Outsourcing

How Does That Help? By John Dir

I recently called for technical support from my ISP, (because I could not connect about my issue any other way I tried,) to check with them about an issue I wanted to confirm my own suspicions about.

After spending a half hour on the phone with the foreign gentleman, I decided to end the conversation because we were not connecting well. Following the call, I received an email from the "engineer" who attempted to answer my question. Here are actual excerpts from that message: “hi John, i am mailing this link for u to get ur problem of bouncing back emails be fixed pls make sure that u down load the software and run it on ur computer, the link is (excluded) with regards Sam technical voice support”

Now, in my own background, I provided complex support at an engineering level for a number of companies, and though I could not always give customers the answers they wanted to hear, I did use reasonable English in my vocal and written correspondences. In this particular case, the advice I received did not even come close to identifying the real problem, much less an adequate solution. Communications like the one above have become the norm for today's quality of support, because they took it away from us to save the company money and please the shareholders. Proportionately, the shareholders of such companies receive a far smaller cut of the improved profits than the executives that choose to do business this way.

One thing I am certain about; I would have been fired the same day I produced a customer response like the one shown above. If we need to go to a far away land to find this quality of communication, perhaps we could obtain the equivalent of an HB-1 visa in that country to have the opportunity to train them how to speak and write in English. If American customers are not worthy of receiving adequate English speaking support in their own country, what does this tell us about the value of our consumer dollars and our work ethics?

Seeking to do business with an uneven playing field will result in the ultimate degradation of the priority objective for preserving the prosperity and focus on the people we serve in this country. For American businesses, raising the standard of living for foreign interests should not be a higher priority than preserving our own.

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