Tuesday, November 24. 2009Australian Racism A Significant Issue...John Linton .....as it applies to providing "support" of telecommunication services? It was, perhaps, apposite that I read this article from a well known journalist (I would have added "respected" to the appellation but I'm not sure that any Australian journalist writing today is respected by anyone with any judgment credibility though the man himself seems to think he is a responsible scribbler and is employed by a Fairfax publication which he seems to think is no barrier to journalistic credibility): as I started a three day review of Exetel's Sri Lankan residential support and back office processing facilities. I thought that apart from self describing himself as a total 'goose' and a charmless person, Paul Sheehan completely assassinated himself as a reasonable human being and someone who should be regarded as anything but a totally stupid moron whose sub-editor mistook his racist rant for something newsworthy. As one of the responders to his article replied to him: "it amazes me why people use telstra or optus when there are cheaper services out there. Most important for me is the top dollar service i get at a Why use them competitors beat telstra on all their services, except for the monopoly of foxtel. grass is greener" Of course there are many dozens of replies along the same lines.However the overt racism expressed by a journalist in an allegedly "major" Australian newspaper is an interesting insight in to all sorts of things that were totally wrong about this article starting with a major newspaper giving space to a personal rant which, when you boil it down to its essentials was about a petulant precious darling stamping his foot because he didn't pay his bill - the only difference between Paul Sheehan and the average wanker who rants on online fora as he did is that somehow his newspaper owner allowed his personal racism to be printed in a large circulation newspaper. Very odd. I have no problem in any person 'condemning' their supplier of any service for incompetence in their particular case; though making negative comments about Telstra is not exactly "news" for so many users of their services as the attached comments to the article appear to demonstrate. Having a negative Telstra support story is about as unusual as having a negative comment on the weather - and as equally un-newsworthy. But why did this journalist insist on making his anti-Telstra points in a way that slammed non-Australian personnel, all of whom are employees of Telstra and interleaved his Telstra slamming article with pieces of "But then an Aussie fixed my problem within a few seconds?
I can also say, based on answering support calls for Exetel in its early days, that many of the people I spoke to were far more difficult to understand than the least English language capable of Exetel Sri Lanka's current employees. Undoubtedly many of Exetel's employees in Colombo have a long way to go in terms of having 100% knowledge of our huge range of services and all aspects of how they operate but I would think that the least knowledgeable of them would be more competent in any aspect of any service's operation than Paul Sheehan is in writing a sensible newspaper article. Trackbacks
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Paul Sheehan lost all credibility to me after the 'magic water' fiasco.
Perhaps an article like this fits the Herald's narrative -- it's all capitalism's fault: if the PMG was still running things none of this would have happened, plus Rudd needs some Telstra bashing right now... Comment (1)
I didn't consider it was just 'political ammunition - that would make more sense.
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Well reading through the feedback on that news story it looks like you have some potential customers in the waiting!
Comment (1)
Just some emotional support for people who may now think they are racists:
-You're not a racist if you cannot understand the accent of the representative of your service provider. -You're not a racist if the representative of your service provider can't understand your accent. -You're not a racist if you call for assistance and the person on the other end of the phone insists your name is different to your actual name, or your account type, features or monthly fee is different to the account you actually purchased. If the person on the other end of the phone happens to be in another country, your frustration with an inadequate support system is not racism. -You're not a racist if the overseas-based support person insists there's nothing wrong with your account. Try unplugging everything. -You have a right to be upset if, after waiting 45 minutes in a phone queue, you are handled by a person who refuses to listen to your actual problem, has no empathy for your frustration, and insists on reading from a script or trying to fit your complaint into a convenient selection from a pull-down list on their screen. Your rage is not racism if the other person is based in another country. -You're not a racist if you suspect that the front-line, cut-price support staff who initially handle your case do not need a high level of system competence to handle most of the account queries they are dealt. A very large percentage of support traffic can be handled by someone with a pull-down menu, a good grasp of english and a willingness to listen to sometimes-broad accents. Things fall apart when you don't know what your problem is or can't verbalise it, or you know that your problem is more complicated than "power cycle your modem", but that's the limit of the first-level support-person's knowledge. It's not racism to want to be put through to someone who IS competent with non-scriptable problems, even if that person is paid five times more and works in a building down the road. I hope you can feel better about yourselves now. Comments (2)
Allow me to disagree with you.
I think you miss the point. If ANY support person is unable to provide a reasonably expected competence in dealing with a customer's problem it isn't because they are "Indian", Philippino(a), or from Jupiter. It is because their employer (Telstra in the article's case) didn't train and manage them well enough. It has nothing to do with race or country of location and to endlessly rubbish people making specific reference to their race an location VERY DEFINITELY IS RACISM OF THE WORST KIND. To do so in a major Australian broadsheet is deplorable. Comments (3)
Hey Mark,
You can replace "You're not a racist" in that little rant of yours with "You're not a happy chappy" or "You're not confident in the competence of" All you've done is emphasise through your passive aggressive epoche of "HAY IM NOT A RACIST BUT LOL LOOK AT (X) " is what the result would be of ANY company which lacks clear competency and service. There is no undertone in my response when I say race has nothing to do with it, but all too often, any mistake regardless of the cause can all be thrown back with retrospective baptism of fire as 'bloody overseas call centers' If they are run by Australians, for Australians then a supporting faculty anywhere in the world can accommodate. See, the race of competence is universal. There, and yes I do feel a lot better thanks. Comment (1)
I dont really care where the person im speaking to is located - However my personal experience is that Telstra support has deteriorated even further over the last couple of years.
Previously there was a script type service for DSL support, but if you 'interjected' and explained that you had completed the standard checks but would like a password reset etc - they could 'break away' and help out. I called the support number for a NextG wireless card last week, and (after the frustration of being on hold in general) and having to make up a phone number attached with a service (there wasnt one) on the account, the experience was still frustrating. The cards they are selling (i forget which model) isnt Windows 7 compatible yet. It took some explaining that we didnt have a 'customer number' a service number or any of their usual details because we couldnt click the "register account" button (the drivers wouldnt load properly). I was trying to explain that we needed to know whether the device was windows 7 compatible - but this took an incredible amount of time just to *ask*. Finally, after asking - and coming back from hold, we are informed that it wont work. Which was all I wanted to know to begin with. Comment (1)
I don't begin to dispute what you say.
It just has nothing to do with the location and race of the people. It is an indictment of the management of the process. Comments (3)
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