Customer Service reps - accents and poor diction

[Pappy]

This about sums it up:

 

[tnthomas]

I am a customer service rep for a large company at a "call center" but I actually work from home now.

So many customers echo your concerns about the accents usually Indian and say how grateful they are to have me as their rep because of my English.

When I am having an issue with my own work applications, I call our own help desk for tech assistance and mostly get an off shore tech from India! Thank goodness they can log into my computer remotely to fix, rather than me struggling to understand their speech.

I get pretty hot about American service jobs going off shore so greedy corporations escape American scale wages, paying for health benefits and taxes; throwing away American jobs and leave us, the consumer with sub-standard levels of service because we cannot understand their flippin' accents!

(Every year we are pressed to partake in the Big Company Survey which is quite lengthy and supposedly anonymous. Every year I offer my comments at the end.."keep our jobs here".). But that's another thread.

That's it in a nutshell! :shrug:

 

[Red]

The last couple times I had to call a service rep, I would wait until he/she answered and if I didn't like the accent, I would hang up and call again in 1/2 hr, and I did that until I found someone I felt might be suitable. I can't stand saying "pardon" all the time during the conversation. It really ticks me off.

 

[jujube]

Mujibar is looking for a job, so he goes to a hiring fair in Mumbai.

Interviewer: We'd like to hire you for a customer service position, Mujibar, but you will have to pass a test in English first.

Mujibar: Very well, Sir. I will try most diligently.

Interviewer: Please use the words green, pink and yellow in a sentence.

Mujibar: I believe I can do that, Sir. The phone goes green, I pink it up and say "Yellow, here is Mujibar, how may I be of service to you?"

I'm sure you've spoken to Mujibar lately. He calls himself Bob these days and is working for Microsoft.

 

[Mike]

You are lucky in the US, we have to interpret calls from Indian staff at call centres there, it's bizarre, if we have a problem with our cable tv Sky, we have to go through the problem with somebody who sounds like Peter Sellers in his ' goodness, gracious me' mode. they are wonderfully polite and friendly though it has to be said.

My internet provider is BT, (British Telecom), any calls to their customer
services automatically go to India, but, if it is during the day, I can ask
to speak to somebody in the UK, they don't mind and transfer the call.
Should you be able to understand them at all, it is better to stick with
the Indians if you can as they all have a degree in computer science.
British Gas is another company who have overseas call centers, this
time in South Africa.
Skype call centers for the UK and probably other countries are in the
Philippines, more accents to master.

Mike.