I managed a call center for years and the company I worked for (won't mention any names) did many of those same things. Of course, setting them straight was the biggest challenge I ever had. I just wish I could have had you to get the point across as well as you have here.

Very few call centers 'do it right', and we all feel the frustrations of the so many of them that 'do it wrong'.

It's like you said, if a call center can put themselves on the side of the customer and go through the 'complete experience' themselves it would be so obvious to them what they are doing wrong. Thanks for a great post!

And I disagree with you – I actually believe this topic is very much part of internet marketing.

International internet marketing.

Good telephone practices are vital for internet marketing if you want to get more international clients.

Bad telephone practices and bad call centers management can totally destroy any great internet marketing for international clients.

International clients often need telephone support combined with internet marketing. It's also a part of the cross cultural communication essential need of building trust.

Example:
I'm North American and live in France. I wanted cheap tickets on Air Canada for my teenage daughter (so wanted to look into possible price reductions etc). I called the only telephone numbers available for me here in France to get Air Canada info. I found out that I had to get all the information online and then to call in.
There was no human being I could get the information from over the phone.
I had to go online first.

I found something I was interested in online at a certain price. But I then had to order by phone – no other choice. I got throught to Air Canada's call center and spoke with someone in India.
I needed a few minutes to actually check if flights corresponded to what I needed, etc. (It actually took the call center a long time to give me info any price reductions for teenagers)
The price increased several times as we were speaking.

To summarize: Between the time spent going through Air Canada's call center, my figuring out if the times and stop overs etc were alright for my daughter, 30 minutes had gone by. In those 30 minutes the price had gone up by 30%.
OK that got to me.
But what really got to me was the Call Centers personnel's total lack of understanding that those business practices were unacceptable to me: I was forced to go online, then call them and 30 minutes later the price is not what I saw advertised on their website…30 minutes ago. There was no appology, no understanding in its simplest of forms, no sign of being sorry, nothing. Zilch. Nada.
The attitude was that if I could afford a plane ticket I could afford any price increase that went with it.

It was the cultural differences between the Call Center Service and my expectations that got to me. And this was for Air Canada !?!

Of course, I haven't called Air Canada since then.

Sure I know there are many, many Call Centers that provide excelent service. And this must obviously be my most unfortunate luck to have fallen on the wrong person at the wrong time.

But the truth is. No. It's just not my personal experience. In fact I can't think of any foreign outsourced Call Center experience I've had that went well. There have always been the undercurrents due to cultural differences in expectations.

(Come on, the economic environments are just so different, there are bound to be personal cultural prejudices that taint the service provided – cross cultural communication is an acquired skill)

Call Centers that are outsourced to people of different cultures to your clients culture is BAD, BAD news.

Any bad phone practices can kill any of your marketing efforts including your internet marketing, expecially for international clients.

Cindy http://www.cindyking.biz

Earlier of this call I was not really lover of notebook’s company but now I am.

Don’t you want to know name of company- It’s Mac

They have earned my interest and they know how to sells customer service.