Here & There Column 5-18-10

Customer Service From Where?

It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to dial customer service anymore because you just can't get the service from anyone here in the United States.
Just in the past four months I needed customer service on three different occasions.
The first call I made was created soon after I had leased a new car and it stalled out on me the first day I drove it from the dealership and would not start. On Star and the automobile manufacturer did a diagnostic test on it and could not find anything wrong. The car had to be taken to a local automobile dealership who tested and tested the vehicle but could not find anything wrong with it.
Shortly after I suggested they move the car inside their heated garage area....bingo it started and I noted to them (and I'm not mechanically inclined) that some water or condensation had very possibly gotten into the fuel line and froze and that's why it would not start and it thawed out in the heated garage. The service manager looked at me and said "I guess your right." I asked if they had put any dry gas into my car and the answer was no. Some days you just can't win.
But, while the car sat in the parking lot of the local dealership I got a call from the automobile manufacturer customer service who noted he was the regional expert and that within several days he would get the problem figured out.
Little did he know that I had already put my non-mechanical brain to work and solved the problem. While talking to this regional expert, who at times I could not understand, I asked where he was calling me from. His reply was Argentina so I asked if he was flying into Newburgh and then renting a car to drive to Sullivan County where my vehicle was sitting and he said no that he would do the repairs over the Internet and telephone.
I ended the conversation by saying that I was going to have my car driven to me by the local dealership and thanked him for his long-distance out of the country service.
Next I had an online Internet problem and after reaching customer service I asked with whom I was talking with and where they were located. India was the location.
My third call for customer service was as a result of a problem with my Wireless Broadband Router and my call went to the Philippines where all they wanted to do was charge me $40 American bucks to get my modem to work but would not guarantee anything.
So many folks I have talked to express the same scenario and one has to wonder if these outsourcing jobs to other countries is a threat to American workers.
U.S. companies for a long time have been outsourcing jobs like the ones I mentioned above because they get much cheaper labor and these services can be performed over the Internet.
One has to wonder with the unemployment rate presently as high as it is that unemployed Americans would jump at jobs like these.
One has to say it like it is and outsourcing jobs like these are definitely hurting our economy. Some experts are saying that from 3.3 to 14 million knowledge based jobs will be at risk between 2000 and 2015 because of outsourcing.
Outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries limits the quality and availability of jobs in the American workplace.
Folks also remark that the quality of these outsourced customer service jobs at times is very questionable.
Shame on corporate greed in America.......these outsourced jobs could easily benefit some of our unemployed.