My outsourcing days...

How you will feel if you get a chance to work in US timezones/shifts.Let me brief a busy day schedule from the list of my sleepless nights of the Outsourcing days in Chennai.

A car came near to the appartment in Chrompet.
11.30 PM

My mobile rings showing "Driver Calling"
Driver: Sir cab has come, we are late, two more picks on the way...
Me: Hey boss please wait for five minute let me finish my brushing...come inside and watch the TV

11.45 PM

Car starts journey to office in Alwarpet.Driver started his usual chats, background FM radio is in its full fledge.
I can see the empty,trafic less highways of the Chennai in the mid night.Chennai is onto deep sleep unless few outsourcing cabs are running up and downs.

12.00 AM

Reached Velachery ,
Driver : Please call that gal ..she is the next pick from this area..
Me: Yup
We picked her from Velachery and lost 15 minutes there waiting for her.Cab is going, we guys rarely speaks as we are onto different processes.
Just a wishing hai..thats it.
Meanwhile driver is getting calls from the Command centre in Office to track the cabs..this is a routine check up the office does every day.Then we had one more pick up from near to our office.

12.20 AM

Reached office.Now we begins our day...We can see many guys are leaving the office as their shift ends..everyone are rushing towards their cabs.
The funny thing is that around three thousand guys are working here in different processes in different shifts but rarely knows each other.

My search for my team starts here and locates the bay where they sits.I took my place.My testing for the headphone,Avaya phone starts.The fact is that each one will get a different place to sit each day in the office.Every team comprises of ten members with a Team lead.

12.30 AM

I completes my login process, ready to take the call.We have a lot of stuffs to do in the login process.Logging into different applications.Everything has to be set up before we take a call.
You will think what this Call refers to.Dont get confused this is not a Customer care or an Insurance outsourcing firm.But we call our self as Tech Support Engineers solving the American's technical issues in the netwrking field.This is purely a Technical Support Industry.Each and every call to our office is very important as that it counts and its our revenue.
We treat our Customers as god.Our managers tells us that we (Tech Support guys) are the bread winners for the company.Yes its the fact.
Technical support guys includes the candidates from BTech , MSc,Bsc,MBA,almost all graduate levels.
So what actually attracts them.The answer is very simple this job acts as a temporary resort for their race ahead for a good career and which provides the economical stability to stay in a metro.

Our shift starts from 12.30 AM to 9.30 AM in the morning. This is the hectic hell shift with huge call volume as its peak time of the Americans .
A call can lasts from five minutes to 1 n half hours depends on the issue.Every day we take around 30 calls.Our communications with the clients will be barged by our teamlead,quality wing etc.
So its for sure that we may get screwed up at any time if we are not in the track.If our client is happy he sends us the CSAT i.e. Customer Satisfaction Score which adds to our salary credit a few bucks.

Every one are watching their phone for the calls. If any call comes to any phone ,then we are sure we should get ready into the action and the call starts booming up.
Phone rings...
Me: Good morning Sir ,thank you for calling Technical support...how may help you today....sir...
(the usual geeting that we are taught by our trainer)
Client: I bought this product...i have this issue....bllah...blah...blah...
.........

Me : Thank you for calling....

If we attend a call we have to update the details onto many case trackers internally and externally.We have to do this in between the calls.

After a call if the client is very happy that his issue is resolved then he will say..."You guys are doing really a good work..working in the night...really appreciable and so and so.."
Every coin has two sides , so its vice versa he will shower us with all the English "fk...sk..words....".We are not supposed to say anything against,just put into mute.Thank god the Phone has alot of such facilities.

So the process continues till 9.30 , a long nine hours race in the night.But just one hour relaxation split into our own convenience.We likes these intervals,we put the phone on hold.

3.00 AM - 4.00 AM

We rushes to the lift and to the basement for a smoke.You know one thing a cigarette and a tea can keep you awake and active in the night.
Then we have alot of snacks waiting in the cafeteria like pizza,sandwitches,cakes etc with tea/coffee/rose milks and colas.But no one feel it nice to have these in this time shift.
If we really needs a break in between a call, we guys just do one thing, tell a phrase to the client "May i place you on hold for a moment so that i can research on this issue".
We put a call on hold music for them.Its just another tricky tip to get rid of a call.

8.00 AM

Me :Guys lets go and have the break fast...and have a cigarette.
Its our time to have the breakfast from the cafeteria.We may have idli/dosa/vada etc south indian vegetarian dishes.Oh god one more hour to pass.
Now we gets relaxed since we are reaching the end of our shift.

9.30 AM

We are about to leave the bay.Meets the team lead and gets his feedbacks for the day.Rushes to the basement.
Cab and driver will be waiting in the basement.
I usually sits in the front seat,pushes the seat backwards and gets ready for a short sleep before i reach my appartment through the high traffic.
The same FM starts playing in the background.Its 10.00 AM in the morning , Chennai is getting into busy and we are onto sleep.

10.30 AM

Mobile ringing , Mom calling....
Mom : Hi son how are you... , had your breakfast...
Me: yes mom had my dinner and its the time to sleep.
...
...
Me : Good night mom...