For those looking for it, here is my response to Virgin Media’s “Did we answer your question? How are we doing?”, which was too long to publish on Facebook, Twitter or anything else pithy :-
It’s usually a joy to ask a question as one finds the customer service representative doesn’t read it before ploughing headlong into an answer. I’d love to engage them in some badinage and spend three hours re-iterating my initial (simple)question, but I worry life is too short. I still feel that offshoring customer service to India is a fundamental mistake. They’re polite and courteous, but don’t understand spoken English nuances and it’s a problem that won’t go away until CS returns to the UK. You may think you’re saving company pennies doing this, but it doesn’t help customer loyalty and despite everything, has not improved customer service. I’d wager your budget would be better spent hiring a few of the millions unemployed in the UK to provide a better service at probably the same cost. Of course I open myself to accusations of racism, but we know in our heart of hearts this isn’t true. It’s generally an excuse peddled by the lazy, who don’t wish to engage in meaningful discussion on the topic. I’ve been to India and they’re wonderful people with a fantastic work ethic but offshoring customer facing operations has been fundamentally flawed from the outset, a fact only a handful of UK companies have grasped.
I’ve opined similar sentiments on previous occasions only to be met by a standard corporate response. I’m happy you’ve read this far, so there is no need really to follow up further. Hopefully it’s entertained as well as informed. This is my raison d’etre!
Blue Clouds 