Indian Call Centers and Ugly Americans

An interesting article on the cultural impact of call-center outsourcing from the Indian perspective. Short summary - Americans don't paint a pretty picture of themselves over the phone:

Saurabh Jha, a blue-jeaned 22-year-old, said a Texas woman phoned recently and told him that thanks to outsourcing, "you are getting money, food, shelter. You should be starving."

She berated him for 12 minutes before she allowed him to offer advice that fixed her problem: to unplug her computer and plug it back in. "I was speechless," he said. "She didn't even give me a chance."

The crazy thing is that callers are probably getting a much higher level of service from the Indian call centers. Think about it - who in America is going to take $8 an hour to sit by the phone and field tech support calls? I'll tell you right now, it won't be anybody with a Computer Science degree, that's for sure. But in India, you're likely getting some of the most educated people in the middle class. Not that it makes any difference - it appears most Americans would rather just get pissed off than actually give any real thought to the matter.

As far as I can tell, Americans do a lot of complaining about outsourcing when it's in the context of things like this. However, it's these same people who are lining up and shooting each other at 5 AM in front of the local Wal-Mart when it comes to getting rock-bottom prices on huge piles of imported shit.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 12, 2006 at 04:49 PM in America, Web/Tech | Permalink