[TelstraClear] Is Helpdesk Coming To The Home of Broadband

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [TelstraClear] Is Helpdesk Coming To The Home of Broadband - New Zealand?

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BuzzLightyear

411 posts

Ultimate Geek

#554908 7-Dec-2011 11:18

When you look at this from an employer perspective one of the arguments for off shoring is that lack of skilled local talent to be able to be employed in roles here. In fact, if you look at most call centre / helpdesk arrangements they will be largely filled with an immigrant work force. I also loathe dealing with off shore call centres but I not convinced that we have all the talented people needed in NZ to fill all the helpdesk roles required without some more serious investment in training or upskilling. It may be generalising to think all these companies are being evil and sending the work off shore.

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CruciasNZ

879 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#554909 7-Dec-2011 11:26

The wonderful counterpoint to your argument is training.

Surely it is far more efficient to train a native English speaking workforce to do a job, rather than train an unskilled and non-native-speaking workforce overseas. I have also found that native English speaking support staff are able to visualize the problem better and follow you in thinking outside the box (and away from the PC checklist oversea staff tend to follow religiously). This isn't to say oversea staff cannot do this, just that it is far easier if you're not struggling to understand the language.

Just to nip the argument in the bud, yes oversea call centre staff may be "fluent" in English but only in basic English. Very few people can learn to speak another language natively and that is a big issue for call centers who have to deal with (usually) franctic calls from non-expert customers.

So now my point has expanded to cover another point, money, morality and now efficiency.

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DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#554944 7-Dec-2011 12:27

BuzzLightyear: When you look at this from an employer perspective one of the arguments for off shoring is that lack of skilled local talent to be able to be employed in roles here. In fact, if you look at most call centre / helpdesk arrangements they will be largely filled with an immigrant work force. I also loathe dealing with off shore call centres but I not convinced that we have all the talented people needed in NZ to fill all the helpdesk roles required without some more serious investment in training or upskilling. It may be generalising to think all these companies are being evil and sending the work off shore.

What happens if we take this entry level, youth employment jobs out of the local system and export them to the third world?

The fabric of our society starts to fail.

By taking out everything in the green we remove the need for adult employment in both the eduction sector and management area.

Without local employment by our biggest companies (and we have to remember, Telstra is our second biggest national ISP), our kids won't be able to get the local jobs they need to get the experience to get an overseas job.

On the other hand in the third world they are doing an amazing job. They are training locally, learning a second language, giving their kids jobs in local call centers then sending them over seas withe local experience they've gained... this while 25% of our youth sit on the dole.

Edit: Ps - Mr Johnstone, if you're reading, I know you thought I wasn't paying attention in Form 1 when you did food chains and eco systems, but clearly I was paying much more attention than most people thought I was ;)

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BuzzLightyear

411 posts

Ultimate Geek

#554947 7-Dec-2011 12:35

I'm not sure if it would be easier or more efficient to train a native english speaker to learn a technical skill vs training a technically skilled person to learn English. However, the natives (or local) will give a far better customer experience. My point was do we have the appropriately ready people in NZ to step into these roles and do we invest in training them?

Training and upskilling the local should be the focus but if a company is looking for a quick win this may seem on the surface to be more costly.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#555088 7-Dec-2011 16:32

BuzzLightyear: I'm not sure if it would be easier or more efficient to train a native english speaker to learn a technical skill vs training a technically skilled person to learn English. However, the natives (or local) will give a far better customer experience. My point was do we have the appropriately ready people in NZ to step into these roles and do we invest in training them?

Training and upskilling the local should be the focus but if a company is looking for a quick win this may seem on the surface to be more costly.

It's not just English that gives a better consumer experience. It's being local that counts just as much.

As someone commented recently to me, half the time you can hardly tell that a person is not in .nz or even is in .nz from their speaking ability.

Over the last few weeks I've been dealing a bit with a rep from one provider who is very Indian, but she's based here in Christchurch. So while I did have trouble from time to time with her accent and diction, I had no problem conveying why taking action for some people here in Christchurch was important.

Her ability to grasp local issues was simply on key.

But the big issue to me is she's part of our food chain. She'll be spending her wages in our community. This in turn means profits to her customers.

When we have big companies like Telstra (over $700m turn over last year) taking our jobs and sending them over seas and breaking such an important link in our food chain we have a problem, don't we?

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