What to do when your ISP off-shores tech support

Fri Dec 26 19:24:15 UTC 2008

I think I've touched at least 15+ countries with Cisco HTTPS, and minus a
few language issues, they're pretty decent.

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Jay Hennigan <jay at west.net> wrote:

> Martin Hannigan wrote:
>
>  Hi Jay:
>>
>> Is there really anything wrong with sending first-level technical support
>> offshore?
>>
>
>  Macs are macs, Windows is windows and mail is mail whether you're in
>> Mumbai or Memphis. As long as the language skills are good and the people
>> are well trained, it should be mostly irrelevant, IMHO.
>>
>
> In and of itself and setting aside patriotic/nationalistic issues, probably
> not, assuming adequate technical and product knowledge and language skills.
>  I suppose that it would be possible that if it were done well enough one
> wouldn't be able to tell.
>
> However, there is something about dealing with a local company that adds
> value.  People seem to care more about their community and neighbors than a
> random, barely understandable voice on a G.729 8k codec at the other end of
> a satellite link.
>
> I have generally found dealing with most offshore tech support to be very
> frustrating.  The language issues are burdensome, some accents so thick as
> to be barely understandable, and the lack of clue and scripted menu-driven
> responses are obvious and usually of no value.  I wouldn't be calling if the
> problem could be solved by reading the documentation and some judicious web
> searching.  There are some exceptions, including Cisco TAC which is very
> good.  I've talked to Cisco engineers in Australia and Europe on occasion.
>  I've had mixed results with Linksys support, which I believe is in the
> Philippines.
>
> Dealing with one offshore AT&T billing representative who was clearly a
> non-English speaker was extremely painful.  The latency and nonsense of the
> person's responses suggested either some type of auto-translator or
> satellite link, or both.  The person wasn't capable of getting the hint when
> I asked after several minutes of frustration what the "A" in "AT&T" stood
> for, and in fact claimed to have no idea.  I suspect that this level of
> disservice may be deliberate so that people will pay bogus charges on bills
> because the frustration level of disputing them is intentionally high.
>
>
> --
> Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay at impulse.net
> Impulse Internet Service  -  http://www.impulse.net/
> Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
>
>

-- 
Josh Potter