4WD
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English Speakers By Country
The United States has the highest amount of English speakers, followed by India.
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Foreign Accents at Call Centers
- Thread starter Jdeere562
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BrendanC
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my only issue with the foreign call centers is the lack of comprehension and just reading prompts when you ask/tell them a question or an issue. i only speak english and can put enough enough spanish to get myself in trouble on a job site if needed.
G'wan witcha, Bye!
lol I work with those people, about half my team is from India. Some are definitely easy to understand than others. I am more used to it than most though, been dealing with it for 25 years, being in corporate and government tech, after hours support has always been on other continents.
My wife says she can never understand anything, of course, she is not a native English speaker and even UK accents confuse her.
A lot of times you're calling directly. I remember having an issue with my credit card, calling the number on the back of my credit card, and it was someone with an Indian accent. This was maybe 15 years ago. Another time I called United Airlines trying to book an airline ticket with points, and it was a very scratchy line where the agent had a South Asian accent. And it took maybe 40 minutes while to book 4 tickets from Honolulu to Maui on one of their partner airlines.
The last time I called Comcast the agent sounded like she was from the Philippines. But everything went well.
I remember talking about call center outsourcing with a coworker who was originally from India. He said sometimes he got frustrated because the call center personnel have lousy command of the English language. He also said while in college he worked at a call center for American Express (I think - or did he do IT for them?). He did mention a movie called "Outsourced" about an American guy who was sent to India to train call center employees where his people in the US would lose their jobs and where he was essentially training his replacement manager. And then he fell in love with one of the women he was training although the final part of the movie was that this call center was also shutting down where the replacements would be in China.
Outsourced (film) - Wikipedia
Had to call my internet provider last week as the service went down. Sure enough it's someone in India.
What gets me is how they are forced to use fake English names. How degrading can that be?
You hear them with a heavy punjab accent "Hello, my name is Bob, or Steve" Sure it is
more like Pardeep or Rishabh.
What gets me is how they are forced to use fake English names. How degrading can that be?
You hear them with a heavy punjab accent "Hello, my name is Bob, or Steve" Sure it is
more like Pardeep or Rishabh.
I try not to worry about it - their main language is a completely foreign language so I do my best to understand or read around the lines. Luckily the only times I have to call into a center is for work accounts, which having a business account usually goes directly to native english speakers.
I think my primary care physician could have ended up in a tech help center if she would have taken a left instead of a right somewhere in life
You used to be able to "Presione 2 para español" and often get someone quicker too. When they answer, "Gracias por llamar, ¿en qué puedo ayudarte?", just say "do you speak English" and 99% of the time it would be, "Yes, I can speak English....". 
They were often US-based too.
They were often US-based too.
I've certainly heard of some issues. There are quite a few immigrant doctors from India and Pakistan who came to the US for medical school on programs where they agreed to serve as physicians for several years in parts of rural America that few physicians choose to serve because it's not economically lucrative. I think the key is that the entire cost of medical school might be covered under these programs or there might be special visas for those trained overseas willing to serve in underserved communities. I remember the movie Doc Hollywood where the doctor there was offered a job serving as a local physician at an annual salary of about $30,000.
When This Hospital Needed More Doctors, An Indian-Born Cardiologist Stepped Up to Help
Learn more from New American Economy
www.newamericaneconomy.org
However, I have heard of some issues with accents. Like one doctor who was apparently very good, but had a thick accent. The article I read said that someone though he was asking "Are you still breathing?" even though the patient was clearly breathing and talking. What he was asking was "Are you still bleeding?" because he had come in after an accident.
Its no longer an "issue." Its a fact of life that is out of the general population's control. There is pretty much nothing that can be done at the Corporate, National, State, County, Parish or City level except make it an issue important to your representatives.
OP, you are doing the best you can trying to do business, be patient and keep trying. I've worked with overseas folks my entire career, and I still struggle sometimes. Most entities do their best to filter out poor speaking CS folks based on their ability, but obviously its a subjective test in itself.
Just a few days ago I had to try to communicate with someone about getting a prescription renewed. Doctor's office had not responded to the pharmacy's 2 requests to his office, and I attempted to contact the office myself. Went through the litany of "Press number if you want this, Press number for that." Eventually got someone who could fog a mirror, I think.
But wow. Had to ask the seemingly nice woman to repeat everything she said, sometimes twice. And still wasn't sure I was understanding her. The accent was ferociously unintelligible. No clue what her native language could have been. Didn't sound much like anything I had ever heard. I remained polite, but my frustration meter was pegged.
But wow. Had to ask the seemingly nice woman to repeat everything she said, sometimes twice. And still wasn't sure I was understanding her. The accent was ferociously unintelligible. No clue what her native language could have been. Didn't sound much like anything I had ever heard. I remained polite, but my frustration meter was pegged.
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Spoke with an obvious Indian a couple of weekends ago who used his authentic name. We were visiting my mother and she had lost her "landline" (VOIP). I tried rebooting both her router and modem with no joy. There is an LED on the modem indicating that each service is active and the one for phonne would not illuminate, so I suspected the problem was on their end.
Anyway, called the number on her bill, went through a menu and finally got a callback option, which I took. First surprise, I did get a callback in the time promised and second was that this somewhat hard to understand fellow walked me through some troubleshooting and then did some on his end. End result was that the phone LED came on and the guy had me verify its operation by making a call (wife's cell) and then receiving one as well.
So, the company did what they said they'd do and the guy remedied Mom's phone problem.
Nothing for me to complain about.
Anyway, called the number on her bill, went through a menu and finally got a callback option, which I took. First surprise, I did get a callback in the time promised and second was that this somewhat hard to understand fellow walked me through some troubleshooting and then did some on his end. End result was that the phone LED came on and the guy had me verify its operation by making a call (wife's cell) and then receiving one as well.
So, the company did what they said they'd do and the guy remedied Mom's phone problem.
Nothing for me to complain about.
4WD
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Well, why single out the overseas folks - almost everytime I call a large medical provider I get some dense person in the front office.
Secondly, in my small town they used to try to learn your name. Now it’s like you are taking time away from working those texts,
I have one where I hand her my insurance card and photo ID - she then always slides them back - asks me my name - finds me on the computer - then wants those cards back …
Secondly, in my small town they used to try to learn your name. Now it’s like you are taking time away from working those texts,
I have one where I hand her my insurance card and photo ID - she then always slides them back - asks me my name - finds me on the computer - then wants those cards back …
I work with the most amazing , friendly , intelligent, patient , funny folks where some have the toughest accents to follow from India.
It's amazing who one ends up talking to. Obviously South Asia is the stereotype, but I've ended talking to people (sometimes technical people) in the Philippines, New Zealand, or Canada.
One of the oddest was my issues with my internet connection in my hotel room. Apparently everything was outsourced to a provider in Quebec and the hotel staff didn't know the first thing about the equipment other than maybe cycling the power. I was given a phone number to contact where I was talking for a half hour with a French-Canadian tech. Granted he was polite and professional, plus his English was perfect but with that French-Canadian accent. Once everything was fixed (it was some problem on their end with their servers in Quebec) I thanked him for the help. He did laugh a bit when I said "merci" at the end of our call.
The companies do it to cut costs. They push a lot more than call centers overseas. Programmers, operators, administrators.
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