It is noble to want to push Canadians to strive to pursue their full academic potential but you need to remember that not everyone has the same potential, not everyone wants to study another 5 years (+) after high school and that these individuals might be very well suited for such jobs.

I'd like to point out to the person that thinks it's 'economically good' to outsource all jobs to other countries: What happens when all our jobs are outsourced? Who is going to pay for the product then?

I'm guessing it will be individuals like you that in the end will push for automated services at restaurants, robotic janitors, trucks that drive themselves, and machines that will replace doctors since they scan your body and diagnose you right away...

Most people seem to divide the options available to Telus in two: (1) Using market value, foreign, 'less competent' call center workers (perhaps the latent racism is here by assuming they are innately less competent?) and (2) Using local, 'more competent', higher cost Canadian workers.

I would suggest that it is the failure to manage and train foreign call center workers to adequately service customers that is the real problem.

I would suggest that it is the failure to manage and train foreign call centre workers to adequately service customers that is the real problem.

There must be more than scripts to walk through. There should even be more methods of getting support like reliable email and immediate online support. These are all jobs of management and implementing systems that work to improve the customer experience. Foreign workers could work in teams. Analysis of calls could be done and focus given to recognizing trends and training workers to deal with those trends. Kaizen methods could even be introduced into the call centres so there would be a constantly evolving and improving system.

Your view is not correct from an economic or even a realistic standpoint.

It takes at least 1-2 years to get completely comfortable with the position (customer service). There is a ton of knowledge about order processing, plans, and telecommunications information that a rep should know to do their job correctly and efficiently. Not to mention about the continuous changes that occur.

Do you really think that if Telus was to send all it's customer service overseas it would improve? Or would it degrade the customer service that you see now?

said by fdsdff :

There is nothing racist in it. It is pure economics from my point of view.

Canada invests in education. Our taxes are high. Jobs that don't require much skill should be done by cheaper labour in other developing nations like India or the Phillipines, especially when the cost of these jobs is paid for by Canadians. Where do you think the money to pay these people comes from? Canadians should be doing things that CAN'T be done by people from developing nations. Their education is their competitive advantage but they aren't using it.

Telus (or any company) can't be competitive by overpaying for this type of work.

Since the jobs themselves are serving Canadians, our relative costs go up. If these jobs were serving and being paid for by people in other nations I wouldn't have a problem with it, but in the end this just costs our citizens and is a net loss.

We need more jobs in Canada, true, but settling for more low level jobs is not, in the long term, a good decision. I don't know why we should be happy about Telus unecessarily increasing their costs.

So now we are, comparatively, overpaying! We must try to BENEFIT from globalization. If we don't, we just fall further and further behind other nations that are using it to their advantage.

said by fdsdff :

There is nothing racist in it. It is pure economics from my point of view.

Canada invests in education. Our taxes are high. Jobs that don't require much skill should be done by cheaper labour in other developing nations like India or the Phillipines, especially when the cost of these jobs is paid for by Canadians. Where do you think the money to pay these people comes from? Canadians should be doing things that CAN'T be done by people from developing nations. Their education is their competitive advantage but they aren't using it.

Telus (or any company) can't be competitive by overpaying for this type of work.

Since the jobs themselves are serving Canadians, our relative costs go up. If these jobs were serving and being paid for by people in other nations I wouldn't have a problem with it, but in the end this just costs our citizens and is a net loss.

We need more jobs in Canada, true, but settling for more low level jobs is not, in the long term, a good decision. I don't know why we should be happy about Telus unecessarily increasing their costs.

So now we are, comparatively, overpaying! We must try to BENEFIT from globalization. If we don't, we just fall further and further behind other nations that are using it to their advantage.