Earthlink to Cut US jobs to outsource to India, Philippines

[XanaDUer]

EarthLink to cut 180 customer service workers
Work to be outsourced overseas
Bill Husted - Staff
Tuesday, July 26, 2005

About 180 EarthLink employees in Atlanta will lose their jobs as the Internet provider completes a move to outsource customer service and technical support telephone lines.

EarthLink cut 1,300 call center employees in 2003 and another 1,300 in 2004 as it began farming out the work to call centers in India and the Philippines.

The latest cuts eliminate the use of EarthLink employees to handle customer calls, said spokesman Dan Greenfield.

The job cuts will take place in August and September. Greenfield said EarthLink would provide severance pay based on seniority as well as assistance in finding new jobs...

http://www.ajc.com/hp/content/auto/epaper/editions/tuesday/business_245e1dbaf5aaa1720069.html

[gmoney]

1. From bad service to worse, probably...

Ugh. Guess I won't be switching back to ErfLink anytime soon.

[dogday]

2. They have the customer service already

in India. I had to deal with Prace, who could not ask me the correct questions, it was awful...

[XanaDUer]

3. What's Prace?

nt.

[dogday]

6. Prace was the dude's name

they give them names like dick and jane, why I got someone named prace, and I could not understand it for the life of me...

[XanaDUer]

8. LOL!

:rofl:

I wondered about that. My guy was named "Bruce", and I thought-Jesus-are they making them pick American-sounding names now?

[ikojo]

13. They give them American names and have them take

classes on American culture. They often have maps of the US so they have some idea of where people are calling from.

I say that if outsourcing to India is such a positive thing then why can't Krishnan use his real name? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell someone is from India. When I had earthlink I had a problem and tried to handle it via online communication and the guy from India said, "I should like for you to..."

[dogday]

19. I asked them where they were located

and Prace said, our main offices are located in Georgia. I said not the main office, where you are at, he started saying the main office was in Georgia again. Finally I said, are you in India? and he said yes. The more he said his name Prace, the more confused I got....

[Tux]

9. LOL

Reminds me of a story my trainer told me when I was a temp Dell tech.

A friend of his was in India and gave them American names. He used their first letter to base the American name on. The trainer asked one tech what his name was which he replied his name was Asfuk. Trainer had him repeat it slowly and it was "Ass Fuck". He got the name Greg.

If you think your name sucks, think of Greg.

[MarkTwain]

4. Earthlink was my original ISP....

.... for DSL starting about six years ago. I just terminated them last month. The quality of tech support became pitiful. You never got an answer which resolved a problem. The DSL kept dropping two to three times a day. When calling tech support, all you got was the run around about unplugging this, checking this connection, and more bullshit about fax machine interference. All just to get me off the call to keep their call times down.

And, that's IF you could understand the "representative" and his "command" of the English language.

I had it. Called Bell South. They had me up in twenty four hours. Not only did they resolve a few configuration issues... they actually CALLED ME BACK three times WHEN they said they would to answer follow up questions.

It's been beautiful. I'm paying five bucks less a month (49.95 versus 54.95) and my speed has increased from 1.5 to 3.0MB. I only wish I had done it many times over the last year when the thought crossed my mind - each time after yet another call to the assholes at Earthlink.

Earthlink = a one time reasonably good company gone very, very bad.

[ikojo]

16. I had earthlink at one time as well...

I left because they were EXPENSIVE...$50 per monht. I switched to sbcglobal and my phone bill AND Internet bill is only six dollars more than what I was paying earthlink and I have not experienced nearly the connection problems I had with earthlink.

No business really cares about its customers. There are so many companies that are almost monopolistic that they figure you have nowhere else to go.

[gizmo1979]

5. There goes another chunk

of the middle class.

[XanaDUer]

7. Hey Gizmo!

:hi:

You don't have a star yet?

You can't get into the True Crime Forum without one.

[gizmo1979]

10. I sent my check!

It should be there anyday.How long does it take?

[XanaDUer]

12. Never did it my check, just CC online

which is instantaneous. Glad you'll be able to join us, though.

[gizmo1979]

23. Sorry the commies cut up my cc

[XanaDUer]

24. I used the cc because I couldn't stand to wait for my star!

...

[Deja Q]

11. corporations see technical support as worthless.

Bit of a pity, that...

[ikojo]

14. Corporations seen EMPLOYEES making a living wage

to be worthless.

Only the executives are viewed as making any positive contribution.

[Deja Q]

20. I stand corrected!

Thank you!

[JanMichael]

15. Shocker! All hail the mighty FREE MARKETS!

Or die.

[Cattledog]

17. Earthlink is Deep Red Republican.

They are big supporters of Saxby Chambliss down here. I have 3 months left on my contract then it's SEE YA!

[Stephanie]

21. OK that is a good enough reason to switch

Are you sure that's correct? I just cancelled MBNA for the same reason, I'll happily do it again if Earthlink backs Bush.

[Rainscents]

22. Here is link to Buy Blue... Yes, Earthlink is staunch republican donors!

http://www.buyblue.org/detail.php?corpId=104

[Rainscents]

18. Earthlink sucks!!! I had it two years ago and they have the worst

costumer service I had ever experienced in my life!

[VOX]

25. EarthLink also has a history of involvement with Scientology...

This has been debated back and forth, so one must decide for onself.

Simply google the terms *earthlink scientology* and look at the results that search produces.

[XanaDUer]

26. Will do.

Thnx for the info.