

Talking to Baghdad "Bob" pushes them over the edge much quicker, since they are already pissed off when they called and this leads to more cancellations.

I think you mean "Bangalore" Bob.

 

[Rick2009]

My wife has worked in tech support for dish for 3 years and from what I understand they only have one overseas call center. The overseas call center is located in the Philippines and is only used for billing and for overflow when the USA based call centers get backed up. We've been subscribers for almost 5 years and in that time frame I've called a dozen or so times and never gotten any "foreigners".

Dish pays their tech people REALLY good. I've often wondered if someday my wife is going to show up for work and they'll tell everyone that the jobs have been outsourced. But here's my take on things. If dish were my company, I would NEVER outsorce my support to India, China, or some other place were a language barrier is going to ultimately frustrate the customers. I can understand dish having the call center in the philippines because they're just taking billing and overflow calls (a.k.a. unskilled and less prone to customer frustration) and if they do acutally have to troubleshoot, ideally it's rare. From what my wife has told me there's plans to open another center in Florida so that should further reduce routing to the phillipine center.

Secondly, it doesn't take a whole lot of common sense to see that with a company like dish, aside from the guy who comes and installs the equipment, those people answering the phone are the only other human contact you'll ever have with them. If you were calling the shots at dish, would you want that to be somone that can hardly speak English?

Lastly, even if dish only had 10 million customers and those customers were only paying 20 dollars a month, thats two-hundred million dollars a month in gross income and makes it pretty obvious why they can pay so well and would hardly have any reason to try and pinch pennies by sending jobs overseas. I know that the fact they opened one in the Phillipines could be considered evidence of penny pinching and I don't really have an explanation of why they did that versus just opening another one in the USA, but anyway.......

Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but that's the way I see it.

 

[Giljorak]

Every day I drive by the main Denver area call center in Englewood/Littleton Colorado. They always have a help wanted sign up and indicate starting wages are $11 - $14 per hour. For beginner tech support the is barely acceptable especially in the Denver job market. If you were lucky and impressed the right folks after 12 months you be earning $1.50 more per hour. I worked for Dish at that call center 4 1/2 years ago after I got laid off due to the dot com crash. The churn is amazing, almost every week there was another class of 12 - 15 new CSRs starting training. Back when I was there the main goal was to get the customer off of the phone in less than 8 1/2 minutes.

Luckily after 4 months I was able to get my old job back.

Evan back then I know of one overseas call center, it is in the Phillipines and was called the Orange call center. We were forbidden to discuss it in any form with customers.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I think you mean "Bangalore" Bob.

I'm sorry I owe you a SLURPEE!

 

[Jim S.]

Would I pay extra if Dish followed Dell's example?

Hell no, I won't even pay for customer support at Dell. As a matter of fact, if I never have any dealings with Dell in any form it'll be too soon.

 

[Quantum]

There are 11 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary, those that don't, & those that think they do.

Thanks for the post Giljorak, but just a quick note. Most people get this quote wrong, and it always bugs me. Here's the right way:
00 - Those who don't understand binary
01 - Those who do understand binary
10 - Those who think they understand binary

... so there are in fact 10 (base 2) kinds of ppl in the world. And people are people, not things, so it's 'who' understand binary, not 'that'.

 

[cs550ds1]

I wasn't aware Dish had overseas CSR's; that doesn't sound right. Every call I've ever made has gone to Colorado, but perhaps it's based on what region you're in.

Here is a link to a article that was written when they first started to outsource.

http://http://www.redorbit.com/news...help_center_to/index.html?source=r_technology

 

[jayn_j]

Thanks for the post Giljorak, but just a quick note. Most people get this quote wrong, and it always bugs me. Here's the right way:
00 - Those who don't understand binary
01 - Those who do understand binary
10 - Those who think they understand binary

... so there are in fact 10 (base 2) kinds of ppl in the world. And people are people, not things, so it's 'who' understand binary, not 'that'.

Wow, that's correct, but way too intense. We are still trying to teach GoalieBob and Scott the difference between their, there and they're

 

[Quantum]

LOL, I've given up on the their, there and they're horror.

Sometimes I despair for our public education system.