Google Wades Further Into Hardware With "Nexus Call Center" 58
An anonymous reader writes with this bit from geek.com: "One of the big complaints surrounding the Nexus 7 launch was the lack of customer support when dealing with the device. Google was not initially prepared to handle the volume of users that required support, which led to an increase in wait time for callers who needed solutions. However, we've recently received word from a source that now Google is using a third party company to staff a call center for the release of the next Nexus devices." Maybe Google needs to out itself as a "devices and services company," too.
Portrait vs Landscape... (Score:1)
Maybe if Google allowed free rotation between portrait and landscape, most of those calls would be alleviated.
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Maybe if Google allowed free rotation between portrait and landscape, most of those calls would be alleviated.
If you are talking about the Nexus 7, it does. The device is by default in a locked orientation. Just swipe down from the top and click the lock icon with the two arrows rotating around it.
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that automatic rotation control app hurts performance. don't use it!
Quite Clear Strategy (Score:1)
It's really becoming quite clear what Google's strategy is now... They're trying to establish a monopoly over all communication, so that they have data on every word going in every direction. They've already pretty much got all internet traffic at some point passing through their sites... They're working on getting all communication done on phones through, and at the same time, now trying to work in all communication going through all phone networks.
Pretty scary stuff.
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Ultimate Rotation Control [google.com] is the app I use.
It's highly configurable and just works.
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If that is true, issue a chargeback on the credit card.
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The customer service fiasco that happened to me was very similar. They promised all preorders would be shipped by some date, which came and went without shipping. Emails were ignored, and it took phone calls to get answers. Of course, the answers were all lies. "Oh, it's shipping today." "Your tracking number will be sent overnight." Basically, the old game of say-anything-to-get-them-off-the-phone. When no tracking numbers and no shipping happened, calling back resulted in the same song and dance. This tim
Iutsourced call centres are worse. (Score:1)
No exceptions.
If you want to provide good support, you train well paid, dedicated staff with a high retention rate.
Otherwise claiming that you support your products is just a very expensive PR stunt.
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Nearly no one uses internal call centers. The costs are just to high for a resource that sees high seasonal need changes and lots of idle resources since it can be very bursty.
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Really... so what. That's part of doing business.
The OP is right... the way outsourcing works it's virtually a P.R. stunt. You might as well hire McDonald's employees away (and give them no training) and keep the jobs in the country. The quality will be the same.
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The reality is a third party call center with multiple clients can do a better and cheaper job. Their agents are talking more calls per hour and doing a better job than some fresh hire at a company that looks at call centers as just another cost.
I am not talking about foreign call centers. I mean outsourcing inside the USA.
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Whatever man, lots of those "american" call centers have main offices in the USA, with maybe 100 agents and 200 managers. The other 1500 phone agents and 100 managers are split into branch offices in India, Mexico and possibly Ireland. Since call-center jobs are highly seasonal, agents are trained to handle different products and switched from one line to the other constantly.
A lot of times you don't notice, because contrary to popular opinion, a well trained call center agent can fake an american accent pr
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That's not inherently true at all. "multiple clients" is just one method to get economies of scale and try to keep your employees sufficiently busy.
I know from experience an on-site call center can in-fact be CHEAPER than any of the call center outsourcing providers, (with perhaps the exception of meeting peak demand, if applicable) while also being more effective.
Re:Iutsourced call centres are worse. (Score:5, Interesting)
No exceptions.
If you want to provide good support, you train well paid, dedicated staff with a high retention rate.
Otherwise claiming that you support your products is just a very expensive PR stunt.
There are differing qualities of outsourced call centers. My company needed a build a 10 seat call center staffed 6am-midnight localtime to handle reservations and questions, we had several known peaks throughout the year where we'd have to double the staff to handle special events. We ended up outsourcing the whole thing to an airline call center that also does outsourcing (our product was a travel product so it was a natural fit). They dedicated 6 lead agents to us, we flew them to our location so they could learn about our product, then we did on site training at the call center for an additional 20 agents that would be floaters that were assigned to us as-needed. One of our staff members went-onsite during the first 2 weeks to help them take calls. answer questions, and build out their knowledge base of frequently asked questions, then we always had local staff on-call so the contact center lead could call with questions.
Worked well, few callers knew that our call center was not "local". And while their service was not "cheap" when you compare their per-hour rate to what we'd pay a local agent, overall, we paid about half what we would have to run our own call center (and had nearly unlimited capacity to handle calls). Since they had the ability to dynamically size the pool of agents that took calls for our product, we only had 6 dedicated agents, where if we had a local call center we would have had to have 15 or more dedicated agents to handle normal call volume (we'd at least 2 shifts to handle the 18 hour day), with more during peak periods.
We got consistently positive feedback on our call center, and I really think that outsourcing let us provide a better experience than if we tried to build it in house.
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I just can't help but wonder, what if the company (airline) who put together the call-center you're outsourcing to, had thought the same thing as you... In some ways "it's turtles all the way down!"
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I just can't help but wonder, what if the company (airline) who put together the call-center you're outsourcing to, had thought the same thing as you... In some ways "it's turtles all the way down!"
They did think the same thing, which is why they started selling their services to other companies. It's just a different angle on exactly the same recognition: It's very costly to build a call center capable of handling the peaks of a single organization's support traffic, because it means you're hugely overstaffed a lot of the time. The solution is to have the call center support more organizations, with different call volume patterns. Ideally, to take on the support load of organizations with complem
How is this... (Score:1)
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Well, given that that is what we saw out of every recent incarnation of slashdot, I don't really expect to see anything different.
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Google Wades Further Into Hardware? (Score:2)
>> Google Wades Further Into Hardware
This headline only makes sense if you're talking about a company that's not already neck-deep in cell phones.
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But they provide support for very few of those cell phones - only the ones they sell directly, correct? There's a large difference between working with a manufacturer to provide software and supporting customer service for hardware units.
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Good point, I did forget that. I wonder if they're leaning on Motorola's previous experience for this.
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Not uncommon to outsource call centers (Score:2)
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It is an instant alienation for a certain percentage of people.
You should of heard this redneck wail in Lowes the other day when the customer service desk said he needed to call Lowes customer support about a refund problem. He didn't want to call no a-rabs.
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Actually, a lot of call center services compete on quality of service.
A client will drop you like a hot potato and switch to another call center if your quality of service is not good enough, and nowadays most good call center contractors have penalization clauses that fine them for every BBB complaint or even for every lost customer.
Sure, some clients will want to pay as little as possible, and they end up with the more seedy suppliers who, in turn, pay peanuts to their agents, resulting in high rotation a
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You are quoting the first part of my comment, but seemed to missed the second part, which answers your question.
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In a not outsourced call center, there is at least the possibility of some being able to talk to a principle face to face for clarifi
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I want more life, father.
Nexus 7 (Score:3)
Improvement over the Nexus 6 (Score:3)
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Its got more memory than the Nexus 6... But whose memory does it have?
Aside from the planned obsolescence, the Nexus 6 was a killer.
Loved My Nexus - Shame The Screen Breaks So Easily (Score:2)
It's a great tablet, but, the screen cracked when I pushed the power button and rendered the touchscreen inoperative, currently ASUS is telling me that any screen damage resulting from use is not covered under warranty.
Here's a video of the damage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3-nbnPyZYM [youtube.com]
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I bought it from Staples, but really it's not Google's responsibility to deal with the shortcomings in Asus hardware, I'm in the US so generally after 30 days the stores won't take back a broken device. Still hoping Asus stands by their product
I dunno about that (Score:2)