Sukosaki.info Headlines

June 30, 2006

Outsourced Help Desk really helpful?

I am sure all of us have experienced this before in one way or another. Calling the help desk for any kind of product malfunction you can think of and getting a customer service person from INDIA on the other line. Well, recently while having trouble with our HP printer at work after a minor power outage, we gave HP a call. Connected with their outsourced help desk in INDIA we preceded to go through the steps to get this thing fixed and printing again.

First we get to tell the lady that we have been through all of the normal steps; unplug, plug in, shutdown, reboot. You know, all of the things that every one of us knows already since owning any piece of tech equipment. She says "ok" and we are off to find the problem.

First problem we encounter is with the fact that the lady is talking to us like we are some kind of sales rep. For the company and we know every little thing about this printer. Maybe we do, BUT isn't she supposed to be able to help a complete idiot step by step? Either way, their first plan of attack is to make you go through a list of steps which seem to be quite similar to what you may have done BEFORE you even called the help desk in the first place. Once being told that step has been done already, she moves to the next steps of a "new" process, one at a time. In the meantime, by the 3rd step we realize that it's the same thing just in a different order. What the F*ck?? Finally we have given up since she isn't helping us at all. Nothing she has said has done any good.

Now she feels defeated and has to issue a ticket number, ask for our name and number (as if they will ever call) and make it sound like they are going to check into the problem and call us back. Guess how long the phone call took? 1 HOUR. Yup, one full hour of absolute nothing. How much can a large company like HP really be saving by sending all of their calls to a call center in INDIA?? Nothing gets fixed, customers get pissed and ultimately tell other people and never buy from them again. To me it just seems like a waste of money instead of a savings in any way.

Has just about everyone dealt with a situation like this? According to conference-board.org: "Eighty Percent of Companies That Outsource HR Functions Would Do So Again". How pathetic is this?

Enjoy.

June 11, 2006

Hey Give that man a Steak Sandwich...oh wait....

.....He is the Steak Sandwich king. Geno's Steaks became my hero for the week. In his restaurant he posted a sign at the register that states:

"This is America, when ordering please speak English"

Harmless, yet to the EXACT point, right? Well, Geno says for the most part it hasn't been a big deal. There is a Latino Group that is planning to make a group order only in Spanish to protest. Ok, fine you don't like his sign, but what are you going to do when you don't get what you ordered? Piss and moan I am sure.
That's the thing with people who protest in this way. They see a quick opportunity to strike, but when something doesn't go there way, they have no problems crying about it. That isn't right. Where on Earth would you think that a bunch of white-bred-cracker-restaurant-folk are going to know what you are talking about if it isn't in English?

Whatever, but Kudos to Geno.

Enjoy!