I have nothing against India. Really, I don't.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

But when Hubby is on the phone with Chrysler Financial trying to get customer service for a complicated situation, the people in their call center in India are Not Helpful.

Hubby turned in FIL's car to the Chrysler dealer as a volutary return since FIL can't drive any more. FIL owes money on the car to Chrysler Financial. We did what Chrysler Financial told us to do (when for some reason we got someone who knew what to do and spoke English) and gave the dealer the car, the keys, a copy of the Power of Attorney, and signed over the title. Now we are wondering what's going on. The car is still at the dealer's, we don't know if we should make a car payment as due or wait for Chrysler Financial to auction off the car or what. The dealer doesn't know what's going on either.

So we call the CF customer service number. First call - the customer service agent was unintelligible. Hubby asked her to repeat herself so often that he felt terrible, but he didn't understand what she was saying.

Second call - "I cannot speak to you about your father's account" repeated ad infinitum. Hubby volunteered to fax the woman the Power of Attorney. She refused. He asked to speak to a supervisor. She said there weren't any. He asked for another number to call. She would not provide one. She did say that he could call again and put FIL on the phone to authorize them to talk to Hubby, but the call center is only open during EDT business hours, when Hubby is at work and his father isn't there. (I pointed out he can just have another male teacher say "I'm John Accountholder, talk to my son," it's not like the agent would know any better.)

Third call - "Why don't you ask the dealer to sell it off the lot?" Hubby thought this sounded wrong. He called dealer, dealer laughed. Hubby now has no faith in anything else this woman said (which wasn't much anyway).

Today I tried to help out and sent an email via the CF website, begging for a different number so we could contact someone about this complicated problem. The reply I got showed the person who reviewed what I submitted did not go past the header (where I did not have the last digits of the car's VIN or something) and said they couldn't look up the account and so I should call customer service. And of course they gave me the number that connects to India.



The dealer told Hubby that he has gotten people calling HIM cursing him out over their ceaseless problems with the call center - wrong information, unintelligible English, unwillingness to transfer calls to a supervisor, etc. - and the dealer says he really wonders why Chrysler is off-shoring their customer service to such an awful call center. But the dealer didn't feel bad enough to give him the number THEY use when their finance manager is calling Chrysler to set up loans for customers.

[magenta321]

Maybe if you try calling corporate they can help you or get you someone who can understand your complex issue?

*Please include your account number on all correspondence.

Corporate Contact Information
Chrysler Financial
27777 Inkster Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48334
USA
Phone: 1 248.427.6800
Fax: 1 248.427.6600
corp.chryslerfinancial.com

It's worth a shot.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I emailed them and on the *second* reply I finally got a number for Philadelphia or Pittsburg or something. Anyway, Hubby called them today and found out 1) they know in PA that the foreign call center sucks; 2) nothing the foreign call center told Hubby was correct; 3) the foreign call center should have known what to tell Hubby because it's not as unusual as we think and the standard procedure is right there in the book for the foreign call center staff to see; and 4) the dealer isn't doing his job and should have called Chrysler Financial a couple weeks ago already. But this lady was able to explain to Hubby all the next steps that everyone should be taking, what would happen to the car, what would happen if there's a balance after the car is auctioned, etc., gave him her direct number and fax number, and was able to get things moving on her end at least.

[amykhar]

I'm glad you're finally getting some action. I hope things go well and this gets resolved in a timely manner.

[thinkerlady[$]]

Aren't PA people simply wonderful? It had to be a Philadelphian. Those Pittsburgh type people are difficult. Us Philly type are good. We are the city of brotherly love!!

I'm glad it is finally getting together for you MJ. I can just imagine how annoyed you guys were. I am glad you got some answers.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Pennsylvanians are awesome.

But as a business issue, it's so much like the Automatic Telephone Maze - yes, it may be cheaper to handle customer calls this way, but at some point you annoy the hell out of your customers and it becomes less cost-effective, no? It seems everyone at Chrysler knows their foreign call center is pissing off customers and doing things wrong (and has been for a while), so wouldn't you think they would want to change the way they handle customer calls?

[thinkerlady[$]]

One would think that this center would hurt business. But I think so many large businesses use a call center in India that it must be so cost effective, they overlook the problems. I personally do not like it at all.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I've dealt with some foreign call centers that aren't too bad, where the people know what they're talking about and the language barrier/accents aren't a problem. This one was not one of those.

One of my credit card companies, when they put your call through, tells you where the call is going - "Your call is being handled by one of our agents at our Oklahoma call center," for example. That's a plus, mostly knowing it's a job staying in our country but also because you lose some of the "will they be able to handle my problem with a minimum of miscommunication" anxiety.