AT&T CEO Says Hard To Find Skilled U.S. Workers

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AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson says that it is hard to find skilled workers in the U.S. to fill some 3600 open customer service jobs. Huh?!? Hard to find skilled workers for customer service? If you ask me this is just an excuse to keep 3600 jobs in India where labor cost is a fraction of what it is here….but I could be wrong. What do you guys think?

"We're having trouble finding the numbers that we need with the skills that are required to do these jobs," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San Antonio, where the company's headquarters is located.
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I think it is pretty damn insulting to insinuate that there are not enough “smart people” to do customer service phone support. But that’s just me.
 
He can't find enough skilled workers at 3rd world wage rates. What is he willing to pay for these service positions?
 
I worked at a call center with 400 seats. We had 100% turnover in the first year. Part of that was the result of mismanagement but it was mostly due to the kind of workers that will take entry level call center work: the young, inexperienced, and undisciplined. After that first year it became very hard to replace the constant stream of termed and resigned agents. Most of the terms were due to agents unwilling to show up to work when scheduled. At their age and economic stage they just did not give a shit if they got fired. They could always go to some other place starved for entry level unskilled labor.

If companies paid enough to attract and keep staff they wouldn't need to go overseas, but that will never happen.
 
the people who do customer service are the same people that talk to me through the walkie talky thing when I get my french fries.

Anyone else would already have a better job so no shit they can't find skilled workers. if I opened up 3600 jobs for software developers at 80,000 grand a year I would have 3600 jobs filled in a week. But finding 3600 people to get underpaid and over worked while mistreated at the same time.....he is right that is hard to find someone with that kind of skill in the US.
 
The smart people are the ones avoiding these job. How far can the average person go with a help desk job. Dealing with complaints everyday and hearing the same complaints has to drive some people crazy after awhile, I know I would go nuts. Its ironic because people in India are worst. I rather speaker to someone in America then in India (not a racial intent) which seems like how it is for a lot of companies already. It probably is an excuse to turn over the jobs to India. I guess technically you can consider it a "skill", one that I am not good at for a duration of time.
 
rbanzai said:
If companies paid enough to attract and keep staff they wouldn't need to go overseas, but that will never happen.
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I think the same. You expect people to be the best employees for some of these minimum wages job but lack their pay. You get what you pay for is the term that comes to my mind with minimum wage jobs.
 
he's not willing to pay for competency...

here are 2 steps to fixing his problem:

#1) Make the position Full Time only

#2) Pay a living wage that is competitive and involves performance based incentives

Honestly, an average english speaking college student is easier to understand than an foreigner who passes a test with only mandatory lingual skills that is ABSOLUTELY unable to think in the abstract and is EASILY cornered and confused by problems exceeding the complexity of their lingual skills. Sentence composition, cultural understanding, and lingual nuance go a long way.

But there are so many of these students, and so little a consumer can do about customer service that the only incentive with respect to them is the incentive to move their jobs overseas and put the money in shareholder pockets. Shareholders dont really care.
 
Not sure if anyone else here watches "The Simpsons". This reminds me of an episode where Mr. Burns sends his company to India and Homer is sent to manage it. Homer meets Apoo's, I think cousin, and in his house he has like 4 or 5 customer service telephones on a desk from different companies.
 
Doublespeak at its finest. If they guy would have said "in order to maintain profitability we can't afford to bring the jobs back to the US" I would have understood and not given it another thought, even if it was complete BS. I have yet to see a college degree in "Customer Service."
 
This is BS I think what he mens by skilled is cant understand wtf they are saying, dont help at all, and just argue with you. If thats the case then yes those Indians are skilled. Id rather talk to a Dumb American.
 
I called Cisco tech support the other day and the first customer service rep who was non-Indian/etc. said I was going to speak with "Jeff." I thought great, someone that I can understand when I talk to him. I received a call back from "Jeff" and I was shocked... he was an Indian/Pakistani/whatever talking to me. After our conversation ended, he gave me his call back number which was an Idaho number and I got his voice mail - when I listened to it fully, it said his name was, Ahmed Somethingorother and I couldn't help but laugh. I laughed because they said I was going to talk to "Jeff" and his name turned out to be Ahmed.

I've now gone back to strictly e-mailing them when any issues arise and we can converse that way and or via WebEx.
 
I think the general problem here is twofold:

1) We don't teach customer service in school. In India, they do.
2) They are looking for a certain skillset with a greater demand than supply.

Americans want bigger and better jobs, and we're told from our first day of Kindergarten that any of us could be president some day. While that is technically true (somebody has to be president, after all), it is a farce in every conceivable way.

Our people are plenty smart enough to do any job. Our schools simply fail to teach practical skills. Most high school administrators seem to think that it is their job to prepare students for college, when in fact the majority of students aren't even likely to attempt college, much less complete it. They need to teach skills that employers actually want and need.
 
Well HP's philosophy in tech support is if they can't understand you they don't have a problem and will stop calling and it works most the time.

I hate when I have to call HP for software support at work it is by far the worst part of my job.
 
I've worked Customer Service for Citigroup in their Boise, Idaho call center. It is a miserable job for miserable pay and you have to put up with so much shit, but it doesn't require any skill.

Let me tell you, if you ever want to deal with crotchety ignorant old people on a regular basis, get a job doing customer service for a credit card.
 
Have you dealt with the public lately? I don't think it's too far fetched to state that there aren't enough people skilled at basic customer service around here anymore. There are a lot of rude SOB's and people that just really apathetic. Sad really.
 
Mark_Warner said:
They need to teach skills that employers actually want and need.
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100% agree. I'd like to see a "common sense" class sandwiched between english and recess. Where real-life examples are used. My personal favorite right now is cellphone ringtones. 99 cents a piece or 10 for 9.99!
 
He forgot to include that it's difficult to find skilled workers that will work for McDonald's wages.
 
What these companies dont realize is there is skilled workers willing to do the cs, HERE IN AMERICA, but the ceo does not think out of the box, instead someone says india and voila they make a call center there and train them ect.

For less then that, if the ceo would move a call center to a town in the midwest, especially in missouri. With populations of the 5000-10000 range for citys and 25000-50000 for the counties, they would find that there is very friendly people who surprisingly have the skills it takes to do customer service. Not only that, its going to be way less expensive to pay these people a wage of around 10 or 12 a hour, compared to building a call center in a different country and training the locals. Who are going to royally piss off your US customers cause they cant freaking stand talking to someone who dont speak native American english.

I worked customer service for a isp in the midwest for over 5 years. Really its not hard, not only did i do customer service, i did tech support, ect. Its not that hard to look up on a computer, see when the next month bill is, tell the customer, reimburse them for lost connectivity, change their plan, sign them up for different service, ect. I mean geeze, and tech support sometimes got technical if ya got a actual customer smarter then the general my "internets dont go" type, but even then its not that bad.

When a ceo says they cant find the workers, they actually mean, we cant find the workers next to where we have our corp offices, where the median income is 55000+ a year.

Go about 45 mins in any direction from where ya corp offices are located, find a town with at least 10000 peeps in it, or a area that say within 25miles in either direction has at least 30000 peeps in it -build your call center there so that people can actually justify driving to it for 12 or so a hour, and i guarantee you will not only fill your call center with competent and reasonably skilled individuals, you will also have 50-70% less turnover. Those areas people are used to making slightly above minium wage, pay them a fair wage of 10-12 a hour and you will have loyal people who will be happy to work hard for ya. And i dont know if people have noticed or not, but more often then not people from smaller community's are generally nicer, most peeps ive meet from large metro areas are total cawkgobblers.

Tark
 
Just stick to the script. The script works, its been proven to.
 
junglicious said:
The smart people are the ones avoiding these job. How far can the average person go with a help desk job. Dealing with complaints everyday and hearing the same complaints has to drive some people crazy after awhile, I know I would go nuts. Its ironic because people in India are worst. I rather speaker to someone in America then in India (not a racial intent) which seems like how it is for a lot of companies already. It probably is an excuse to turn over the jobs to India. I guess technically you can consider it a "skill", one that I am not good at for a duration of time.
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You're generalizing CS. Customer side CS is pretty bad and I've known people that have worked customer CS at larger cable companies (Charter Communications when it used to have good CS instead of the shit they put their workers through now), but I know a few of the CS people where I work. They deal with business on a regular basis and are well trained, smart people that know how to handle what comes at them and there is actually room for advancement for them. They do have some fun stories to tell, but not as fun as the ones from my friends that work(ed) at Charter.
 
Inu said:
Just stick to the script. The script works, its been proven to.
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When I call CS people I like to through random questions at them to force them to think outside the script. Usually ends in both of us chuckling. This also ends in better support from the person, so win-win.
 
Steve said:
AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson says that it is hard to find skilled workers in the U.S. to fill some 3600 open customer service jobs. Huh?!? Hard to find skilled workers for customer service? If you ask me this is just an excuse to keep 3600 jobs in India where labor cost is a fraction of what it is here….but I could be wrong. What do you guys think?
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Personally, i believe that ATT only lives for the bottom line. They will do anything possible to cut corners, i know because i had a family member that worked for ATT and then left because ATT loves to cut corners. :rolleyes:
 
I agree with the sentiment here. It's not about finding people qualified, it's easy to find someone who can follow a basic troubleshooting guide then pass it off to a "supervisor" in case they can't fix the problem. It's about finding someone willing to do that and handle the belligerent customers nicely and do it all for minimum wage.
 
The Red said:
he's not willing to pay for competency...

here are 2 steps to fixing his problem:

#1) Make the position Full Time only

#2) Pay a living wage that is competitive and involves performance based incentives...


...Shareholders dont really care.
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I couldn't agree more. Exceptions being employee owned companies, but these are disappearing.
 
rbanzai said:
If companies paid enough to attract and keep staff they wouldn't need to go overseas, but that will never happen.
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But then how will the executives keep making millions of dollars every year?

Lets see... make $2M this year and ship 30,000 jobs to India, or keep them in the US and only make $1.5M? Hmm... let me think.
 
Terry Olaes said:
Have you dealt with the public lately? I don't think it's too far fetched to state that there aren't enough people skilled at basic customer service around here anymore. There are a lot of rude SOB's and people that just really apathetic. Sad really.
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I think you bring up a good point. People in America today don't like other people, generally speaking, and don't want to deal with people who have not received their stamp of approval (Their friends, for example.). This is not true in many other countries.
 
Bottom line is pay.

Pay more money, cut expenses elsewhere (I'm sure that VP could do without a 50% pay raise each year), pay workers more.
 
tarkster said:
Not only that, its going to be way less expensive to pay these people a wage of around 10 or 12 a hour, compared to building a call center in a different country and training the locals. Who are going to royally piss off your US customers cause they cant freaking stand talking to someone who dont speak native American english.

Tark
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The thing is these corporations don't usually build call centers in India. They outsource to Indian firms. Tatas, Titties, whatever they're called is one of the biggest firms. They build entire campuses that do nothing but train Indians on how to be call center workers.
 
KENNYB said:
He forgot to include that it's difficult to find skilled workers that will work for McDonald's wages.
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And people wonder why the minimum wage didn't go up for a long time, Business doesn't like paying people a living wage:(, They never have as It interferes with their profits and that's bad for business. :eek:
 
goodcooper said:
at least at McDs they get free double cheeseburgers
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I'm glad I don't go to fast food joints much anymore, That food will kill Ya as It's loaded with calories(It's fattening food as most of the unused calories are converted to fat by the body automatically). :eek: Calories might be ok in colder climates, But not south of the Arctic Circle as far as I'm concerned. :D
 
They miss phrased it.

There aren't skilled American workers who will work for the same wages.

That's all it is.

It's hard for a company to keep everything in America and compete against someone who is outsourcing. The only way we could fix it is by bringing everyone back to America. Make outsourcing seem less appealing. Tax the shit out of the company's that outsource and watch them flock back.
 
The Red said:
he's not willing to pay for competency...

here are 2 steps to fixing his problem:

#1) Make the position Full Time only

#2) Pay a living wage that is competitive and involves performance based incentives
Click to expand...

I agree, though I don't know what they're paying the people either.


Honestly, an average english speaking college student is easier to understand than an foreigner who passes a test with only mandatory lingual skills that is ABSOLUTELY unable to think in the abstract and is EASILY cornered and confused by problems exceeding the complexity of their lingual skills. Sentence composition, cultural understanding, and lingual nuance go a long way.
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Tier one support (esp at SBC/AT&T) typically reads a script. If the script doesn't solve it, you're passed on to the next level of support. The Indians are College Grads and have probably been speaking english as long as those American college students.

I had SBC DSL from 2000-2002 (and Verizon from 2002-2004), and I can promise you Tier one always went down a checklist. At SBC, the only thing that saved me from going postal on them was a nice (and shockingly knowledgeable) agent who gave me the number to Tier 2 support before passing me to them.

There was no abstract thinking going on with Tier 1 support, there was no trouble shooting beyond what was written on the page. I've called Comcast and Cox cable T1 support, and nothing has changed there and as I recall, Comcast is still U.S. support and I know that Cox was all U.S. based whenever I called.

Truth be told, the problem is that they're saying they need skilled workers, but all they really want (and all they're willing to pay for) is people who can follow the script.
 
i think im tired of talking to surresh patel err i mean "David" whenever i call support..
 
TechieSooner said:
Bottom line is pay.

Pay more money, cut expenses elsewhere (I'm sure that VP could do without a 50% pay raise each year), pay workers more.
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While I agree that many top execs are over paid (though VP's probably aren't among them...I know some, and they do nothing but work and sleep and they're not making millions, much less getting 50% raises.

However, no matter how you look at it, cutting top salaries still wouldn't make up for the increased cost of raising the pay of entry positions. Ultimately, you and I have to decide if we're willing to pay more for a service so that we always get U.S. CS agents....or will we pay more so that our shirts are made in the U.S.

And as much as it sucks, the truth is the answer is clearly NO.

And frankly, I can't say I see any difference between U.S. and non-U.S. based CS agents. I've had good and bad in both camps. My guess is that I've had far more terrible U.S. based agents, but I suspect I've had far more U.S. based CS agents than not over the years.
 
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