Telecom’s 5 biggest headaches, part 3 – the Manila gorilla
To paraphrase Gordon Geckko:
Offshoring, for lack of a better word, is good.
If F&P Appliances had offshored more of its manufacturing jobs sooner, it would be a stronger company overall today. Same goes for Tait Electronics, and other local heroes.
At a time when Telecom is doing a lot wrong, offshoring is an area where the company is getting things right.
Recently, the company said it was sending another 250 jobs to Manila (around 700 positions are now covered there), saving a further $7.5 million according to CFO Russ Houlden (who, like his boss, hails from BT).
At Telecom’s second quarter briefing, another relatively new face, Telecom head of retail Alan Gourdie (most recently managing director of Tiger Beer in the UK) said the Filipino workers cost the company a lot less, cover more positions than the publicised call-centre roles, and perform better:
“Quite a big chunk of our off-shoring is in fact back-room operations such as provisioning and dealer support. What we’ve decided to send up to Manila is our tier 1 broadband help desk and that’s quite a technical support area. What we were looking for in our extensive trials over the past eight months was for that operation to be at least as good if not better and it proved to be better.”
Offshoring will help, said Mr Gourdie, in his long-term goal for Telecom to provide “world class” service.
I agree. I got put through to the Manila help desk with a tricky firewall issue. For a change, I got a prompt, clear resolution to my problem. Things are moving ahead.
Offshoring will help in the short term, too. Responding to an analyst’s question about setting up shop in the Philippines when our dollar is free-fall, Mr Gourdie replied:
“I don’t know what the exchange rate movement on pesos versus the NZ dollar has been, but let’s assume for the moment it’s deteriorated. That will impact the savings to a minor degree. But look – the difference in the cost of living up there is fairly significant so the cost locally is about half of what we pay for onshore operations, so we still expect to see the savings we forecasted.”
Mr Gourdie added that Filipino staff performed better “against quite a high standard onshore, I should say” and that Telecom had reversed its original proposal to offshore its entire Hamilton-based support operation and a further 200 jobs – I suspect largely for political and PR reasons (Mr Gourdie said it was for support cases where “local knowledge” is needed).
Rebalancing workforce
It’s a pity Telecom can’t be more up-front about its offshoring operation and the general rebalancing of its employee mix.
The company is adding staff at Chorus, builder of high-tech, next generation broadband infrastructure, and in the IT services wing of Gen-i, at the same time as it loses low-end call-centre workers. That's a good thing. It’s the sort of move that makes a first-world company more competitive in the 21st century, when no country can possibly compete long term with emerging economies that can provide low-end service roles more cheaply.
Punch in the face
Certainly, if I was working in a call centre, and was told my job was going to somebody cheaper in Manila, by initial reaction would be to punch Mr Gourdie in the face (though notably, when I walked with him through a Telecom help desk operation in Auckland at a time when the offshore trial was already underway, call centre staff greeted him warmly. This, combined with Retail’s halved customer churn under Mr Gourdie’s first quarter in full control, points to some leadership potential if Dr Reynolds ever chokes on his Iron Brew).
The general public and even some in business will have the same gut reaction against offshoring.
But at the end of the day, all New Zealanders want the same thing from our national telco: better service at a lower price. That’s the real way to win hearts and minds, and offshoring will help Mr Gourdie get there.
And as NBR recorded, the Telecom of yore, which used to charge twice as much for broadband, put a hand-brake on our entire economy. For our overall fiscal health, a leaner, meaner Telecom is better.
And certainly, Telecom is getting leaner.
It’s a lazy stereotype to say new chief executive Paul Reynolds has a Scotsman’s tight way with money. But from a shareholders’ point of view, the doctor is applying some medicine.
Beyond the $7.5 million saved by the latest round of offshoring, during the quarter Dr Reynolds moved to finally put down the loss-making, non-core business Ferrit saving, he says, $1 million a month.
And while salary costs continued to increase (remember, the job market is still tight in tech), the rate of increase halved over the December quarter.
Almost across the board, costs were down in Q2, though in many instances they did not fall fast enough to compensate for falling revenue.
Telecom is doing much better at cost control, but needs to push harder. Dr Reynolds hinted at the road ahead during the Q2 briefing with his repeated assurances to analysts that he would do more to “address headcount”.
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Comments and questions31
Offshoring may save telecom millions of dollars but the quality of their customer service have deteriorated tremendously. The staff in Manila are clueless and not very helpful. And while Manila provides more of a round the clock service for Telecom users - Manila staff can't make any decisions without calling someone in NZ - and if its a public holiday here, guess what?
Our experiences are similar, on two recent occasions I spent hours talking - and on hold for lengthy periods - while these very polite but ultimately ineffective staff ran through tiresome fault-checking and consulting their NZ colleagues. Worst of all promises to call us back were not followed through. Saving costs is a predictable objective but when the levels of service are so poor it just further aggravates the customer. Interestingly, our experiences of BT's service handling and performance were exactly the same!
I agree cost control was poor in the past, and Ferrit was pointless money loser. My point above is that the new management team deserves kudos for finally moving to address it. As I noted, they still have a way to go on cost control overall.
The majority of tech support staff are still in NZ, and support is 24/7 (a value-add Telecom Broadband can boast over other ISPs, whatever its other faults).
Alan Gourdie said support was not yet "world class", upon which I think we all agree. I think it's now heading in the right direction.
Offshoring may save telecom millions of dollars but the quality of their customer service have deteriorated tremendously.- I do not think so, this may be your own opinion but based on facts and numbers from Telecom, Manila provided BETTER customer service compared to in-house reps... The staff in Manila are clueless and not very helpful. - Everyone has their own first times, what is important is that we learn from every experience we encounter. I am sure when you were starting with Telecom you were tagged as clueless and not helpful as well :) ... And while Manila provides more of a round the clock service for Telecom users - Manila staff can't make any decisions without calling someone in NZ - and if its a public holiday here, guess what? - We are just starting as part of Telecom, it is of due respect that we always ask right departments before making any decision. Likewise, most of the support teams are still in NZ, so logically speaking we have to call NZ. I am sure time will come that Manila will have full control of decisions, let us wait for that, it is fast approaching.
Cost control ? You must be joking ! I don't think Telecom knows what the words means. It has been "bleeding" money at the expense of shareholders (management doing OK tho' !! ) for years. The Ferit involvement and things like software (Gen-i) and computer training(Auldhouse) which are/have been drains on the finances and are not core business, should not be part of Telecom.
And the Manila connection..time will tell whether that was the right strategic move.It's exasperating to deal with basic English speakers who can't make any decisions without lengthy consultation with someone behind the scene,probably in NZ !
Anonymous mate
You better not have to deal with the Earthquake Commission then. They are TOTALLY off-shored, with just a small cadre of decision makers in New Zealand. Imagine how we would fare in the even of THE BIG ONE hitting!
I think there will always be a negative perception around off shore call centres - no matter what the statistics say.
Anecdotally, many people complain about poor english speaking when in fact they are talking to staff in NZ. My experience of talking to the staff in Manilla has been excellent. - their standard of english is better than many NZers, albeit with an american accent.
As for the person who complained that the cal centre staff put them through 'tiresome fault checking' . That is because (from memory) soemthing like 80% of calls into the helpdesk involve very basic problems (like rebooting modems, faulty filters etc) it is the purpose of the tier one helpdesk to go through these problems before escalating you to the next level if required.
About a year ago I had a poor experience with the folks in Manila but in the last two months I have had exceptional service from them. One chap even asked me if I went to the Sky City fireworks display and by the time I told him about that, he had fixed my problem.
And hey, we are naturally protective of our local jobs but if we want our Kiwi businesses to be globally competitive we will need to be more innovative and utilize the more cost effective options available to us. Heck, we even had to hire a Scotsman to get us started.
Keep up the good work Dr R!
mana.time@hotmail.com
I would question why Manilla supplied support for your tricky firewall problem Chris? Unless it was the McAfee firewall that TCNZ (Xtra) supplies? If it was any other firewall/security package, your issue should have been referred to the vendor of that product.
Cleaning up after Manilla constitues a large part of my work load, generally they fail to rectify basic issues, ie password resets where they reset the password on the 'wrong' user name.
Time and time again, reading thier copied and pasted case notes, which mean absolutely nothing as they are just that, copied and pasted, and not indicative that any constructive troubleshooting has been done.
Time and time again I come across a telephone extension lead that the case notes say does not exist, yet the customer has not been asked about it at all.
Better service? Faugh.
Although it may offer a short term solution to Telecom's financial worries, it stands to alienate it's Kiwi customer base at the same time, and ultimately loose more market share as a result (in my opinion). Although I do not know all the details, I understand BT had a similar problem as a result of their off shoring attempts, at significant cost to the company.
Some 'facts' about Telecom's off shoring:
* One Manila based rep costs roughly the same as 3-4 NZ based reps
* The number of mistakes made by staff there is about the same as NZ based staff
* They are supported by both Kiwi staff physically in Manila and Helpdesk/IT support staff in NZ
* It is my understanding that one reason the 123 call centre wasn't outsourced (although approx 70 Manila based staff continue to assist the centre) was due to their poor ability to sell to customers
* Independent customer survey results were (apparently) on par with their NZ based colleagues, although anecdotal evidence suggests customers were more vocal about voicing their concerns during actual calls, or to NZ staff.
* Staff receive 2 weeks of 'kiwiana' training although I have no idea how helpful this has actually been as should you deviate from the script they've been given they seem unable to communicate properly or think for themselves.
* Other Kiwi staff have reportedly become quite disengaged with Telecom's decision to outsource, even those who have no relationship with any of the affected call centres.
My own experiences with them have been less than acceptable. I spent hours one weekend on the phone to them to get my Broadband working, only to find a simple modem reset/reprogramming would have fixed it. I took screen shots on my computer to learn how to do it, simply to avoid having to call them again.
I have to also disagree with Telecom's chief PR man (Mark Watts I think) who says that when a customer calls they shouldn't be able to tell whether they are speaking to someone in Manila or Auckland. The semi-American accent associated with most English speakers in the Philippeans is a dead giveaway, and their bemusing inability to hear and say back even a simple name like mine is laughable.
On a more personal note, I'm also somewhat disgusted (as a shareholder) that they also continue to promote their "connecting NZ'ers" tagline when they do this sort of thing. I am quite happy to get a little less money in the bank if it means I get prompt service I can understand, and I get a nice feel good feeling if a few young Kiwi's get to keep their jobs as a result.
Offshoring has little to do with efficiency or benefit to customers and a lot to do with Fat Cat bonuses at board level. They are only interested in making their bonus which is typically more profit than last year. To do this its easy to offshore something, and hey look we saved some money so now pay us the big bonus. It doesn seem to matter if the profit is down so what I save some money so pay up!
The next set of directors can now also do the same by setting slightly different KPIs and hey look we save some money by bringing it back in house pay my big bonus. Or maybe im just too cynical.
Telecom have always dominated the NZ market as a over priced telco and the fact that they've had to unbundle is obviously why they are in a race with the competition to secure market share but offshoring jobs will ultimately prove their downfall; i can't wait! - competitor prices are awesome compared to ours and the only reason my services are with Telecom are because of staff concession. So carry on with your Roadshow (Vodaphone bash sessions) and show us your 'stacked' statistics which make Manila seem to out perform NZ based counterparts - i'll be watching you travel down hill gaining speed exponentially from my new ISP; All the while thinking "if only you'd asked the NZ public what they want rather than the shareholders" I may be wrong but time will tell so... lets wait and see.
I have had to talk to the Manilla staff on a number of occasions and they have all been spectacularly unhelpful. The worst case was when I was attempting to change the default network settings on one of Telecom's ADSL modems and it wouldn't allow the netmask to be altered. No matter how often I explained that what the person was telling me to do simply did not work, I repeatedly got stepped through the exact same process with the person at the other end being surprised and confused *EACH* and every time it failed to work. I tracked down the fault myself a day later - it was caused by a bug in the firmware and couldn't be changed at all.
Completely bloody useless.
'Sad and angry' is right. I can't believe an employee with your attitude would be around for long, so enjoy that staff concession while you've got it. Times have changed, where Telecom may have been the overpriced encumbent previously, Comcom regulation has u-turned this big time (some may argue this happened previous). Dr Reynolds and cohorts are demonstrating to NZers why Telecom is a trusted player in NZ communications, while still recovering from the hangover that was public ownership. Many still seem to think Telecom owe the taxpayer something. Yes I work for Telecom (Gen-i actually) & maybe I'm lucky, but all I see is a bunch of good people trying to do the best by our customers (product & service wise)...and in this competitive environment, the reality is we wouldn't be here if we were doing as poorer job as you make out. Like an old boss used to tell me "sh!t or get off the pottie"
The reason or boss would say "sh!t or get off the pottie" is probably because you act like your 2 years old. Look for your Gen-i job to move offshore shortly and we will gauge your 2yr old comments then, ok? Go bye bye now
HAHAHA this article is a lie and a smack in the face to every australian that has ever worked for a telecom company, i currently work for AAPT tehc support and my job is soon to be gone due to the Manila buzz thats currently leaving thousands of hard working "English" speak aussies jobless. Now the amount of complaints i get from customers about manila how they dont help, hard to understand and do not listen to there issues. i get calls that they are trained to deal with but transfer threw to aussie tech support cause they dont know how to do it. its a joke and this article is smack in the face to every hard working aussie, Chris Keall i bet your not even an australian are you?
Through another yabbie on the barbie, cobber. NBR is 100% Australian, from the ... no, wait.
Manila may be a cost effective way to save money for big companies which is great for them, a bit more money each year to spend on more markting idiots to make customers lifes even more harder.
With the more money they save tho the worse the customer service becomes and the more customers they will loose in the long run, i work for Billing for AAPT in Victoria, Australia and i can say that the Manila department we use always call threw to us for help or to handle calls they cannot which defeats the purpose of taking services there if most calls end up being transfered back to us does it not?
Anyway i know for a fact that not all Manila reps are clueless idiots but majority cannot due a job as good as a NZ or Australian representative and still give great customer satisfaction.
But hey who really cares about the customers or the hard working people from the countries loosing jobs to other companies cause they can offer a cheaper and lower quality service?
As with most outsourcing helpdesk operations, staff are tasked to process as many calls as quickly as possible. In many, if not most cases, if a support call becomes even remotely tricky, the off-shore agent will flick it back to a local rep, in order to keep their call processing rate high.
End result is that an increasing number of basic support calls end up being serviced by local staff. This blows the cost-saving model out of the water, as the company is paying for support calls to be double-handled, and customers are deeply unhappy and request refunds for non-service.
It is rare that an off-shore agent will actually take the time to process a tricky call, and this only happens when call volumes are light.
I think it was wise a wise decision financially speaking. Quality ----"accent" in particular it was a bad call. But the accent doesnt run the company it's the finances that fuels the company.
I guess we have been looking into the big picture. We forget to read fine prints. I mean alot of multi-national company had made the same move where are they now? They are all doing well. HSBC australia-New Zealand has decided to off shore to Manila as well but have these guys had any problems with that?
We'll have to wait and see... Then we can judge.
Cost wise 1 NZ based rep= 2-3 Manila based reps....
When they hadn't had off shoring we complain about limited service limited hours now they are off shoring and can provide 24/7 helpdesk we blame the accent.
I think it was wise a wise decision financially speaking. Quality ----"accent" in particular it was a bad call. But the accent doesnt run the company it's the finances that fuels the company.
I guess we have been looking into the big picture. We forget to read fine prints. I mean alot of multi-national company had made the same move where are they now? They are all doing well. HSBC australia-New Zealand has decided to off shore to Manila as well but have these guys had any problems with that?
We'll have to wait and see... Then we can judge.
Cost wise 1 NZ based rep= 2-3 Manila based reps....
When they hadn't had off shoring we complain about limited service limited hours now they are off shoring and can provide 24/7 helpdesk we blame the accent.
Funny how we blame their accent when we can't even spell properly and rely on Phonetics
What does it cost Telecom to route all calls to Manila?... I presume they give themselves a better rate than the $1.19 per min they charge residential customers and the 50c plus GST for business customers.
How does this compare with a NZ based 0800 number. Anyone care to speculate on figures?
Routing a business to business to call is much different and cheaper than a call to an end customer in Manila. It depends upon the call volume and the expected call quality. It would definitely be much lesser than what a retail (home or business) customer would pay to call Manila and very close to having a local 0800 number.
If you won the infrastructure to relay the call, it costs you the Interest, Depreciation and Amortisation. If it can retail for 50c, then make that 10c. Add that to the cost of the agent and you're still in a positin where 1 call to a NZ agent = 4 calls to a Phillipine Agent.
INcidentally, all the calls I make to get service on my Vodaphone service get answered in Egypt. WHY NO COMMENTS ON THAT?
I believe they use a version of VOIP to make the calls as cheap as possible, although line quality is much like using Telecom's 0161 service for cheap international calling - often unreliable and distorted.
Also, Doesn'tmatter - it's more like 1 NZ based rep = 3-4 Manila reps. The average NZ rep earns a reasonably good wage in the high $30's to early $40's for their efforts. I believe it costs around NZ$8-$9,000 p/a for each rep in Manila.
One could speculate Telecom hopes to save $10-15 million or so from outsourcing roles from both it's NZ based opperations and those in AAPT.
It is so saddening when I have read these feedbacks from our brothers and sisters based in NZ, but we understand where every Kiwi (who will eventually lose their job in the future because Manila proved that they can provide better service based on facts and numbers) is coming from. It is not Manila reps' fault that they have shown remarkable customer experience because Filipinos are known to be very hospitable, fun and polite worldwide. There is no doubt that Philippines is ranked 2nd (or 1st) in terms of offshoring because of cheap yet quality services we provide. We, here in Manila, are very excited to work with someone based in NZ as we are usually dealing with Americans (US accounts) and they are very accomodating and friendly. It is just sad to know that several Kiwis, who are apparently working with Telecom who are inculcated to have "ONE Telecom" in mind since their first day with Telecom, are not showing the real meaning of ONE Telecom. I hope that before busting off reps located in Manila, yoiu should try to comtemplate what went wrong in your end. If Manila can't provide same or better service as you guys, then why Telecom is still pursuing to offshore 250 seats more. I can say, you could have done better to retain these jobs.
Vision: With customers at our heart, we will become New Zealand's most preferred company.
Mission: To be number one in BB, Mobile and ICT
VALUES: WORKING TOGETHER AS ONE & ACTING WITH OPENESS AND INTEGRITY
Hey Manilla fella..I think you took this very personally..
Why would Telecom give these jobs offshore...it has nothin do with the superb customer service you gave.so bro do not be illusioned..
You may also get an announcement like dis one saying we have found someone in some other country giving better scores than you...you know why?? cost cutting!! plain and simple! the make believe CEM scores are just a lie! Then you would not want someone from some other country to tell you that you are better than them even when you tolerate all their customers calling back just to get basic issue resolved..
We tolerate the mistakes you do..and guess what? You are still better than us...
It's bizarre that any New Zealander would want Telecom as one of the largest employers to fail. Everyone freaked when F&P made their announcement and they employ 1600 as compared to TNZ 8000. Yes it used to be a monopoly. It's not any more. Now it's doing all that it can to survive, at the same time as spending a LOT of money building infrastructure in NZ. Time to move on from the TNZ bashing and support an EnZed company.
F&P has offshored the majority of their staff... Check your facts first.
Telecom positions itself as a NZ company, connecting NZ'ers. Their customer facing staff being Kiwi's has given them one vital difference over their competitors. It's telling that Telecom have decided to keep the majority of their customer facing reps in NZ.
As a rep myself, when I take 60 calls a day, and without any exageration (sorry probably the wrong spelling) I receive at least 3 calls every day from people who complain about hard to understand reps or those of our team offshore, and the person to my right, and the one to my left gets the same, I have to wonder if Telecom has made the right move. They say that for every one person who complains, at least 6 others are thinking the same thing...
Telecom will surely stand a small drop in customer service CEM results if it justifies saving $15 million p/a. It's ultimately a bean counters move, not a service one.
And yes, ultimately, time will tell if they've made the right move.
Ok. So this article (any many of the Telecom management or Manila comments) are just a total load of rubbish.
Let me first say that I am one of the affected employees in the Auckland BBHD. These are my personal opinions and do not reflect those of Telecom. I can concur with the majority of the other commenters (and my fellow BBHD reps in NZ) that this decision is one based on short term gain at a loss for the customer and the livelihoods of many New Zealand employees.
I write this comment here because today I saw this faff piece of an article posted on our noticeboard on level 7 with the most turgid comments highlighted for our convenience. Ok, so what are we expected to think/feel when reading this? “Oh well, I have lost my job but at least my exemployer Telescum has made a smart financial move to be “globally competitive”. Good for them!”? Sif noob.
Even Dilbert would cringe at the Orwellian mgmt drivel we get driven in to us at every turn in this company.
Here are a few points I would like to raise:
1.Ok Chris, whatever Telecom are bribing you with to make you write something like this must be really good. A “tricky firewall issue.” I call bullsh1t. What issue was that? Like the other guy said, the McAffee firewall is all we have anything to do with supporting. Ask us about anything else and we will fob you in a second. The McAfee Firewall is really, really easy to configure. And we have plenty of help located on our website which nobody reads. I am highly dubious of the fact that a tier one rep like me would know more about any firewall than someone with your IT experience.
2.Whatever Telecom or anyone except the only relevant parties involved (the customers and the reps) say about CEM scores or any other stupid metric they can pull out of their ass. Claiming things like “Mr Gourdie added that Filipino staff performed better “against quite a high standard onshore, I should say” is just too easy.
3.Every single person at the Auckland BBHD can attest to the fact that the Manila reps are not of as a high standard in communication or troubleshooting as Telecom or Chris claims they are. I have anecdotal evidence a mile high of completely botched cases where Manila reps have not explained things to a customer clearly or have missed basic steps of troubleshooting that are in the script. A good 1/6 to 1/10 or so of the calls I take a day are clean up jobs where Manila reps have not followed through with call back promises or have misdiagnosed the problem and simply followed the call script with blinkers on, missing basic things like switching the physical wireless switch on the laptop before troubleshooting for an hour before telling the customer to take their faulty laptop back to DickSmiths or where ever they got it. Either that or the customer simply cannot understand them. Unaccented? My ass. We weren't born yesterday... (I do admit strong accents occur on our local help desk too though)
4.I, like all my fellow reps listen to the customer testimonies all day of how they DO NOT like the the service in Manilla or who are simply opposed to favouring their employment over ours for penny squeezing. We have to listen to the train wreck troubleshooting sessions and have to clean up the mess afterwards when it gets too hard. I am not saying all Manilla reps are bad. What I am saying is that there are serious problems with either how they are trained or managed because there is no other way to explain their lack of troubleshooting expertise at times. Just blindly follow the call flow, ignore what the customer says, when it doesnt work tell the customer to go to a PC tech or promise a callback that never happens, with no case notes left so we cannot follow up the mess when the customer calls back.
5.The funny thing is that the Manilla reps that posted here (the Ones quoting the corporate slogan ONE Telecom, blurgh!) have shown their poor English skills. Again, I have nothing against Filipinos or any foreigner, but seriously read their posts and notice their poor English everywhere. Just like their case notes. I haven't seen so many spelling mistakes (not even typos) since Form 2. “It is just sad to know that several Kiwis, who are apparently working with Telecom who are inculcated to have "ONE Telecom" in mind since their first day with Telecom, are not showing the real meaning of ONE Telecom.” Haha, inculcated? Seriously? That's an electronic/online spell checker at work if ever I have seen it. When in modern, everyday English do people use that word? FAIL!
6.Ok, the the last point I can be bothered writing about is the rationale behind this decision. That is, cutting costs. I see so much wastage in Telcom everywhere I look. From glossy printed “PlanOnAPage” pamphlets outlining our “new vision” that gather in rubbish bins faster than Student Life pamphlets at a Uni orientation week 5 minutes after the roadshow or “branding workshop”. Oh yeah, the branding workshop... This is where they showed us a new Telecom ad where a camera flies over NZ and the tagline is “we're all from here, so lets [insert generic marketing language here]” We're all from here eh? Except the ones about to be offshored, and the ones who already are... F@cking insulting!
Other wastage like back rubs, and all manner of work programs like kickboxing lessons or whatever that, while nice in good times should be cut out during tougher times. People would rather have jobs than back rubs, and 'fruit day'. There are other ways to cut costs other than slashing wages. Outsourcing jobs just seems like an easy way out to cut spending in the short term. There is a lot of fat in the system that could be cut out long before outsourcing like this is necessary.
7.Maybe Telecom should look at improving its services as a way to increase revenue and stem the tide of customers leaving us. Telecom is the only ISP that does not offer prepaid data blocks to be purchased. I have customers begging me to “un-throttle” their internet when they exceed their cap. They are willing and able to pay more money for more data. But no, our dumb, inflexible plan options don't allow them to throw money at us...FAIL!
Like I said, I am only writing this in response to this garbage being posted on our noticeboard with highlighted sections on it. My favourite one was:“I got put through to the Manila help desk with a tricky firewall issue. For a change, I got a prompt, clear resolution to my problem. Things are moving ahead.”
Pfff... “For a change...” What a pr1ck.
I guess this is to be expected from NBR though, a right-wing-free-market-big-business-loving-publication who really love it when kiwi jobs get lost but CEO keep their phat wads.
Power to the companies that are advertising “locally run call centres”, buy their services over companies like Telescum. If I didn't have a staff concession there is NO WAY IN HELL I would ever have my services with Telecom, although I knew that before I joined.
When I told my mum about this offshoring business she said something to the effect of: “That is a shame because that is the reason I am still with Telecom. I know I can get it cheaper elsewhere but the service is why I stay with Telecom.” She then said that in her experience the Manilla people are very nice but not very helpful and difficult to understand.
If this decision is one that is making a loyal telecom customer for 30 years consider changing as Telecoms one point of difference is lost with offshoring then I think that this move will ultimately hurt the Telecom brand and customers will move elsewhere. Time will tell.
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