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

[Whitewater]

I find most accents are fine even some of the broad ones, listening to what they're saying helps a lot too

 

[loltim]

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.

I've never spoken to an English person at HSBC.

 

[Greenlizard0]

I never really saw the problems with foreign call centres. Businesses do what they need to do to survive.

As for the accents - there are plenty of people over here that can barely speak english..

 

[Vixen]

I used to deal with HSBC quite a lot when I worked for RBS voice authorisations, and they were definately the bank we had the most problems with. They were fine for easy calls, where the customer knew their password, but they often couldn't understand when we asked for a card to be retained. To be honest though, a lot of the problems I had with them were due to the customers not being happy about the Indian accent and kicking up a fuss about that.

I've had horrible experiences with the Indian Virgin Media call centre, and now I refuse to even speak to anyone there. My net connection didn't come back up after a scheduled maintenance in my area, and two Indians who were obviously just scripted told me it was an issue with the anti-virus I'd been running for the last 2 years. It was only after I called for a third time and got an English guy that I got it working again (something to do with modem frequency).

I think it's rather ignorant to ask for someone else straight away, unless you've had multiple bad experiences with that specific company. We had quite a lot of foreign staff when I worked at RBS, and some of them were much better at the job than "local" staff. I can only think of one occasion where someone asked to speak to someone "who speaks English" straight away, and it didn't go down very well with the team leader.

 

[dun]

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

Haha, Its not like you asked to speak to a white person

I can generally understand accents quite well. But I've found there does seem to be a correlation between further away call centres and poor support

 

[sniffy]

I think it's rather ignorant to ask for someone else straight away

It's hardly ignorant to ask for a different person when you can't even understand their opening sentence. It's nothing to get upset, it's to be expected. If I can't understand you and I'm paying for the pleasure, I'm not going to be happy.