A Cry Out for Better Customer Service?

[tanik]

Doesn't this prove the opposite effect of outsourcing?

From News 8/Austin and Bloomberg.com

Hewlett-Packard to build 2 data centers in Austin
5/18/2006 10:34 AM
By: News 8 Austin Staff

As part of its plans to consolidate its 85 data centers, Hewlett-Packard will build two large data centers in Austin.

They will provide almost 140 high-paying jobs and more than $11 million in other benefits.

In return, the city will give HP a 40 percent discount on its company's property taxes, which comes to $3 million over 10 years.

The two facilities will be more than 400,000 square feet combined when finished. One will be at the former Freescale Semiconductor plant on Ed Bluestein Blvd. and the other at its existing campus in Wells Branch.

HP will build six news data centers in total, with two more in Houston and two in Atlanta.

Gov. Rick Perry said the state welcomes Hewlett-Packard's planned expansion, and his office will work to close the deal bringing in new jobs.

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Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's second-largest personal-computer maker, will reduce the number of data centers it runs from 85 to six as part of a plan to cut $1 billion in spending.

.....

Closing facilities will help Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd in his goal to slice costs as he battles to overtake Dell Inc. as the top producer of PCs. Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard, also the world's largest printer maker, in July said it will cut 15,300 jobs and yesterday posted a 51 percent jump in profit, outpacing Dell.

Hewlett-Packard's PC sales rose 9.5 percent to $6.98 billion. Profit surged to $248 million from $147 million, widening the profit margin to 3.6 percent from 2.3 percent and nearing a four-year high.

[WeAreNotAlone]

It's about time.

I called twice the other day, called at 11:00am in the middle of the week...

The first guy had an accent so thick (In India)... I said upon hearing it, so sorry... "wrong number" and I hung up...

I hung up because it is VERY hard to understand what they are saying... and they in turn allot of times don't know the nuances in the ENGLISH language..

They may be able to speak it, but like any language in which it's not your primary language something gets lost in the translation.

I've gotten to the point that if I get someone with a thick accent, I hang up... So as not to waste my time. Thing is most of the time you have to hold so long to get to that someone.. so it's a big time waster to call... Wait, then finally get someone and you can't understand them... Or they understand YOU properly.
****

The second guy in India I talked with I could barely understand... So I didn't hang up. We got an order placed, but the order is an item short, so that means it will cost me more of MY time to have to call them again. (Note to HP it also wastes your time as well, generates bad will in the customer base when this type of stuff happens.)
* * * *

The above being said, I could see "maybe" being rolled over to a call center in another country if you called at 3am.