<p>I agree that it’s frustrating. I’d rather pay a little extra for a product from a company who hasn’t outsourced their call center to India and other countries. There have been several times where after asking the person to repeat their response, I’ve just had to say “I’m sorry - I can’t understand what you’re saying - good-bye” and hang up. Even if you can understand their English you have to be very careful as to the words stated to them or they won’t understand you. Some of the help desks are also very scripted and if you veer slightly off the notmal track, they have no idea what you’re saying or how to respond. I know that many thought India would be a perfect place for call centers because they all theoretically understand English and are cheap labor but in reality, many of them are difficult to understand due to the heavy accent.</p>
<p>I think some companies are starting to realize the frustration of their customers and the fact that the customers are either willing to pay them more for North American based call centers or might switch to another company to avoid the offshore call centers. Dell is one of these that specifically offers the ‘feature’ of a NA based call center if one pays for the more premium level of support. Some other companies advertise that their call centers are NA based.</p>
<p>A hint - a number of companies have NA based call centers during the normal workday and switch to offshore ones for the after hours shifts (which might start at 4pm or thereabouts). Regardless of their “24 hour call center”, try to call them during the normal working hours earlier in the day. You’ll have a greater chance of getting an NA based call center.</p>
<p>Note - When I do get an NA based call center I generally go out of my way to express my appreciation for them. Maybe if the management hear it enough they’ll think twice of offshoring their call center.</p>
<p>I had to call Adobe the other day. Long story, to do with trying to purchase a download while I was in China (don’t try it) and having been charged for a download and never getting the download key.</p>
<p>I try customer service. They can’t find the order and give me tech support. They are in India. Now I work for a software outsourcing company, so I am completely sympathetic, in principal.</p>
<p>However, the tech support woman keeps interrupting me every time I try to tell her what has happened. What finally infuriates me beyond bounds is that every time she interrupts me she says, " I am sorry, Alumother, to interrupt you but…" so that finally I say in a very aggrieved tone, “Well if you are so sorry then stop doing it!”</p>
<p>When I asked to talked to her supervisor she said he was in a meeting and I would have to wait for “some time.”</p>
<p>I have a much harder time with Asian accents (taiwan, korean, japan) than Indian. And since my job involves communicating with people all over the world, I thank god for email.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed that any time I call T-mobile, I get an American. They do not use foreign call centers. I have written a note of thanks to them for that!</p>
<p>The worst outsourced customer service people on the planet are working for Travelocity. Not only do they NOT understand or speak English very well, they also cannot and will not solve travel issues. I have stopped using them because of issues with misbooked travel (how about having my connecting flight LEAVE three hours before I arrive in the city). I now deal directly with the airlines which, while not perfect, at least know when their planes are coming and going. One thing that is new and quite irritating is the “filtering” they are trying on these foreign accented speakers. I’m guessing they think it will help clarify the speaker but in fact it sounds just awful. Also, these outsourced workers need to learn the meaning of the word “supervisor”. Whenever I’ve asked to speak to one, they say I can’t.</p>
<p>I notice this on Delta calls and also AOL…I’m sure that they speak the King’s English ON PAPER but its the inflection that I just can’t get. I have a very good ear and speak two other languages (besides English) but the Indian accent I just can’t understand.</p>
<p>I had a most difficult time with a man from Indian. He raised his voice to me as I questioned him regarding a billing issue, so I raised my voice back. Before I knew it, I asked how I could issue a complaint. I also had difficulty with a young lady who works for Sprint. She was from a spanish speaking country. I usually don’t have problems with spanish accents, but with the very poor connection, children, (on her end), crying and playing in the background, it was awful. Since then if I must call Sprint, (esp. if I am in the store, and they ask you to use their phones to talk with customer service…go figure, lol), I request to speak to someone in this country. They chuckle…but it works. :)</p>
<p>I also had a similar problem with Sprint. I simply couldn’t understand most of what the person said. I did ask what country they were in though and she was in the Philippines. After trying to understand some more I ended up just saying good-bye. I called the next day earlier and this time ended up at a NA based call center where I could at least understand the person. I’ve since switched carriers (not due to this though).</p>
<p>This isn’t an indictment of any of these people - it’s an indictment of companies who make the decision to put a person who can’t communicate with the customers in a position that’s all about communicating with customers. The counter to that point though is that we consumers always want the better deal and tend to go with the cheapest so the companies cut costs in any way they can and outsourcing is a way to cut costs although IMO it could end up costing them more than they save in the long run.</p>
<p>T-Mobile has like five offices around the country, one of which is here in Allentown. Sprint has an office near Harrisburg, and Verizon I believe has an office around here too. One of the guys I went to college with works at the Spint in their tech support. And guy I used to work with works at T-mobile in their tech support as well. He seems to really enjoy working there.</p>
<p>At my job I deal with people all around the country and as far as accents from India, it really depends on the person. Most of the time you can figure it out, but sometimes it’s like you are on completely different pages. I’m usually pretty good at understanding them, however they usually have a hard time understanding me. Which is funny because I talk very clear and have no accent. (Someone told me I have a Philadelphian accent, but I think that’s the same as having no accent… According to myself)</p>
<p>It took me like ten-fifteen minutes to give a guy an address one day. I think that was the most frustrating 10 minutes I’ve ever had at work. He simply did not understand my English. We were stuck on the PO box number for I don’t know how long. Example,
This is how the number 8 went (and no, I’m not exagerating):</p>
<p>8.
E?<br>
No, 8.<br>
E like elephant?<br>
No, 8.<br>
E like eye?
no, 8.<br>
A?
No, 8.<br>
A like Edward (I LOVED that one)
no, 8.<br>
I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.<br>
8. The number after 7 and before 9.<br>
Oh, 8. What’s the next number?</p>
<p>I would say a phone call with someone from India takes roughly 2-3 minutes longer than someone here, which I think is part of the problems with these Call Centers in India. They outsource it to save money, however they wind up only being able to do a fraction of the work due to the language barriers. That, and the fact that it really ticks customers off have a lot to do with them bringing them back here.</p>
<p>I called Best Buy once and it was awful. The girl didn’t wind up helping me anyway. I wound up e-mailing them and straightening it out that way.</p>
<p>A spanish speaking employee in Sprint told me, after I requested to speak with someone in this country on their in-store customer service line, (everytime I write this I get tickled…customer service in person wants you to get on a phone to talk to…customer service, lol), anywho…, said to ask for representatives from Virginia, (the state). Apparently this is where one of their east coast service centers are located.</p>
<p>I had a terrible time with US Air this summer. They had my son stranded and no one was willing to help. I don’t know where they were located. When I asked they would not tell me. Of course the supervisor was out and the next was not arriving for several hours. The experience was so bad that I vow to never fly US Air again.</p>
<p>I’m not sure where in my post I implied this, but I’m aware (hence “outsourcing AND offshoring”, since it’s becoming relatively more common for businesses to move completely overseas rather than just outsourcing part of production or labor). Call centers were what we were specifically discussing. Obviously there is a great deal of contention over other practices in outsourcing such as production facilities that are unsafe or labor that is unfairly compensated. Actually, until recently I tended to hear a lot more about that than problems with call centers. I don’t have that much direct experience with call centers because I tend to avoid calling them. A lot of times it is all in all easier to figure it out on the website or ask a friend to fix it. I realize that this wouldn’t be the case for everyone. </p>
<p>Bay - asking someone to slow down isn’t always as obvious as you might think. Many people are embarassed to do it, because they don’t want to be seen as offensive. I am saying from my point of view, it isn’t, and we shouldn’t feel guilty or embarassed (which people have specifically said they feel in this situation). It is what it is. I have had people ask me to slow down/clarify when they did not understand my english and I am glad when they do, not embarassed. Whether or not people choose to patronize companies with outsourced customer service is their prerogative. However, it’s ubiquitous enough that I don’t think there will be a large enough scale boycott forcing it to change. Right now the backlash does not outweigh the profit. I personally don’t really care, I have no stake in it whatsoever. It could change tomorrow. I tend to support local and domestic products and services. For various reasons. This is really not my problem. I also understand there are situations that make it untenable for people to just switch or discontinue patronizing a company.</p>
<p>I work with many Indians both here and in the subcontinent. I have heard some of them complain about the Indian accents after they have been here a few years.</p>
<p>The phone is especially bad. Usually if you can get them to write it is better. Remember that for many Indians English id their third for fourth language. Many in the South where a lot of the tech industry is located speak a local language and need to learn Hindi and English to boot.</p>
<p>BTW my company will put all of its software engineers in India but non of its CSR folks. You don’t want to see what happens when a stressed investment manager from a big Wall Street firm turns in to when he gets a terminal not responding and a CSR who doesn’t speak English. The average consumer wants cheap and gets cheap.</p>
<p>Interestingly the top mnagers at my company don’t like dealing with India directly though they do love the cheap salaries. he net result is a lot of long hours for middle managers.</p>
<p>The salad days for American software and computer engineers are over. I would strogly advise a bright young lad to get an electrician or plumbers apprenticeship. It will be a lot more lucratice in the long run than paying $45K a year for a BS in engineering.</p>
<p>what part of the US do they pronounce ‘orange’ with a discernable "or"ange vs the way I say it "ar"ange. My bf lived in Chicago until he was 10, is that a midwest thing? I correct him everytime but he won’t stop!</p>
<p>Tech support on the phone is difficult even when there is no language barrier. back in the dark ages of DOS, I was a programmer. At the Dos prompt — C:> — I told someone to type in Print K. But I said “type Print space K” (to see how much memory they had). They kept getting an error msg. I asked them to read everything back to me letter by letter. Sure enough they had typed the work “space” out instead of hitting the space bar as I intended. I also had someone type out the word “Parentheses” instead of typing “(”</p>
<p>I think midwest, but I could be wrong. It’s the same with “address.” </p>
<p>Once, about ten years ago, my then best friend was typing a paper for her then boyfriend, because she was better at typing then he was. He had it all written out and was reciting it to her for her to type into word. He spoke all of his punctuations so she would get it right. When it was done, it was full of the word space, apostrophe, etc. He spent more time editing them out then he would have just by typing the paper himself.</p>
<p>It’s the same thing when I give an address at work. I always say “and the next line is…” because people for some reason run everything together on one line and don’t know where to break it off. It’s like you’ve never addressed an envelope before. I’m going to mail something and write out on one line sueinphilly po box 5833 philadelphia, pa 19101.</p>
<p>Really? I have an accent that’s very neutral, and I say out exactly like many northeastern Americans with mild accents. I don’t think I have any friends that even come close to the stereotypical “oot” sound. It’s surprising that I keep hearing that kind of thing, but rarely actually hear the sound that’s being referred to (with exceptions; I knew a guy from a native reserve once and he had the most stereotypical Canadian accent ever).</p>
<p>Also, I think "or"ange is the right way to say the word, for most of the world.</p>
<p><em>EDIT</em> That’s actually not quite true about accents; I have a friend (who ironically is from Saudi Arabia) who has a fairly Canadian accent. Doesn’t strongly say the “oot”, but you can detect it subtly.</p>
<p>Haha, I say out and about and all words with the “ow” sound sort of like the Canadians but I’ve never been north of Va. in my life. I have what is known as (the remants of) a "Hoigh Toider (High Tider) accent heard from natives of the area around the Outer Banks of NC. It’s a leftover from the original English settlers of the area. </p>
<p>Some of my words sound like Eliza Doolittle with a southern drawl!</p>
<p>I first learned about the Canadian accent when I had a TA from Alberta- the “out” and “about” were distinctive. Indian accents come in all kinds, my husband’s sounds almost British whereas his sister’s was hard to understand when she first arrived, now it’s perfectly clear, and their aunt’s… her adult son agrees with us on the difficulty she still has in being understood after more than a quarter century here. It depends on which school they attended when learning English. I enjoy asking people on the telephone where they are because I can often tell they are foreign or from a different region of the U.S. And, of course, we here in the upper Midwest, eg MN, WI, MI, have no accent…</p>