foreign call centres.........

Things change I've changed

Things change I've changed

Things change I've changed

Soldato
Joined
27 Jul 2005
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The Orion Spur
Do you ask to speak to somebody that is English ?,

I've started to recently as I've had some bad experiences with foreign call centers and surprisingly on a few occasions they have transfered me to an English agent/call centere that has been very helpful, the thing is I do feel a little bad asking sometimes, I can tell by the tone of their voice that they feel disheartened, I know they try their best but when I want to try and resolve an issue I want someone that is going to fully understand me and be able to think outside the box, I just got off the phone to BT now trying to resolve a problem with my Broadband, was speaking to a young Indian lady, she was trying her best but in the end I lost my patience and asked to be transfered to an English call center, I could tell she was unhappy but at the same time she remained polite and transfered me, I felt quite guilty tbh, do you think we should give them a chance ?, and also do you think that they will ever improve ?.
 
I give them a chance, but if they are unable to help satisfactorily then i will ask to be transferred. Never felt guilty about it.
 
I'll ask to be transferred or to escalate the call if the person on the other end can't deal with the query effectively (which isn't necessarily the same as giving me what I want I will add). That applies irrespective of where the call centre is. I've spoken to very helpful and very unhelpful people in both UK and offshore call centres.
 
If I feel uncomfortable with the level of non-English accent when they say "thank you for calling Company X - my name is Mr or Mrs X", I'll usually ask to speak to an English person straight away. One time this resulted being put in some sort of an infinite queue, so I just called back and got lucky. :p
 
If I have issues understanding them, I'll ask to be transferred. They don't need to be foreign, I have issues understanding some northerners.
 
Student loans call centre annoys me, they are Scottish, I dont know where in Scotland but a lot of them seem to have a very thick accent which I find very hard to understand.

Im not that fussed about where my call centre is, obviously if I cant understand then I dont feel bad about asking for someone else but I'll give them a chance.
 
if im paying £1 a minute like on some of the helplines (virgin media anyone?) then i want a resolution ASAP and if i cant understand them in the first 30s i ask to be transferred.
 
Never had a foreign call centre. Or at least not one with any foreign accent.
Phoned

o2, orange, hsbc, halifax, telewest. All appeared to be English based.
 
Yeah those Scots can be damn hard to understand quite often. But I'll usually stick with it for a bit before asking to be transferred ;)
 
It boggles the mind, I dont know how much they get paid, but they must be really, really cheap... Seriously they are crap, I work for an ISP at the moment and the indian callcentre is diabolical.

I worked on an internal team for a bit which took query calls from them, and god they don't seem to have an original thought in their head, its not just the language "barrier"... They continually wait in a 20 minute queue to query when a customer's line will be activated only to have not even looked at the account to see that it was closed 2 weeks ago.

And when I speak to my phone provider (3) arrgghhh, I swear they don't even listen to me. Thye just hear some words and then recite some lines or something completely unrelated to what I said.
 
It's got to the point where I sometimes put the phone down if I hear an Indian voice answer.

I just can't be bothered. What with the time delay and my struggling to understand their accent I just try and find the information I need through alternative means.
 
It is Totally down to whether i can understand them or not. If i can Fine but if not i ask to speak to someone who speaks English as there First langauge. They say You can ******* talk mate & You're s'pose to be English :p
 
If you make an effort and you can't understand them, you have every right to be transfered to someone that does understand you and you can understand them.

I always feel a tad guilty because anyone on the PC bandwagon nearby will point and say! "THATS RACIST!!!!"

No, it's not - I can't understand a word the person is saying and when it is my money / possessions they are in care of, I'd like to understand fully what is going on.

Rich
 
I generally e-mail where possible although you still get idiotic replies simply because their use of the English language is highly questionable.

My biggest issue is that off shore call centres are a direct contradiction of 'good customer service'.

I don't think anyone should have an issue with asking to be put through to a UK call centre. After all, if we all did this then off shore centres would close and this could result in greater employment over here (yes I know they will be Polish :p).
 
Gillywibble said:
I generally e-mail where possible although you still get idiotic replies simply because their use of the English language is highly questionable.
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I remember a complaint I dealt with a while back via email, the poor woman had called in twice on the premium rate line with an unusual error, instead of trying to help her, she was put on hold and hung up on twice, then she emailed in explaining this big problem she HAD that was NOW FIXED and she wondered if there was any compensation she could get for ringing up, the reply from the indan callcentre was 'Can you give us some more information on the error so we can help you diagnose the problem', so I gave her loads of free months and stuff :D
 
I had so much problems with BT trying to sort my broadband. I had no landline at the time so i had to ring by mobile, i spent 2 hours on the phone being on hold and passed on once. Got through to an indian who said i needed to be transferred to another department. I told him i was running out of credit (i had the 1min remaining warning) and that i couldn't go on hold and could he call me back. I had to repeat this numerous times but he just kept saying he'll put me on hold. So then my phone cut out and i was majorly annoyed with wasting 2 hours worth of phone credit on this fool
 
BT is the worst for this. it's one of the reasons i recently cancelled my broadband with them. also i was recently cold called by someone at BT as a questionnaire type thing - couldn't understand a word they were saying. you'd think they'd put a little more effort in as they were calling me..... :rolleyes:

when will they realise they're not saving money because queries are not being resolved first time, calls are taking x times longer and you're just generally ******* your customers off. it can't be much fun for the staff either..... :o

i also had to deal with hsbc on the phone recently, i'm pretty sure the guy was indian - not that it mattered. he understood me perfectly and my query was dealt with instantly. spot on service. :)
 
Truth is, I don't have a problem with the Indian accent, but I absolutely dread dealing with Sky on the telephone, because of the thick scottish accents (thick as in broad). I'm sure the reason I never get anywhere with sky, is because they think I'm taking the P, when I keep asking them to "say again".
 
scousey said:
Truth is, I don't have a problem with the Indian accent, but I absolutely dread dealing with Sky on the telephone, because of the thick scottish accents (thick as in broad). I'm sure the reason I never get anywhere with sky, is because they think I'm taking the P, when I keep asking them to "say again".
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lol :p
 
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