Life on the Other End of the Tech Support Line

Ant writes to mention a PC World article about life on the other end of the tech support line. From the article: "According to interviewees, entry-level jobs at U.S. tech support firms pay about $7 an hour. Workers for a third-party tech support firm in New Delhi, India, make less than half that. Akanksha Chaand, who holds an advanced degree in computer science and had a job fielding calls for Hewlett-Packard at Business Processing Outsourcing in New Delhi, India, made the equivalent of $13,000 a year working in tech support--significantly more money than many less fortunate people in India earn. In contrast, a tech support pro who now lives in Arizona says she was barely scraping by on her $7-an-hour salary with no benefits. The rep, who asked that her name not be used, said it was only a bit better than her previous job--delivering pizzas. She said she received two weeks of training before taking calls from the public. "

Ofcourse...

[GillBates0]

...comparing salaries in absolute Dollar terms (as the article summary does) makes _no_ sense, really without taking into account the Purchasing Power Parity [wikipedia.org]. In short, $1.00 would go significantly further in India than it would in the US.

As a rough of comparison, a loaf of bread which costs $2.50 in the US costs a little less than 25 Indian Rupees ($0.50). US $13000 is a little less than 600k INR [google.com] which by all means is quite a _comfortable_ if not princely salary to get by in India.

Re:Ofcourse...

[qbzzt]

Purchasing power parity is the correct measurement from the employee's perspective. Total cost of employment (salary, connectivity, taxes, etc.) is the correct measure from the employer's perspective.

If a US tech support worker with two weeks of training costs 1.5 times as much as the India university graduate (I'm assuming that telecommunication costs and taxes are eating part of the salary disparity), expect companies to hire the university graduate in India. It sucks if you're a US pizza delivery person. It's great it you're a university graduate in India. It's also great if you are a customer and you get support from a university graduate instead of somebody with two weeks of training.

Link to the actual article

[demongp]

The blurb links to the Digg page for the story, not the actual article: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125537,0 0.asp [pcworld.com]

Slightly better than delivering pizza????

[calice]

I went from tech support to delivering pizza. Pizza delivery actually pays pretty well. I averaged $12-15 an hour (with tips and gas factored in), as opposed to 10.50 an hour. Granted, this was when gas was $1-$1.25. It's funny, i remember all of us drivers standing around bitterly complaining about having to pay $1.35 for gas. Damn that was high ;)

Re:This is newsworthy?

[dominion]

Word. Pizza delivery is one of the last good, honest working class jobs that you can make an okay living off of with a high school diploma or less. It's taken the place of the town factory from back in the day. I usually averaged about $16 an hour with tips and mileage, and about $14/hr after subtracting gas costs.

After the dot-com bust in 2000, I started delivering pizzas again off and on, along with working tech support. I made more money delivering pizzas, and it's much more enjoyable work. The only thing is, it's definitely more dangerous (you don't have to carry a weapon when you do tech support), and the wear and tear on your car can be pretty stressful.

suggestion

[zogger]

Maybe by changing your greeting you can help speed things up. I'll add the inflection and tonals

"Hello (higher and faster than normal,because you stretch it out very slightly, end the O Long "Hellll-O), you are speaking to the computer help desk (this is lower pitched and slower, just slightly, with an exact matching linear cadence on the syllables, they are all equal), this is Matt (emphasis on "this"), how may I help you with your problem?(how is treated like the first "hello", end the "you" a little louder, notmuch, just a little 'in soviet russia...YOU'..."

This is psychology and salesmanship, and double reinforces to the customer the primary thing that is going on, they aren't calling *Matt*, they are calling *the help desk and they are annoyed with voodoo that has nailed them*. It's just a slight wordage variation with the addition of just a few more words and paying attention to how it sounds, but it amplifies the initial interaction so that both parties can get quickly to the point. Also remember, you are a sales person, even if you aren't selling anything tangible per se, you are immediately in a customer/sales position. You are "selling" a service that your "customer" never even wanted to be forced to buy in the first place, so it's a "tough sell", your customer IS approaching you with a negative based mindset, ie, they already have a problem which has annoyed them to some level, so you have to be extremely delicate and precise, but control the situation and your only tools are language and psychology.

    Right off the bat they will need to be defused down from their anger (whatever level that anger is at, it *is* there), and they have to be re-assured that this will "work", that by the end of the conversation they will be a happy camper-and you have made a "sale", you have "closed". Tone of voice is very important as well, it makes a big difference. You need to sound enthused, happy, and *very* confident. You only have two sentences total in the beginning to establish the mood and probable outcome of the call, no matter the problem.

Anyway, fool around with it, try some experiments, it's amazing what slight variations can do to help out.