Services had been barely reconnected when my landline and broadband were brutally severed two weeks before I moved, never to be restored, and then broadband would not go live at my new house for yet another week. A mistake, and for a functional professional life a deadly one. Negotiating with Durban or Cape Town or wherever, I was obliged to speak sedulously and distinctly, reciting my birth date, telephone number and address repeatedly, at one point bursting out, "I cannot believe I'm talking to the representative of a telephone company who cannot understand NUMBERS."
I've nothing against the hard-working citizens of Johannesburg or Bangalore, who may be dab hands at solving problems arising in their own countries. But I doubt I'm alone in my dismay that British companies have outsourced their helplines wholesale. These foreign hirelings often speak dubious English. They cannot depart from set scripts, and are powerless to solve difficulties outside a strictly defined list. They lack empathy, understandably — for customers ringing from faraway Britain are just as alien and abstract as the helpline staff are to us.
By contrast, Apple's American helplines are completely staffed by my fellow Yanks. Having required Applecare's frequent assistance getting a new laptop up and running last autumn, I once submitted to an incredibly patient, smart, articulate technician speaking to me from Indiana that "I wasn't a racist or anything, really" but "it was awfully refreshing to ring up and talk to another American", who understood English idioms, could explain complex protocols in language I could follow and who even got my jokes. The technician said carefully, "Yes, I can't tell you how many times we've heard that before."
A "helpline" helps, ostensibly. Companies may be saving money by outsourcing customer service to halfway around the globe. But they are also feeding customers to foreigners who can neither understand problems nor redress them. Helplessline, more like it. This isn't just an economic issue; it's a quality of life one, and the quality of my life in February was knee-high.
