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Apple nixes off-shore support in India

updated 12:30 am EDT, Sun June 4, 2006

Apple pulls out of India

Apple has canceled its plans for its offshore tech support in India, but the company was not forthcoming about its reason for the pull out. The Times of India reports that Apple has laid off all 30 employees it had hired for its subsidiary, Apple Services India Pvt Ltd. in April of this year The company told workers in a meeting on May 29 that "the company is revaluating its operations and has thought of pulling back its Indian operations," according to the report. Apple, which said it was giving the employees a severance package of two months salary, told the Times that it has "decided to put its planned support centre growth in other countries."

The company, however, will continue to operate its sales and marketing arm in Bangalore which employs 25 people. The specific reasons for the pullout were unkwnon, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs had delayed his trip to the region, after reports indicated that Apple had planned a two-phase 300,000 square-foot tech support center with as many as 1,500 workers by the end of this year and a total of 3,000 employees by the end of 2007 in the new Bangalore facility.

by MacNN Staff

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Ishan Bhattacharya
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2000

0

06/04, 04:51am | report spam | close Reply |
Offshore tech support

Apple was being unfavorably compared to Dell as well as other vendors (both of computers and other products and services) for using offshore tech support for their "elite" products. Whether this was fair or not is really irrelevant. Perception is everything in marketing and xenophobia exists at all education and income levels in society. Apple will still use the talent pool in India to its advantage. It just does not want "guilt by association" with other computer hardware distributors (as well as banks and other retail establishments) to undermine the image of Apple products as a "cut above" what's available from Best Buy, CompUSA and the like.

ronjamin
Baninated

Joined: May 2002

0

06/04, 05:22am | report spam | close Reply |
Thank God

I have used Indian customer support from everything ranging from ordering a Pizza Company (Vocelli's Pizza, Pittsburgh), to Dell.

In all cases, its a s*** poor experience. Customer support should be nation-specific. Although we would like to believe that the world is a small place, there are too many cultural differences to be putting the most important people, customer support, in other countries.

spyinthesky1

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06/04, 05:34am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Call centres

Well my experience of Indian call centres is appalling so I feel this move is a positive one. Tech centres as such are generally less of a problem I think.

smitch
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2005

0

06/04, 07:35am | report spam | close Reply |
Agreed

There seems to be a cultural language barrier to connecting with tech support outside the country of origin. I have expectations in my country because of past experience. My support calls (for ANYTHING tech or non-tech) which end up in India have always required talking to two sometimes three people, often the last of which is someon here in my home country. Its not bigotry that is the issue since the folks I'm talking to probably do have answers I need and I'm not in any way against those in India. It is mostly the language. Understanding American English with its nuances seems to always gives Indian tech support problems. I find I spend as much time helping them comprehend the English of my problem as I do understanding their response. My knee-jerk reaction when I am talking to tech support now, is 'where are you physically located' which tells me immediately whether I'm likely to resolve my issue or not. I often just ask to speak to a supervisor and then I get transferred to someone back in the states.

chotty
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2003

0

06/04, 09:58am | report spam | close Reply |
Ireland

I have gotten Ireland a couple times when calling Apple support and it was FANTASTIC. Much nicer than their US counterparts and always ON THE BALL! No wonder Ireland has become the "Celtic Tiger" of EU economics and tech.

goatman
Junior Member

Joined: May 2000

0

06/04, 11:03am | report spam | close Reply |
no thanks

The biggest thing that drives me crazy about Indian call centers is that at the end of the call, they do the corporate "thank you" over and over. I actually raised my voice to someone recently saying, "Please stop thanking me!"

bobolicious
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

06/04, 12:04pm | report spam | close Reply |
Mr Steve...

My experiences with offshore tech supporthave been disappointing as well. Cultural issues aside, understanding, language & poor quality VoIP connections have been extremely frustrating... Treading carefully would be wise...

Besides, I thought Apple products didn't need support ? Do they ? :)

dlindsay17
Forum Regular

Joined: Dec 1999

0

06/04, 12:17pm | report spam | close Reply |
good!!

thanks for listening, Apple!

milhouse
Senior User

Joined: Jan 2001

0

06/04, 12:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
good move

I had terrible experiences with Dell's India support center (picked up a monitor). It took multiple and repeated calls to resolve a simple issue. because of this, I would look elsewhere in the future before buying a commodity item from Dell. My GF's bank even has their support center in India. She found out when trying to resolve a credit card issue. She refused to give her personal account and ID info to someone in another country and uses a card from another issuer. Not only is the language thing an issue, but security of personal/financial information as well.

macnixer
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2006

0

06/04, 01:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
Ummm...

I am surprised that a sence of bigotry remains when someone says that the language is a barrier. While not being a bigot myself, I myself work with a firm developing software for US and supporting multiple sites, our customers are happy the way we handle all issues. You would be surprised the way we propose solutions right from high end Rational support to Mac OS X porting. I have been personally involved to the extent the cutomer refers to me issues concerning cross-platform development to Macintosh specific issues. I support them from automation using AppleScipt, Perl, ANT or RealBasic to C programming. Please get over the feeling that technically we are not sound and believe me I chat with many on iChat from home and they welcome that my English is clear and we communicate easily. I have used and also helped many solve pertinent issues many a time and for free. :) But then life is like that. I may be the lone wolf but I am more of a Fat Tyre drinker at the AZ bar on Southern in Mesa. :)

dimplemonkey
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2001

0

06/04, 04:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
I don't have a problem..

with any support from India. Basically, if I get a call from that part of the world, I hang up and call again, or look for an alternate number, or mash 0 for the operator for tech support in the US based city of the company.

chriz

Joined:

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06/04, 11:02pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Even here!

Here, in Canada, Apple tech support is mainly composed with native Canadians. But sometimes, your call end up into no-native canadians and god... This is so hard to understand them... It's even worst with other companies (Bell, etc...)

Good Move Apple!

driven
Addicted to MacNN

Joined: May 2001

0

06/05, 12:58am | report spam | close Reply |
Not xenophobia

It's not xenophobia that people don't like tech support from india, it's past experience.

Tech support is the face of your company. Do you want those who are least experienced and least knowledgeable about your company representing it? No. That's why Dell's once stellar support ratings are now falling drastically.

It's like appointing your grocery-store clerk to secretary of state. While the clerk may be well intentioned they are ill-equipped to do the job and it will likely end in disaster.

Titanium Man
Forum Regular

Joined: Mar 2001

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06/05, 03:39am | report spam | close Reply |
Never had a problem

I've had to call tech support or customer service and sometimes got someone with an indistinct accent that tells me they're not American but trying to sound American. But these people still were able to get my problems fixed. Meanwhile, I've also dealt with Americans who were rude, unknowledgeable and generally had the attitude that they were too good for the job. So stop with the generalizations.

wyorancher

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06/05, 07:26am | report spam | close Reply | delete
apple stays polished

Just gotta chime in with the unsatisfactory tech support from India. I had to call Quark for tech support ONCE. HAHAHAHAAAAAHHHAAAA - the support was the worst but no worse than the inability of each of us to understand one another. "Hello - my name is Chip, how may I help you." No it isn't, your name is Hrundi isn't it! Nice move Apple - at least for me your support has always been the best.

charliem

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06/05, 08:19am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apple Offshore

So somebody else was pissed about Vocelli Pizza going to a call centre (when the shop is physically located a few blocks away). Apple has always been priced at a premium, but for products that were worth it. If Dell targets itself as the cheapest 'vanilla' generic PC, let them. One gets what one pays for. All one gets from those cost-cutting offshore support schemes is fury at the name that is on the product. If Dell wants to be the WalMart of computers, so be it. This is another reason why Apple is different ... and better. I have railed against His Steveness many times in the past, but I have to cheer when he makes good calls like nixing the Indian call centre. Bravo!

Smurfman
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2001

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06/05, 08:36am | report spam | close Reply |
re: titanium man

titanium man said: "So stop with the generalizations."

Dude, these comments are not generalizations. They are widespread fact. I'm sure there are very few out there who have not had to talk with Indian tech support of some kind.

Many people I know have spoken with Indian tech support (especially those who own Dell machines) and have absolutely hated their support! I've spoken with a number of Indian support technicians and also hate the support. They have not listened very well, seem to be going through a script, and are, of course, very difficult to understand.

I believe the Indians should be supporting customers from India, not the rest of the world. Kudo's to Apple for choosing what's best for the consumer.

bhcs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 1999

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06/05, 09:28am | report spam | close Reply |
Yahoo Apple

Brilliant move and another that makes us feel like we users as people are important to Apple and not just our money. Sit on this one Microsloth!!

bommai
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Joined: Feb 2001

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06/05, 09:38am | report spam | close Reply |
GE employee IT support

GE employee IT support goes to India too and it generally sucks. They are so clueless that we generally call them the help-less desk. Even though I am originally from India, there is no way I can call the level of support we get from India as sufficient.

Monde
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2004

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06/05, 09:51am | report spam | close Reply |
ahhh

I wondered how long it would take for the straw dog of bigotry to raise it's ugly head. India, Ireland, Canada, Russia, China, it doesn't matter who is providing the support. What matters is-is the support good. Apple's standards are pretty high, certainly better than Dell's. Is it possible, after a review, they thought that this Indian company's support record didn't measure up? I have had abysmal outsourced support from India and on one occasion okay support. Overall not a great batting record. Apple, most likely, made a choice that best serves their customers-plain & simple. If anything would engender bigotry, it would be attempting to negotiate a problem with support staff incapable of doing so due to cultural and communication disconnects.

testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

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06/05, 10:02am | report spam | close Reply |
Cost vs. experience

If I had to guess, I'd say this was mostly a business decision based on $$$, not whether some people would think they were dell-like (h***, a lot of people think they are dell-like, except with funkier enclosures).

A recent report detailed the so-called cost savings of moving support to India was a whole lot less then what many companies were expecting (gee, it still costs money to train people, and it still costs money to keep qualified people, who knew?).

Of course, if Apple spent more money on Q&A where they didn't send out stuff so badly designed and implemented, they probably could reduce their staff and support costs. I mean, how many support calls do you think they have gotten in the last couple of years due to beeping, hissing, mooing, meowing, overheating, hair-dryer blowing, capacitor-bulging, video-spazzing, power-supply-exploding, etc, etc, etc.

All I know is that the only problem I ever had with my macs was the power supply issues with the old 128/512K Macs (a notorious problem for those fan-less things). After that, all was well, until I bought one of the many, many, many crappy video iBooks.

ronjamin
Baninated

Joined: May 2002

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06/05, 10:24am | report spam | close Reply |
What jerks.

Anyone here that tries to "politicize" this by citing bigotry are jerk-offs.

The fact remains that Indian tech support sucks. Frankly, I've had the use of British tech support, and the cockneyed accent drove me crazy, but somehow I was able to get the technical issue fixed.

I've had instance of working with Czech technical support and they were super efficient. Frankly, I don't recall any Irish technical support, and maybe this is to their credit.

If I have had Irish tech support, I never knew it. Thats the way it should be. So until the world is homogeneous (lol), tech support should remain country specific.

I particularly liked the analogy between Secretary of State and a grocery bagger.

One of the most important people that Disney has is their maintenance staff. They spend countless thousands of dollars training these people to be top notch. The reason: the public interacts with these people. THEY represent the public face and public voice of the company. If they cannot communicate, cannot solve problems, sound if they are talking with marbles in their mouth, then they, in effect, destroy the company they are working for.

GORDYmac
Mac Elite

Joined: Dec 1999

0

06/05, 10:57am | report spam | close Reply |
ha! I know why...

Glad to see Apple listens to customer complaints. I bought an AirPort base station and two AirPort Extremes with the intention of setting up a wireless connection in my new home. After a frustrating call with the 'AppleCare guy with an Indian accent', I returned everything.

Yes, there was a language barrier, and yes, an American would have taken care of the problem. While they both would have read a script, at least the American would have found the correct script (see 'language barrier').

bdusen
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

06/05, 11:47am | report spam | close Reply |
now if you want bad...

If you think India's bad, I've called someplace with even ruder people and harder to understand accents: New England! The tech center for the bank I work for is located outside of Boston so any time I call with a tech support issue for one of my customers I deal with angry-sounding people asking "What's da customah's cahd numbah?"

Cubester
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2001

0

06/05, 09:14pm | report spam | close Reply |
Another bad experience

I had to use Vonage's tech support - I'm guessing the call center was in India from the accent. They were painfully polite, but barely understood a word I said, and I couldn't understand them either. VERY frustrating. I was passed along to three different agents. It was clear they were reading from a script; my chops as an advanced user placed me four or five pages into their script, but it didn't matter. I was compelled to crawl through beginning steps again and again. What should have been a 5 minute call lasted about 45 minutes. A very unpleasant experience

slboett
Grizzled Veteran

Joined: May 1999

0

06/07, 10:07pm | report spam | close Reply |
Xenophobia?

No, left-wing nutbags who've wasted their family's money in hi-priced American Universities.

People who hate Indian tech-support do so for very good reasons.

1) It generally sucks a** 2) It takes these jobs away from Americans that need these jobs and who understand our language and culture 3) Even the technical delays in overseas calls make it even more painful 4) Apple and other companies are making RECORD EARNINGS - I want my support to be worth the cost of the items I buy.

Nothing about the above is "racist" or otherwise improper. You ideologues that think so need to get a job and live in the real world.

SB

vaishali

Joined:

0

06/09, 05:33am | report spam | close Reply | delete
no thanks

The biggest thing that drives me crazy about Indian call centers is that at the end of the call, they do the corporate "thank you" over and over. I actually raised my voice to someone recently saying, "Please stop thanking me!"

vaishali

Joined:

0

06/09, 05:46am | report spam | close Reply | delete
no thanks

The biggest thing that drives me crazy about Indian call centers is that at the end of the call, they do the corporate "thank you" over and over. I actually raised my voice to someone recently saying, "Please stop thanking me!"

vaishali

Joined:

0

06/09, 07:37am | report spam | close Reply | delete
good!!

thanks for listening, Apple!

vaishali

Joined:

0

06/09, 07:37am | report spam | close Reply | delete
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vaishali

Joined:

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Apple nixes off-shore support in India

updated 12:30 am EDT, Sun June 4, 2006

Apple pulls out of India

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