Earthlink Cuts Today? Rumors suggest the CEO is cleaning house... Earthlink, like AOL, has been hemorrhaging dial-up subscribers. Unlike AOL, Earthlink decided to tough it out in the broadband industry. The company has been doing their best to survive by trying a little bit of everything. They're investing in broadband over powerline, reselling Covad ADSL2+ and line-powered voice and deploying municipal Wi-Fi. They've also been engaged in an outsourcing push for several years -- the company slowly closing the doors of U.S. call centers and replacing domestic tech support with offshore labor. Remaining U.S. tech support employees not cut during a big layoff in 2004 have been quietly getting the axe, as documented by employees in our forums. The company's new CEO has been surveying his kingdom since he was hired, and it's expected that his first round of cuts will be announced sometime today. It's believed that the company's dial-up and muni-plans will be hit the hardest, but it also might not be a bad idea to stop throwing money at BPL and their money pit MVNO Helio. Earthlink is not responding to requests for comment.
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 Reviews:
 ·Comcast
 ·Comcast Digital ..
3 edits | Standing from a distance... looking on as a former employee that jumped ship in Nov 2006 and found a much better opportunity, knowing that things will work out for you if you have faith and believe that better is on its way.
This too, shall pass. For the people that may get the axe, know that there is life after EarthLink, or any other company.
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The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary. | |
|  Boomer86never say roadkillPremium
join:2002-10-18
Walden, NY | Helio is a wayward ship without a compass They too will suffer a fate similar to Amp'd Mobile... nice service and devices, but limited potential for subscriber growth (with no prepaid plans to speak of, and postpaid rates out of reach of a good chunk of their demographic). At least they're not going over the top marketing that service as Amp'd had.
I left EL cable HSI a couple years back, partly due to the low level support outsourcing to India; too bad they are sticking to that path.
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If you can't beat 'em, curse 'em behind their back! | |
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1 edit | Outsourcing For the short term, outsourcing helps the bottom line. In the long run, you alienate your customers. I know I can't be the only one who hates to call for help, only to get a guy or woman on the other line who doesn't speak English. To top that off, these people read from books and offer no real answers. If they fear losing customers, they will lose even more after they outsource. Dell should serve as the poster child story. They outsourced and had so many complaints, they brought their help BACK to the U.S. People don't want to buy a product, and not be able to ask questions. If that's the case, you better be willing to sell it dirt cheap, so customers "get what they pay for". Otherwise, people will migrate elsewhere. Beware Earthlink. I promise you this well happen. | |
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·Comcast
| Re: Outsourcing I do not believe it really matters for most people who dose the "tech support" what matter is quality. The problem is both Indian and American are just script readers and not technicians. The bad thing about Indian Outsourcing is bone headed executives are hiring Indian University graduates with English majors for a job that was done by a high school educated American and the executives have their head up their buts where they can figure out why the Indian college graduate bolts.
The big problem with EarthLink was they decided to go on the government entitlement and regulation gravy train starting with the Brand X court case then Muni Wireless. Frankly, I hope they go Chapter 7 I will do a jig on their grave | |
| | | | | Re: Outsourcing jc100 has it right. It's a combination of language barriers and script reading. | |
| | | | | Scat,
While the Americans might be book readers, you can at least speak to them and get some kind of unique response. Even if t his response is canned, it can vary depending on the problem. The last time I called support, I got an Indian guy who had NO IDEA what I was saying. I asked him the problem. He says OK. I say do you understand me, he says OK. Not once did he verbalize or communicate that he did. This has been my experience each and every time I've called "Indian support" on various products. When it comes down to it, I'd take the American doing it versus the Indian. At least in the case of someone who is fluent on English, I know we're on the same level. That doesn't guarantee I'll get top notch support. It does, however, guarantee, I can asked to get bumped to a higher tier who might be able to help me if script reader can't. In the case of the Indian Support, they don't have one iota of a clue what you are asking for or saying. You might as well google your answers since you won't get anywhere.
Hence, I stick by my stance. It might be good in the short term for the bottom line, but not in the long term. Customers do care about support. Why buy a product if NO ONE is there to explain how to use it when you have problems? Most people are NOT technology savvy these days to figure things on their own. That's the whole purpose of having support. Even then, the best of us still need help once in a while, too. | |
| | | | dogo88
join:2001-09-24
Old Bridge, NJ | Re: Outsourcing ok. ok. ok. | |
| | | | | | you forgot the fact that they insult your intelligence by using names like Chad, Todd, or my favorite Heather. Now visualize Apu from the Simpsons telling you his name was John Henry!
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Burn a tire, but make sure you buy that carbon offset! | |
| | | | | | | Re: Outsourcing I was trying not to be too mean and spiteful, but you are right. they give themselves "American" names and expect you to believe it for one moment. I am sorry, your name is not John. If it was you'd be able to speak English fluently. Not that I am knocking on India. I had a friend from there that lived in U.S. for a while. However, said it best to me one time. English is the Indian official language for business. We just speak it so fast, no one ever understands us, since our native tongue is like that. Hence, couple this with the fact most of these people probably have had little practice using the language, and you got the barrier problem. Therefore, I have personally started focusing on companies that have support in the U.S. for their technology products.
APC power supplies
BFG Video Cards
Ultra (makes psu, cases, ram, etc)
Web Businesses
Tiger Direct
Newegg
Both are excellent in their support.
Are some very noteworthy companies that deserve a thumbs up. | |
| | | | | | dogo88
join:2001-09-24
Old Bridge, NJ | Re: Outsourcing Ok. Ok. Ok. Thank you very much. Come again. | |
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·Comcast
| First you forget India was a British colony so there is a history of speaking the Queens English. I never had any problem except the issue of quality.
Then again get use to it. Tech support is a expenses you are going to get offshoring or something far worst like I just had with United Airlines, A disembodied computer voice. | |
| | | | | | | Re: Outsourcing In English please! | |
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Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Signed up in June When I signed up they offered 3.0/768, I was only able to get 1.5-1.7/384. Verizon told them they had to cap me at 800/180 due to distance. It took almost a month to even get them to open a trouble ticket for the speed. The Support was bad, very bad. Finally I had to file an FCC complaint to get the termination fee waived.
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Retaking our country one election at a time. | |
| | ackman
join:2000-10-04
Acworth, GA | Good riddance, Earthlink! Keep outsourcing those jobs to India, Earthlink. That will give the CEO some nice bonuses, but the failing customer service will kill the business. Rest in peace. | |
| | | | They will keep dying Speaking from sales dept. I used to work for Elnk doing sales before the customer service layoff and after. Before the layoff I could get 18 willing customers a week along with 4 other people. About 3 or 4 months after I none of us could get more than 3 or 4 a week. Earthlinks customer service degraded so much it demoralised the company, the customers, and even our partners.
So, yea Elnk is pretty much toast. At least AOL does everything they can to keep customers. | |
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| tcopePremium
join:2003-05-07
Sandy, UT
kudos:1 | Sinking Ship These are the same idiots who have mailed me no less then 10 letters ($.33 each) requesting that I pay them $1.05 on my account that I cancelled a year ago. I even called them to point out that they would need to tell me what the $1.05 charge was for before I paid and "mentioned" that they might want to consider passing on this collection as they had already spent 3x as much trying to collect $1.05.
I'm still getting the 3 page bills. | |
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