PC call centres labelled the worst of the lot

U.S. USERS SAY that PC call centres are as useless as a chocolate teapot and you might as well ask the cat how to repair your computer.

According to a survey by CFI Group Worldwide said that US punters felt that PC call centres were much worse than those run by other industries.

The survey looked at six industries which ran call centres. The PC industry got the lowest score well below its nearest rival which was the cable and satellite television industry.

One of the key problems unearthed is that the PC industry has offshored its help desks. A quarter of all callers moaned that the PC outfit's call centre was based in another country.

When the call centre was found to be in abroad, American callers tended to don white hoods and start to prepare crosses for burning.

Some of that was to do with the fact that Americans had difficulty handling different "non-American" accents. It may be worth pointing out here that they had difficult understanding Eric Morecambe which was why Morecambe and Wise couldn't cross the pond.

Apparently, nearly a quarter of US callers hang up when they hear a foreign voice without getting their problems were not resolved, causing PC customer service representatives to be rated much lower in solving problems.

The web-design outfit A-Plus tells its Bulgarian off-shored workers to tell Americans that they are based in California. Apparently Americans are happy if a person with a Bulgarian accent handles their call so long as they think they are in California.

Project managers swot up on the place they are alleged to work in just in case the American customers ask them any tricky questions about the locale. µ