In another thread we are debating the merits of using the agents full name when chasing debts, this got me thinking about the practice of Indian Call Centre agents etc to use a westernised name' when calling USA or UK.
Indeed I hestitate to call it a westernised name as in the UK historically the type of names used would be seem to orginate from a christian background.

Its taken a good 15-20 years to for application forms in the UK to get away from asking for Christian names and surnames and to instead ask for forenames or first names this is probably in direct response to legislation and diversity and cultural issues involved.

This raises some fundamental points

1. Doesn't this go against all we stand for with regard to customer service when we are blatantly decieving the customer about our name to shorten the call, avoid uneccessary cultural discussion and build rapport more easily?
Another case of placing fiscal and business needs before honest customer interaction?
2. Isn't it a negation of the agents religion?
3. Isn't it morally wrong to promote this as some kind of worthy practice, were this happening in our own countries it could be viewed as discrimination?

We in the UK particularly are very familiar with Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan names, so why hide them?

Your thoughts greatly appreciated. Particularly from those who are obliged to use false names.

I don't agree with all that you mention regarding the use of pseudonyms by overseas agents but I fell you do make some good points.

There is one rather salient point that I think you do miss out on though. Whether the agent or we agree with the practice it is neither of us who have made the decision to employ the practice. Rather, it is the employers or the outsourcing company who have made the choice.

Is it not more appropriate to ask the "Why...?" question of these people?

*If they are happy to outsource overseas why do they insist on agent's Anglo-cising their names?

*If they wish to keep this practice secret should there not be questions asked as to why they are doing this in the first place?

*If they then argue about "shareholder value" then the follow-on question would be what about delivering customer service? Can a company genuinely argue that they are offering excellent\exceptional\first rate\etc. "customer service" if the first thing they tell their agents to do is lie about their name and then their geographic location?

The activity of attempting to mask\hide the physical location of the agent by forcing them to change their names only serves to perpetuate the appalling reputation of call\contact centres globally, (as arguably unjustified as who work in the industry may feel it is).

Firstly we had the, (somewhat melodramatic), view of call centres as in-hospitable, Dickensian Sweat-shops, where agents were forced to ask their manager's permission before being allowed to go to the toilet.

Then call centres were a thinly veiled means of enabling large corporations to close down networks of local branches and save millions of pounds in the process.

Next there was the deployment of poorly structured and ridiculously infuriating IVR, which served only to address the business' requirements and not their customers'.

Now we have the curious and deceptive practice of businesses outsourcing their call centre operations through stealth and then forcing overseas agents to lie in order to make it look like they haven't!?!?

Is it any wonder the population as a whole and the media in general all seem to have a cynical view of the industry?

Interesting topic.

The use of alternative names is also a common practice in the UK. I am aware of several organisations that use this technque to identify the agent and the campaign. As you can imagine if you have three Sue's all working on the same campaign how do you know which one is the correct one if there is a complaint.

I would suggest that this is industry practice which is employed both on and offshore.

I'm going to do a bit of a 'me too' here.

I know that for a large european theme park near Paris (I'm not taking the Mickey)the practice is for there to be only one person with a name and for duplicates to use pseudonyms. This also happens for several of the major supermarkets contact centers.

The reason it's done for the holiday bookings is purely for a point of contact basis.

I know it's not alot but when used this way I don't think it's deceptive more
of a less confusion customer service point. Mind you being a David I've worked under some odd names on the home shopping side when I started out!

DaveA

Hi,
I agree that the use of false names is direct common practise here the UK, and I see no problem with it.

If I say my name is Graham with my blatant UK origin, you as a customer are not likely to give it a second thought, despite the fact that I am actually James (I’m not though for sake of argument). The point is that it’s the customer transaction reference that denotes who the customer conversed with during the enquiry. Any resulting disciplinary actions thereafter would be carried out in house with reference to the enquiry number.

The reason people might wish to mask their identity can easily be explained through the nature of the businesses being conducted. The example I give is based on my business area, although I’m sure many will see parallels with their own. A local authority provides benefits, there are many types with complicated reasons for decisions, which are not always in the favour of the claimant, who might well feel aggrieved with the results. Now I’m getting into some political hot water here, but imagine an inner city area, high crime rates with mass social issues and, the sort of customers you might find. They are more than capable of using the local phone directory / land registry and have a very strong dislike towards the local authority. That leaves the person on the other end of the phone in some degree of danger, and I do know of real instances.

I think the point I’m trying to make is that of employee safety.

Graham - but I chose never to give my surname out.

Guys,

Appreciate the valid points that you are making above, especially with regards to employee security, hence every agent divulging their 'own', unique first name rather than first and surnames.

However, this argument does appear to be diluting the original posting which Mark made and the message contained therein.

Given the points made above though, (about ensuring all customer contacts, transactions and agents spoken to are fully visible and traceable), is this measure not simply papering over the cracks of a poorly functioning CRM\customer interaction system? Surely this practice is a sellotape and string resolution to the issue.

If the business that a call\contact centre is in dictates that all transactions and customer interactions need to be 100% traceable and each agent has to be responsible for every conversation or correspondence, then the business should employ the right tools to enable this to happen. By simply identifying each agent through a unique first name what exactly can the business prove? In a customer dispute situation, almost invariably the business will have to side with one party or the other if their CRM or customer interaction system does not allow them to trace what occurred during the contact in question. In these circumstances they will either need to side with the agent or, more often than not, (especially where the potential exists for the loss of valuable business), the customer. Neither the business nor the customer is in any better position to resolve such issues by simply knowing the agent's name.

And what if the agent declines to give their name to a caller? How are matters resolved then? I can speak from experience here when dealing with a dispute that I, the customer, had with a tour operator's call centre. When I noticed a discrepancy with the tickets that had been sent to me 6 weeks before we travelled I called to register the issue and ask them to rectify their mistake. However, because rectifying this issue was chargeable they placed the burden of proof on myself and said I needed to identify which agent I had booked the holiday with so that they could check what had been agreed at the time. Since I'd booked the holiday several months previously, I could not recall their name, (though to be fair they had indeed given it to me). As a result, my complaint was dismissed and I incurred an additional charge of over £50 for their mistake, despite the fact that I was spending thousands of pounds on my holiday. Suffice to say I will never travel with that company again.

But even if I could have recalled the agent's name after all that time, exactly what would the tour operator have hoped to achieve? "Excuse me agent X, that call you took 7 months ago from a Mr Y, what exactly did you agree with him when you booked his holiday? Now I realise you handle 50 calls a day and that over 7 months that probably equates to something around 7000 calls so take your time, just to make sure you get it 100% right"!!!

This instance highlighted a failure of the business’ CRM system. This has ultimately let them down, let me down and cost them in lost custom. I have also taken it upon myself to spread the word amongst friends and family about how they treat their customers!

The only flip side to this that I can see is where a customer wishes to commend an individual for their excellent customer service or if the customer wishes to be returned to a specific individual due to good previous service. The latter then raises the question of why one agent stands head and shoulders over their counter-parts or why agent A is better equipped than agent B to deal with the customer's query? But that's a different matter and another thread entirely!

Interesting,like the discussion but I think we are moving off the point here. The thrust of my argument is using other culture's names to build rapport and remove objections (and reduce call length presumanly) thereby negating your own culture and religion.

What about if an American theme park asked you to call yourself Brad, Chuck, Crystal, Britney etc? An Irish one wanted Saints names? Another wanted Mohammed?

Keep 'em coming

Sal U. Tashon

Hello Friends!
This is sure an interesting debate!I would like to add my views as an Indian,working in a call center in India,doing business with US and UK and that too with a western name "Grace".
The fundamental reason I say this 'naming'is adopted is purely for "easy recall" for the customer, thereby making it a worthy experience for them. We began our company by using our original Indian names and believe me we had calls coming in from overseas,that struggled so hard with names. I had a call from IBM in my B2B pitch and he was responding to my e-mail, he had just the spelling of my name and no clue how to say it, he was asking for one 'Ash'+'Okay'which is phoentically a far cry from the actual.Imagine trying to decipher common Indian names like Parthasarathy, Santhanakrishnan,Pughalendi,Sendhamilarasi,Govindarajan etc.!Like you have said the call time gets elongates(loss to the center) and precious customer time(loss to the customer) in figuring out at length the agent name, which has a relatively low business impact.

I also feel that there are no intentions of cheating or saying lies.That would come into foray only if a company authorizes employees to sign up documents on their pseudo name. On the phone, adopting a name seldom matters when compared to a face to face interaction, when it does matter.

If contact centers are going to hide their location then it amounts to total falsehood as during the conversation the accent is invariably evident and companies should realise this will make the customer lose trust in them and so, make a provision in their calling scripts to admit the call lands in India should a question arise.

Hi,Willow!Generally for every call that lands on a CRM desk, the software makes provision for notes to be logged in,retrievable and though the Agent name is important,perhaps if the customer could make note of the ticket number,rather, insist for issual of a ticket number( an automated seriel number)it would be the best "proof" for you later on in the event of things going wrong.But I would add that that center has handled your case badly and lost a good customer and many more too,without them realising. It takes years to create a customer and just seconds to destroy one.

Looking forward to more view points on this subject.

Gayathri Ashok

Quite simply, from what i've faced, servicing UK results a 'Gautam' morphing into a 'Gordon', why?
Asian names are a triffle difficult to pronounce, morever, taking into account the amount of time that an advisor would need to 'spend'(ATT boys!) to spell out his/her name on call, is what propels most Indian call centers to assign psuedo names.
Fancy 'Jim Morrison' calling you for your delayed credit card payment?

We play the name game at our call center in Pune and although I am comfortable
enough with it, I wonder what difference it really makes.

In Silicon Valley, 50% of the people you speak to are from another country
so having an unusual name (by local standards) is becoming less taboo these days.

My 2 cents worth,
Steve Howell
www.telegenisys.com
925.825.1122

Interesting topic indeed. Mark's main concern seems to be that using alternate names somehow forces an individual to compromise his/her cultural identity. Being Asian-American myself and having supervised agents of various cultures in call centers, I can appreciate the subtleties of cultural effects on call centers. My legal name is different from my professional name, Paul. Not because I am ashamed of my heritage but because it was easier for my non-Asian friends and colleagues to remember and pronounce. I wasn't abandoning my culture (my last name is still Cho) nor was I trying to deceive anyone (going for ease of communication). The same idea goes for call centers. If you can't communicate effectively with your customer base, you're going to have a hard time doing your job. And the first rule of communication is establishing rapport. Introducing yourself with an easy-to-pronounce/identify name helps build that rapport. As long as an agent is consistent with using an alternate name, I fully support that, but I have never required (forced) an agent to use an alternate name instead of their ethnic name.

But even more interesting is the issue of ethnic accents. In my experience, agents with moderate to heavy accents have always struggled in comparison to agents with no accent (which is obviously relative to the country). Monitoring a call between an agent w/ heavy accent and a customer from Kansas can be torture. A 5 min. call can turn into 10 min. (from agent repeating him/herself) or the customer will simply give up and hang up the phone. However, this problem seems to occur less frequently when calling into metropolitan areas, although cooperation rates generally drop in such cities. Anyways, sorry for the tangent.

IMHO, I see nothing wrong with using alternate names as long as it is consistent.