International outsourcing?

A couple of days ago the CEO of Telstra implied that  the planned 'off-shoring' of many hundreds of Australian jobs in the near future is largely meeting a growing trend among customers toward a preference for dealing with the company 'on-line', rather than in traditional face to face encounters. In terms of personnel (if not telephony?), of course out-sourcing is obviously cheaper than the home-grown product ... but what the hell does it have to do with 'on-line'? I've always understood that term to mean via the internet ... not telephones.

Be that as it may ... despite undoubted product knowledge, exemplary courtesy, and/or diligence of personnel, my own experience with internationally out-sourced customer service is that the whole deck of cards collapses on the almost universal lack of ability on the part of the company's agent to articulate their message in clear and concise English. It is embarrassing for both me and the informant to repetitively have to ask for a repeat of what they have just delivered as a slurred, heavily accented or simply grammatically-mangled message intended either to resolve a product problem or sell me something new! I would rather forgo 'whizz-bang deal offerings' from a company enamoured of the off-shore solution, in favour of a competitor who maintains customer service access that is readily understandable in any two-way conversation ... even if the relative cost benefits are less.

I fail to grasp the efficacy of any sales/service system which actually manages to annoy current or potential customers rather than satisfy their needs in a satisfatorily comfortable manner!

NB. This post was intended for Friday 18/10/13 ... but, delayed due to unplanned distractions!