An accent on familiarity

If you prefer a customer service agent who speaks “American,” then computer maker Dell Inc. has a deal for you.

Catering to consumers put off by the accents of India, the Philippines and other call-center hubs around the globe, Dell will guarantee -- for a price -- that the person who picks up the phone on a support call will be, as company ads state in bold text, “based in North America.”

The Your Tech Team service, with agents located in the U.S., costs $12.95 a month for customers with a Dell account, or $99 a year for people who buy new computers. It also promises that wait times will average two minutes or less. Without the upgrade, a customer is likely to get technical help from someone in India or other places Dell has operators.

By charging customers extra for a North American voice, Dell’s program represents a novel strategy for easing the strains of globalization while maintaining profit, industry officials said.

Occasionally, “we’ve heard from customers that it’s hard to understand a particular accent,” Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman said. “This illustrates Dell’s commitment to customer choice.”

Complaints about customer service agents based in other countries are an everyday phenomenon across several industries. For many U.S. consumers, the diverse accents on customer service lines represent a pervasive reminder of globalization and the offshoring of jobs. That can make personnel in the call centers targets for American anger.

Companies can save 50% to 75% on their call centers by locating them overseas, according to industry analysts.

But getting a customer service agent with whom it is easy to communicate ought to be a service that is provided gratis, some analysts said.

“Most people in the customer service world believe that if you have sold me a product, then support for that product should be free,” said Lyn Kramer, managing director of Kramer & Associates, a call-center consulting firm.

Jitterbug, a cellphone company that markets to older Americans, similarly boasts in ads that its operators are in the United States, but it does not charge extra to speak to them.

“You’d be amazed how many customers ask, ‘Where are you based?’ ” said David Inns, Jitterbug’s chief executive. “The response we get when we say, ‘We’re in Auburn Hills, Mich., ma’am’ -- well, they love it.”

Although airlines, banks and some retailers have overseas call centers, computer makers have been particularly apt to put them in foreign countries. An online survey by CFI Group found that more than a third of respondents who recently made a call for computer support reported that the person they reached was outside the United States.

The customer satisfaction score for overseas PC call centers was 23% lower than for U.S. call centers, CFI Group said.

“The customers say, ‘The agent just doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do,’ ” Kramer said. “The customer explains his or her request three or four times, and then they get a rote answer back.”

Many companies, she said, have “escalation procedures” to use when callers struggle to communicate. Eventually, many such calls are routed back to the United States.

Some suggest that the friction arises from prejudice, but others see it differently.

“I hear people say all the time that people who complain about call centers in India are being racist or nativist, but it’s not as simple as that,” said Sharmila Rudrappa, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a native of Bangalore, India.

“If you need tech support, it already shows you’re having a crazy time getting your Dell computer to work,” he said. “And when things go haywire, you want assurance, you want familiarity, you want someone to hold your hand and say it’s OK. What you don’t want is to have to work at understanding the person on the other end of the line.”