Customer Service/Support: Native Language PLEASE!

This blog is a bit of a rant with all that I had to put up with to send in my xbox for repairs..

So to recap:

I had called to get my xbox 360 repaired for the E74 error. I had a representative whom I could barely understand. She must of been from some African country.. she was VERY nice but the process took forever because I had to keep making her repeat and she wasn't understanding all I was saying either. I ended up having to call back right after because the e-mail I received gave me a number to UPS in the UK (I live in France) and I got another woman who was equally difficult to understand who gave me the French UPS number and told me I should receive my shipping label in 24 hours.

48 hours later and STILL no shipping label (with it already being Monday Jan. 25th now) I had to call back customer support. This time Lo' and Behold I got a guy from the UK who was clear and easy to understand. He canceled my previous repair ticket and opened a new one. He got me a new shipping label sent that I IMMEDIATELY received after the phone call.

Time wasted with outsourced customer support: 48 hours
Time spent with native customer support: 10 minutes

Once I got the label my next order of business was to call UPS and schedule a pick up. My French is a bit iffy and making people have to deal with talking to me after I just saw how it was to talk to non-native English speakers was not something I was interested in. So I asked my husband (who is French) to call and handle it for me.

He informed me that like me, he had called and gotten some random African country too.. they said that they would pick up my xbox on Thursday anywhere from 9am to 6pm. I dragged my ass out of bed early on Thursday and as 5:45pm rolled around I was pissed. My husband was at work but I called him to ask him to call UPS and make sure they were coming.

He called me back and informed me that THIS time he managed to get a hold of a native French speaker who told him that there was no such request for a scheduled pick up and went ahead and scheduled one for the next day for anytime from 2pm- 5pm.

3pm On Friday rolled around and at 3pm UPS was at my door to take my xbox.

Time wasted with outsourced customer service: 48 hours
Time spent with native customer service: 21 hours

The lesson here is simple. I have nothing against people who don't speak a language natively or fluently (I'm one to talk as my French is HORRIBLE) but for fuck's sake companies.. please STOP outsourcing your customer service to other countries..it doesn't seem to accomplish anything and you you waste my time by doing it.