“Apple CEO Steve Jobs has long had a thing for India… Yet he is also a tough-minded executive who knows when to cut and run. That’s why Apple Computer Inc. has shelved plans to build a sprawling technical support center in Bangalore, even as IBM and other tech powers are ramping up. Just three months back, Apple appeared to be on the same trajectory, and there was talk of the company hiring 3,000 workers by 2007 to handle support for Macintosh computers and other Apple gear. Many in India even speculated that Jobs might travel there this year to publicize Apple’s commitment to the country,” Manjeet Kripalani and Peter Burrows report for BusinessWeek.
“It wasn’t meant to be. In late May, Apple dismissed most of the 30 new hires at its subsidiary in Bangalore. (A handful working in sales and marketing will stay on.) Spokesman Steve Dowling would say only that Apple had ‘reevaluated our plans’ and decided to provide support from other countries,” Kripalani and Burrows report. “Another source familiar with the situation, though, says the decision was cost-driven. ‘India isn’t as inexpensive as it used to be,’ the source says. ‘The turnover is high, and the competition for good people is strong.’ Apple feels it ‘can do [such work] more efficiently elsewhere.'”
Full article here.
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I would have been for it, if you could have chosen to talk to someone in the USA instead. It’s just too hard to understand tech support from people with that strong an accent.
High turnover is certainly a problem in Bangalore. a year or so ago I was supporting a financial institution from a New England site. In a year, there were several defections, most caused when the site moved from NYC to near Boston. Other than that, one left for another job and another was fired. So … 90% retention in a year. For half that year we had a sister site in Bangalore – for off-hours work. They had a 70% retention rate in that half-year and the ones who left were the best qualified/most effective.
How about Scotland? Wouldn’t it be nice to get a nice sounding lassie from Glasgow trying to walk you though a reboot??
That was the point of the article. The Indians who can speak with knowledge and without an accent cost as much as an American to hire.
Namenotgiven said: It’s just too hard to understand tech support from people with that strong an accent.
The accent is only half the problem. The Glaswegian McFly mentioned would have had as thick an accent. Her sentence structure would have been much closer to what an American (the largest pool of callers) is used to.
But that is still only half the problem.
Culture! So much of what we say, or don’t say, is tied up in our culture. A tech from Bangalore will tie herself in knots before saying “no”. She will have no problem saying “we can’t do that” but would rather slice her wrists than say “I won’t do that” or “you are wrong“. Conflict is “unacceptable” to them.
… and Americans don’t have an accent??? (Southern, NT, mid-west, New England, Californian, Mexicans, etc.)
“How about Scotland? Wouldn’t it be nice to get a nice sounding lassie from Glasgow trying to walk you though a reboot??:
True, but they should switch her to the sales staff. Think about how many computers she could sell! Also New Zealand and Aussie girls!
Tommy Boy.
The costs of hiring in countries like India and countries in the Americas are a lot less (specially health care costs which are crippling the US). I have been involved in such projects and I can tell you that the savings are significant. I don’t believe the people are the issue but more like training and presence from the home office at the offshore site.
My guess is that SJ heard of all the support nightmares from customers of companies like Dell, Intuit, and others (which provide support from India) and it decided to look elsewhere.
DLMeyer has a point. Culture is a big part of it. It’s just been my experience when being routed to India for tech support it becomes a long drawn out process of just trying to understand what the other person is saying. At least on my end, it’s not a culture or racial thing… I just need help from someone I can understand.
I recently called SBC for tech support for our DSL at work. It was a nightmare. First the fact that SBC DSL is not a good service anyway… then having to talk to someone who is reading off a card with a heavy accent made it even more difficult.
I don’t think being able to understand the person your talking to for tech support us too much to ask as a customer. If I can’t understand the help desk, then I’ll take my business elsewhere. That’s half of why we’re switching at work to cable. It’s not just the fact that the DSL was glitchy, but that the tech support made the whole experience frustrating.
Holy mackeral…
American’s do have an accent, but it’s one that I can understand. And since I’m the one paying and they are the one supporting, I believe it’s fair of me to expect someone that I can understand on the other end of the line. If their business model disagrees with that then it’s fine by me, as long as they understand that I’ll be taking my $$ elsewhere.
As a former IT contractor, who went “in-house” after Indian firms crushed all American competition with their cut-rate prices, I can’t help but feel a little guilty glee at what’s happening over there. So salaries are up and business is running elsewhere, huh? What goes around, comes around.
Name not given is right. An accent in and of itself is not a problem, it’s a horribly strong accent that cannot be clearly understood that is the problem. I’d much rather speak with someone with a strong accent from say Boston or Chicago than someone from India that I flat out cannot understand at all.
RC… you said it better than me.
name not given:
I sympathize with your frustration about this. But when every American company has sent its jobs overseas, what “elsewhere” choice will we have? We certainly won’t be able to call Mr. Executive at his palatial estate.
That’s assuming that Mr. Executive even has a clue about the technical side of his business.
Go to Donegal, Ireland. Smart educated people, depressed area.
Well, it shouldn’t be too many more years before AI computers can handle tech support calls and corporations won’t have to hire any pesky humans at all. Progress!
Call Fido, and get a French Canadian on the phone. I just politely [yes, politely] say, ‘sorry’; hang up, and redial. It’s quicker to do this — even a few times — than to struggle through with language difficulties.
I understand the need to have some French Canadian call-center staff — we are bilingual. But when I call Nintendo, from Canada — first question is ‘English or French?’. They don’t fob me off with ‘the next available operator’ that can’t possibly communicate with me. Fido doesn’t ask.
These companies need to realize that saving money on employees that can’t articulate themselves — in the language they are serving — is lost money.
My contacts with Apple tech support have all been through Canada – Toronto area to be specific.
Living in upstate NY, that’s more local to me than Cupertino in Cali-la-la-land!
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Why not use Phone-Sex operators?
They could get a hard-drive up and running in no time.
; )
DJ
…and NO I don’t speak from experience.
..from either end of the phone!
When I was working for the Canadian federal government, about 20 years ago, I needed a radio operator to coordinate helicopter flights in a remote area of the Northwest Territories.
They sent me up a homesick, disadvantaged, Italian immigrant teenager from the city of Montreal. He spoke an amazing mixture of street slang, Italian, French and English.
No one, from our French Canadian cook to our British and American pilots to our Canadian scientists to our German and Russian guest scientists, no one could understand what the kid was saying.
Ask the government for a communicator and you get a sideshow. He ended up being the cook’s helper.
If you need someone who can communicate in English to your clients you can get good, low cost workers in Canada. Just don’t go looking in Quebec, Northern New Brunswick or Newfoundland. There is very little English spoken in those places.
Well McFly, you’re right on the mark about Scotland, it is a third world country and needs all the help it can get.
Sadly for it, a socialist tax and spend (read waste) isn’t going to bring inward investment.
Dunno…think Steve’s looking at China?!?
mdn magic word is, and i swear i’m not making this up, ‘national’.