Is That a Rooster on My Customer-Support Call? Yes, Blame Coronavirus. (wsj.com) 123
When Robin Frost called Verizon's customer support last month, she was connected with a rooster. At least that's what it sounded like. The Pennsylvania resident wanted to ask about a problem with the telecom company's app, but the agent on the line said she couldn't hear. Punctuating her words was "the sound of a very authentic, real-sounding rooster," Ms. Frost recalled. From a report: Thousands of call-center employees in the Philippines and India are working from home, often on the outskirts of urban areas or outside them, during their countries' coronavirus lockdowns. That has given cows and pigs -- but mainly roosters -- a chance to chime in. "It was funny but not funny, and also maddening, as I couldn't accomplish my task," Ms. Frost said. Stefaan Smith, 36, who lives outside Phoenix, had a similar encounter when he called a Sprint helpline in March. He wanted to defer billing on his account after a pizza-parlor job fell through and left him with no money in the bank.
"The crowing was so close," he said of what sounded like an angry rooster, though that wasn't the only animal present. "It was like right outside her window. You could hear her pigs grumbling and groaning." After follow-up calls, he received a $50 credit from the provider, he said. Call-center executives say roosters are tough to silence. Americans often make customer-service calls in the late afternoon and evening, just when the sun is rising over countries like the Philippines and the birds are at their loudest. That's when Junela Dumaya's job gets tricky. The 20-year-old works for Open Access BPO, a call center, and lives in a mountainous area a few hours' drive from the Philippine capital, Manila. Her neighbor's cow makes a racket in the mornings, as do her brother-in-law's chickens.
"The crowing was so close," he said of what sounded like an angry rooster, though that wasn't the only animal present. "It was like right outside her window. You could hear her pigs grumbling and groaning." After follow-up calls, he received a $50 credit from the provider, he said. Call-center executives say roosters are tough to silence. Americans often make customer-service calls in the late afternoon and evening, just when the sun is rising over countries like the Philippines and the birds are at their loudest. That's when Junela Dumaya's job gets tricky. The 20-year-old works for Open Access BPO, a call center, and lives in a mountainous area a few hours' drive from the Philippine capital, Manila. Her neighbor's cow makes a racket in the mornings, as do her brother-in-law's chickens.
Only the WSJ... (Score:1, Funny)
... would be able to resist using a different word in that headline
Re:Only the WSJ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess that the WSJ is the only professional organisation left.
Easy solution (Score:2, Insightful)
So.....it's clear these types of jobs can be done from home.....we have millions of people collecting unemployment (many of whom may not have jobs to return to)...so bring these jobs back on-shore. First of all it's a better experience for the customer. You can keep costs down by allowing the workers to still work from home which should allow you to pay a more livable wage. Hell, could even have a government program to encourage this, giving tax breaks or help subsidizing equipment for firms who bring re
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that in-country workers cost 4x as much as offshore ones. Are shareholders willing to accept the increase of expenses to the company?
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that in-country workers cost 4x as much as offshore ones. Are shareholders willing to accept the increase of expenses to the company?
With $19 billion in net income for 2019, I think Verizon can afford to throw a little more towards call center employees. Average pay in the US for a call center employee is $14 an hour which is probably for workers who come in. Work-from home employees can probably get paid a little less.
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'can afford' and 'are willing' are two very different things.
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As a well paid engineer I can actually also afford a Ferrari (local support people), but why would I throw away money when I could give it to my retirement fund (shareholder dividends) instead?
Remember Verizon reported $19billion in income while also jumping in and out of being in the top 10 most hated companies in the past decade. Why appease customers with better customer service, why spend the money on Americans if they are still reporting $19billion while being so hated?
There's literally no basis for Ve
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Yeah, just don't get caught and fired like he did.
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Not to mention getting the problem solved faster, when both sides can understand each other. You may save 4x by offshoring your support. But since I can't understand the accent, we spend 4x the time communicating. And if you brought the programming back onshore, I wouldn't have to call to begin with because the system would be less likely to throw me in a catch-22.
The reason they use Filipinos is that you *can* understand their accent.
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I can't understand the accent
You may not understand Indians, but Filipinos speak English with an American accent.
Just in case you slept through history class, the Philippines was an American territory from 1898 until 1946, and continued to host several big American military bases until 1991.
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Maybe your problem is you struggle with accents.
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I have a problem understanding people that don't speak English in any fashion that remotely approaches the various Western manners of speaking the language.
They may think they're forming English words, but if a native English speaker can understand WTF they are saying, it's not really useful conversant English they're speaking...is it?
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Yeah, maybe the vast majority of the population struggles with accents. Stop being obtuse.
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So, it would be like the McDonald's (or nearly every other) drivethru, with people who speak English as a second language.
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Fark you on the pay a little less for work at home, honestly should be the same or more.
My utilities go up, gas for heat, electric for AC, computer equipment, lighting; per policy, I need a dedicated space without distraction or disturbance, this means I need more space, or have to sacrifice existing living space and affects the use of the space by others.
I no longer have access to the beverages or snacks provided, no more team lunches, etc.
Sure I don't have to commute, however, I still must pay the same in
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Yes, work from home employees cost a little less (up to ~30% from what we used to charge our customer for on vs off-site work). But, you still have things like FICA, unemployment insurance, benefits, etc, that often add another 20-50% more above basic salary. Understanding the fully burdened cost per employee is key to running a business.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
But if you set minimum wage to half that then still many of jobs will still go overseas, and those local who accept will not be able to live on that income. Being paid that little is a desparation job, for when you can't do anything else. And you need to be literate, understand the computer systems, have a good speaking voice with good grammar, and be willing to accept substandard wages. This sounds like a job for those who just got out of jail maybe, trying to get back on their feet. For a call center, is that who you want answering the phones?
The people pushing for lower minimum wage only do this for their own benefit, to keep their own lifestyle higher, I doubt any of them are willing to take a significant paycut to make this happen.
Re: Easy solution (Score:2)
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"And, apart from that, what is ist with some US-americans and criminals?"
What specifically is your gripe, and do you have data to back it up, or just some fringe stories?
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For $5/hour in the Philippines you can get people with PhDs and many years of experience and people who speak English pretty much as well as an educated American from the midwest or Cali. The usual pay for call center employees is more like $12 for an 8 hour shift. For $40 a day...jesus you would have some seriously motivated and happy employees. That is not imply they would be living like kings or anything. They wouldn't be, but they would never complain about that salary. Even $1/hour Filipinos make prett
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Americans cost $3.60 per hour? I think you're well overestimating how much the average telephone tech support salary is in India.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Informative)
so bring these jobs back on-shore.
Hi, do we have an offer for you. Would you like to earn $8 per day to get abused endlessly by customers? Oh you think I'm being funny or extreme? The average wage for a telephone support in India is 321,336, or 75 per hour. That's literally 99 cents per hour.
I'm sure companies would die to bring those jobs back onshore, if you can do it at that price. Personally if I were unemployed I'd be mad to take a job that pays so little. Unemployment is far more lucrative, and not just currently because of covid.
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International site Slashdot doesn't support the rupee symbol. Farkin unicode U+20A8
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Anything that isn't in 8859-1. In the meanwhile, the BMP ran out of space, and even regular glyphs (not just dead languages) go into higher plane -- so even Microsoft fixed most of charset problems.
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The snag is, to support your higher pay lifestyle where you can afford Verizon products, you need a large team of people who have extremely low wages. If you did this in the US you'd have to either cut wages across the board, including yours, or increase prices drastically. If even one comeptitor to Verizon keeps the lower wage workers and sells lower cost goods then Verizon has to keep up and drop their prices and drop the cost of labor.
One reason it took so long to get rid of slavery in the US is that n
yep (Score:2)
"Brad" from t-mobile (and from the sounds of it, India) agrees with you.
I wouldn't have minded a rooster, come to think of it. But the uncanny valley when these guys try to sound like they are from Ohio is very distracting.
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"Brad" from t-mobile (and from the sounds of it, India) agrees with you.
I wouldn't have minded a rooster, come to think of it. But the uncanny valley when these guys try to sound like they are from Ohio is very distracting.
One of my favorite scenes from Slumdog Millionaire is where the show the call center workers getting localization training for Scotland learning basic, generic terms like "loch".
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That was a cool part of the movie. If I didn't have so many bad experiences and feel like big companies ripped off the middle American, I would enjoy talking to people from other countries. Sadly, 90% of calls are too hard to understand due to poor quality VOIP calls more so than accents.
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I worked for a Company (Based in America (Upstate NY)) where the CEO and Company Presidents were brothers from India. Myself sadly the furthest I have traveled outside the United States, was to go to Canada. Have been challenged numerous times to prove my American Nationality.
Were are you working?
Where are you from?
Where did you go to college?
What is your favorite Pizza Topping?
When I traveled and met the customers, there always seem a bit of shock when there was a White Male.
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Have you seen the OnePlus online helpdesk names? They have a Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, along with other fictional names from the MCU.
Their English is better than my Chinese and OnePlus is a Chinese company, so I'll give them a pass.
I called T-mobile recently, got Sponge Bob (Score:2)
I called T-mobile recently to cancel a line. A very nice helpful lady with an American accent answered and was helping me. Typically I am used to hearing the typical call center background chatter, but now I swear I could hear, "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" plus the chatter of small children.
Poor building design (Score:3)
There's also a bunch of factors that can make things worse...
Cold countries like those in scandinavia have extremely good insulation, so even if there was a whole farmyard right outside the window you wouldn't be able to hear it. Countries like the philippines tend to have poor insulation and often single glazing on the windows, sound flows straight inside.
Insulation isn't just to keep the warmth in, in hotter countries insulation would be beneficial to keep the chilled air from the aircon units inside... But then, many poorer people don't have aircon, and open the window to reduce the indoor temperature which then eliminates what little sound deadening the single glazing ever had.
You can also get more expensive headsets which are designed to reduce background noise, but it's unlikely these staff have been provided with such equipment.
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A large thermal mass is just that. It doesn't cool much for hours after sunset, requiring AC to maintain comfort levels.
Source: my sister's house. Two-storey, brick-clad, on cement slab. It's brutal in summer without AC.
My place is timber-clad, and mostly off the ground on stumps. It also gets hot during the day (No AC, just fans and strategic window-opening), and it cools much faster after sunset.
Not only India, not only at Homeoffice (Score:2)
I had something similar happening to me. It wasn't a call center job but software development in a plain vanilla office building in a larger urban environment in the middle of Germany, in the middle of Europe.
Do you have an idea how difficult it is to explain the costumer on the phone that this noise he is hearing is a huge flock of wild parrots in front of your office window???
Years ago a bunch of them escaped from a zoo and mild winters along the Rhine between Wiesbaden and Cologne gave them a habitat to
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Wild animals can definitely be a pain. They just have no respect for office rules.
At an office where I worked, there was a bird, apparently in the middle of its mating season, who was determined to drive off a competing male from his territory. That other bird just wouldn't back down though. That's because he was fighting his reflection in a plate glass window.
For days, that damned bird fought his mirror self, flying up and poking at the window, then back to his perch. Bang! Bang! Bang! I think some
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Hell the last 10 minutes of our weekly online department meeting (40 folk) is usually people showing everyone else their dogs/cats/fish. Some animals are even asked about by name....
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Well, most people like animals, especially cute pets. Dog-friendly workplaces seem to be becoming more popular in my area. I recently did contracting work at a place like that, and I enjoyed it. I don't have a dog myself, but I like most animals (I wouldn't have actually shot that bird). It was fun to see and interact with the occasional dog wandering the office, looking for free snacks and head scratches.
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Adding to the animal stories,
I still have to going in as part of the skeleton crew. In the absence of traffic, however, one of the local ducks decided that a particular spot in the middle of the parking lot driveway was HIS spot. When I drive up, he would begrudgingly waddle off, but then I'd find him there a couple of days later. I haven't seen him in a while, though. I guess he found a spot where he won't be interrupted from his musings so often.
Re: Not only India, not only at Homeoffice (Score:2)
Welcome to reality (Score:2)
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Talk about first world problems: "I'm annoyed I have to hear the livestock of poor people while I'm trying to get some help with an app on my iPhone"
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The author apparently is unaware that it's actually quite easy to shut a rooster up, the challenge is to catch the damn things first. They're kind of tough compared to hens though so stewing is more appropriate than roasting or baking.
I don't know why so many people have roosters, if we wanted chicks we'd borrow a rooster for a couple of days and not have the noise and the fighting between the hens the rest of the time. Plus you have to keep their wings clipped or they get out and tear the shit out of you
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There's a belief that you need a rooster around to keep the hens happy and laying eggs. It's unclear if it's true or not and plenty of anecdotes either way. Some have reported that a dominant hen will start crowing if there is no rooster. Anyway, for a very very long time people with egg laying hens on small farms have kept around one rooster. It's easy enough to do and the only drawback is the noise, and on a farm being woken up at dawn is a sign that you slept in too long.
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My experience is that the hens will fight to compete for his attention, the "pecking order" is very much more in effect when there's a rooster around. We get 2-4 eggs per day from our hens (more than we can eat), and they've never seen a rooster. A disadvantage of having a rooster around is that the hens seem to know that they're laying fertile eggs and occasionally one will stop laying and get the urge to sit on the nest all day. She gets skinny since she's hardly eating, and it takes weeks before she f
Re: Welcome to reality (Score:2)
You don't need a rooster for the hen to decide to lay in the nest for weeks.
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The woman couldn't get help with her financial situation because she had no money and no job. From someone who had a job and enough land to host livestock.
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I'm annoyed because I'm having trouble with my phone, and the phone company can't be bothered to put me in the hands of someone I can both understand and hear over the animal farm.
I'm also annoyed at morons who see this as a first world problem.
While Millions Lose Jobs Every Week..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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But but... Wouldn't that be contrary to the spirit of Capitalism and Free-Market, you know, the things that, according to some, have made this Earth a better place to live ?
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Only if the place the jobs are hosted has an actual free market, not one directly supported by the government. Level playing field...go for it.
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Americans are still better off than those guys in India. Heck, 2/3 of Americans on unemployment are getting more in unemployment than they were making working. Many of these people in India are making $1/hour and could literally die if we took all their jobs back to America right now.
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These are jobs that can be done from home; they should be done by Americans.
Sure. But when you pass the "Corporate Cost Increment Act" I highly recommend you dissolve your 401K first. After all major companies who save costs and report insane profits are ultimately what underpin your retirement through the power of institutional shareholders managing your plans.
You can't have it all ways.
You can't have small government with tight regulation passing laws against profit maximisation while keeping consumer costs low maintaining competition and ensuring everyone has a happy ever after
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The problem is not being able to do the job at home, but being able to do the job at the price the companies are willing to pay.
Indian call-center contractors have likely wages in the ballpark of a dollar per hour. I don't see "millions of Americans" accepting such wages any time soon, even were they legal in the first place. I think minimum wage would require paying at least 10 times that.
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Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
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Please don't say "government telling companies how to run a business is communism". It happens all the time. It's already happened. We hit a crisis and all of a sudden I was being told that I...under legal action...had to close my business. Actually...the first time was the companies telling the government to tell me I couldn't actually do things like repair stuff anymore. This time is different; I
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The government telling companies how to run their business is the definition of communism.
That's called nationalization, not communism. Now, it can be found in communism, fascism, or hell even populism.
A more correct statement would have been "The government telling companies how to run their business is the definition of authoritarianism." It's ok, that's a common mistake among people stuck on the idea of the political spectrum being a single, X axis when in fact there is also a y axis (where actions such as government taking control of industries are found). The "positive" end of the y axis
Not Communism. Fascism. (Score:2)
The government telling companies how to run their business is the definition of communism.
No. It's the definition of the economic system part of Fascism.
In Communism the commune/government owns and controls the capital equipment and sites, and the equivalent of the C-suite executives are government appointees.
The National Socialists tried that sort of direct control at first, too. And they ran straight into the usual collectivist collapse of efficiency, where the execs who know what works are replaced by
Majoring in minor things (Score:2)
Seems like this guy should be focusing his attention on matters more important than hearing a rooster on a phone call.
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Seems like this guy should be focusing his attention on matters more important than hearing a rooster on a phone call.
Seems like he was but the rooster was getting in the way.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Just curious, where is Lapog ?
We used to fly into laoag and kitesurf out of Pagudpud.
Lapog and San Juan don't seem to get me anywhere, search wise.
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San Juan, formerly Lapog and officially the Municipality of San Juan, is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Ilocos Sur, Philippines.
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Searching for Lapog returns that, but searching for Lapog Philippines returns Laoag results as well and hides all the Lapog results. Nice ...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lapo... [duckduckgo.com]
Thanks!
Verison (Score:2)
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Verizon: Fucking employees and customers over because we can
FTFY
Re: Verison (Score:3, Insightful)
At one point in the call ... (Score:2)
Here comes HR (Score:2)
Yeah they come to snuff the rooster
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You know - he ain't gonna die...
Keep it local. (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Blame globalization. A virus didn't send call center jobs overseas, greed and shortsightedness did.
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also, over-reacting state governors who stab non-large corporate business in the heart. If a job supports a family it's "essential", fuck their definitions. There are plenty of businesses that could have continued in a safe way but our jabba the hut pus-ball with no brains shut them down (Illinois)
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greed and shortsightedness did
What was shortsighted about it? I don't see the likes of Verizon being negatively affected by offshoring their callcentre. Quite the opposite, they regularly show up on the list of most hated companies and yet still reported a $19 billion profit last year.
Greed yes, but it was a clever financial move on their behalf, and customers hearing a Rooster in the background of their support call isn't going to affect them any more than it already has.
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True story: (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to work in a building that was a former US embassy. It was armored, outer walls were floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass with a grid of steel bars behind it, and it had an armored safe room inside that we used as the server room. Normally it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop in there, but there were two noises that made it inside the building: The crowing of roosters nearby, and a guy who would get drunk around lunch time and start cursing up a storm. These made it onto phone calls, which is the main reason we moved to a different building.
Re:True story: (Score:4, Funny)
I used to work in a building that was a former US embassy......These made it onto phone calls, which is the main reason we moved to a different building.
Plus you would always have to worry about a terrorist with really out of date intel.
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Nothing compared to kids (Score:2)
I'd take a flock of roosters over my three little kids yelling and stomping around, and my wife screaming at them constantly.
I never thought I'd miss traffic. But this sucks.
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I'd take a flock of roosters over my three little kids yelling and stomping around, and my wife screaming at them constantly.
I never thought I'd miss traffic. But this sucks.
I know what you mean. I really miss my office.
I love my little rooster... (Score:1)
by Almeda Riddle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
India support down to a new low (Score:2)
I have paid my maintenance contract for a "high end but slightly uncommon" piece of software critical to my company. Had to call in for support recently, and the call volume was so low as to be unbelievable. I turned my phone up to the max and it sounded like they were whispering from 10 feet away. I kept telling them I couldn't understand or hear them and they finally yelled and apologized so I could make out about 20% of their words. It was unreal.
So luckily, I found a US based place that does support on
Re:India support down to a new low (Score:4, Insightful)
So luckily, I found a US based place that does support on this thing. Am I paying double now, yes. (...) Moral of the story? I keep having bad experiences with outsourced IT support , really bad ones.
But you keep trying to the cheap option, over and over again. It's not going to turn around until getting quality domestic support is the first choice, not something you try when the cheap stuff wouldn't cut it.
yes, had that with Infor (Lawson financials) (Score:2)
Very nice and competent help person with soft voice often couldn't be heard over the rooster. Well, we fixed our financial system but dang if that didn't remind me of staying on relatives farm with the chickens firing up at 4:30am.
Better or Worse? (Score:3)
Based on my last few support calls, I'm not sure if getting a rooster or somebody overseas is actually worse than service from a call center in the US.
One of them had an incredibly thick Indian accent, but the guy was so happy and eager to help that I'd swear he was hopped up on something.
On the other hand, the two of the more memorable calls that I know went to a US center... the first one had a decidedly unhelpful rep who insisted that she could do nothing and "the computer is smarter than we are". (Ironically, I eventually gave up and called back, getting a different rep, who apologized for the problem, saying "these computers are dumb".) The second incident lead to somebody who sounded incredibly pissed that I would dare bother her about something as silly as trying to get home after her company cancelled my flight in late January (one of the first COVID flight cancellations).
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> One of them had an incredibly thick Indian accent, but the guy was so happy and eager to help that I'd swear he was hopped up on something.
He was probably really happy to be employed.
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elitists are easily bothered (Score:2)
They "need" laws all the time to insulate them from life.
I don't need everything polished to death, thank you very much.
This is new? (Score:2)
This is hardly a new thing. For years my support calls were routed to a call center next to a main thoroughfare. You could hear horns honking and trucks going by in the background. (It appears that in India drivers use their horns A LOT.) Or maybe it was someone's apartment overlooking the highway or a card table set up under an overpass. I dunno. But when you called that vendor, you were guaranteed to be fighting to understand the tech over the sound of heavy traffic. The workaround was to do all co
Stepson is a call center employee (Score:3)
So, I'm married to a Filipino, and my stepson works as a call center employee in the Philippines. Last month, his employer got him hooked up with DSL internet and gave him a VPN's VoIP telephone that links to their call center network. While he has no chickens, his "home issues" involve two-year-old. His phone is right next to his TV, because that's the only place where can connect his phone to the provider's service box. Either the TV is on with children's programming, which can be heard on his calls, or he has the TV off, causing his two-year-old to cry, which can be heard on his calls. The average Filipino home has about as much floor space as a typical American one-bedroom apartment. There's really no place to go for quiet privacy.
And yes, there's lots and lots of roosters, both in the city and outside the city, it doesn't matter. Filipino's love chicken, and they love cockfighting [youtube.com]. You hear them everywhere.
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Well not everywhere. I am in Manila and I never hear any roosters around here. You aren't wrong exactly but it's a bit of an overgeneralization. Avoiding roosters and continuously barking dogs in cages and neighbors with karaoke machines is a serious challenge in PH, but it's not impossible. I live in a very quiet building now, but unfortunately a tall office building is under construction right in front of my apartment. Yes it is a country where silence is elusive which is unfortunate from a call center pe
The Beginning of the Corona Era. (Score:2)
People will work from home, more and more.
You will hear the neighbor mowing the lawn, not the copy machine.
I have the same problem (Score:2)
Even when the domestic birds are quiet, the wild ones make such a racket around here that every call sounds like you're dialed into Birdin
Re:Ask to transfer to his manager... (Score:4, Funny)
No he is a real Cock.
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I live in the urban Seattle area and we have half a dozen chickens (no rooster, thank the gods). Our neighbors had turkeys and a couple of goats at one point.
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We have chickens, so we have chicken feed. We have chicken feed so we have rats. The insane tangles of blackberries provide ideal habitat. A BB gun will just startle a rat.
I have a 750 fps pump air rifle that will go through the largest rat. The long way. I stopped counting at 60, my wife's dog has nailed 9 more, and the count from the traps undoubtedly beat us both.