Vivek Shanmugam's Blog

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Call from India!

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 | Author: Vivek

Now… Don’t get angry on me that i am always writing about calls! Since i am working at a Call Centre, right now my life revolves around calls and thats the reason majority of my posts are about calls…! Will try to write about some other topics as well…

Now this post is about Amusing US Customers…

The US Customers are so very Amusing to us and i think that they think likewise about us!

Its all about the kind of reaction that we get when we tell the customer that we’re calling from India. Many of the customers would be surprised that we were speaking to them from India.

They would tell me, ‘Its really amazing to that you could take control of your computer from that far and resolve the issue in minutes!’ And if i solve their issue, they would jump with joy and pour out praises on me! And my reaction ‘Ah! That was Nothing!’ Trying to be Modest!!

Some customers have the impression of the Old India with Elephants, Kohinoor Diamonds or Beggars, Poverty etc. One of the cx asked me, ‘I’ve heard that you have lots of Diamond Mines there!’ Me:‘I guess so’. And Some of the customers dont even know where India is! One of them asked me, ‘Is it near Brazil?!’

Our Ops Manager(Short for Operations Manager) told us that, these days the surprise element has gone down, because many of the customers would know that the call centres are in India, Philipines, etc. During the Days when he took calls(That would be 3-4years back), if the customer comes to know that he’s speaking from in India, they would literally jump with astonishment and surprise. You are talking to me from India?! He said some customers even disconnect the call immediately after hearing that he’s from India thinking that they’re on an International Call and that they’ll be charged! Or else, the customer would call everybody in the family near the phone, like for example their son/daughter, grandson/granddaughterand tell them, Hey Jim/Mary(any name!) I am talking to a Technical Support Person who is from INDIA!!! Can you believe that! He’s from India and he is able to access our computer so fast. And One by one each of the family member will have a word with him. Say Hi to that Uncle from India! lol

Category: Sutherland | Tags: America, Amusing, Call, Call Centre, Customers, Hi, India, International, Sutherland | 2 Comments

DELL PnP Training @ Sutherland

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | Author: Vivek

After Clearing the MSV, we then went on to do our PnP Training. Thats the Product and Process Training for DELL! We were put into Printers 4 in 1 batch! This training was for 22days!

4 in 1 Printers deals with DELL Branded Printers, Projectors, Axims, TVs and MP3 Players! We had a Process Trainer and a Professional Skills Trainer! We had this training from 4pm to 12am! This Shift was kinda cool! The initial few days were very Boring! But later on it picked up speed and the entire training was over in No Time!

We were taught how to use DELL tools to retrieve customer information, enter data, notes for each call! There were so many tools to use in each call! And the skills like Empathy, Rapport Building, etc with the Customers while on a call! At the end of this training we practiced Mock Calls! After the Training we had to undergo ACP on the Floor with Quality Control People. Our Office was in DLF IT Park! So, after finishing the training we went there to give our ACP!

We were introduced to our TL’s! who had some 36 odd months of experience at Sutherland! Only after when i started working, I noticed that many guys say that they have so and so many months of experience in the industry! Till then, I had only heard people say their experience in years! There’s this Guy, Vijendran aka Gaja who works with us. He has a total 4 yrs experience! He had worked in Call Centres like Accenture, Barkleys, and 5-6 other Big Names(i dont remember the names!), his max stay in a company being 10-11 odd months! Thats the Trend! My Dad had experience in Banking for 25 odd years! And it was the Same ol’ Bank for all those years! But, it was then! And thats Past! Things change! The trends different now! Who knows, maybe in the future, everyone will say i have so and so many hours of experience in the industry!

Well, coming back to ACP… After finishing the PnP training we then came to DLF Sutherland and had to take an ACP(i think its, Accurate Call Profiling) Test! I somehow managed to clear it! And so we successfully moved on to the the next step! And that was directly into production floor! We were gonna take calls from the day after!!!