I am admittedly one of those who despises overseas call centers. Not only is language (and overall service) often questionable, I question the savings companies get from opening call centers, particularly in India.
Well, finally some sense of sanity seems to have returned and Delta announced last month that it was CLOSING its' call centers in India and bringing those service and reservation calls back to the U.S. While the announcement says that Delta realized a 25 millions dollar savings using cheap overseas labor, I'm going to guess that there were oodles of problems because of the inevitable language issues that had to be resolved, which probably involved managers in the U.S., refunds, displeased and therefore lost forever customers, etc. Delta admits in its announcement that it had a horde of complaints and I suspect some of that 25 million went back into time and labor resolving language issues. Which means they didn't really save 25 million.
I oppose overseas call centers not just on principle but because the logic of even opening a call center overseas is like eating your young. The people who do not have jobs here in the U.S. are not going to be able to fly anywhere. So by saving 25 mil, I suspect it could cost Delta 20 mil in lost revenue from people not able to find work and not able to take trips. How many of the call center agents in India are going to be flying on Delta? I would guess not many. So they get the income, we get the less than stellar service (in my experience at least) and Delta gets the black eye.
I, for one, support anyone keeping jobs here in the U.S. and will attempt to fly or recommend Delta where ever possible just because of their new policy. As they say down under, Good on ya Delta!
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