Why they should have more English based call centres

Basher said:
THis is why I love First Direct :)
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and Lloyds TSB and Halifax. FD and Halifax's main customer service call centres run 24 hours a day and all three can be phoned using geographic numbers. :D

My Egg credit card got transferred to Barclaycard and they use indian call centres. :( I haven't had to call more than a few times but I always prefer speaking to someone from the UK. :)
 
I remember when I worked in a call centre for an insurance company and on a number of occasions the first question that was asked by the customer was 'Am I speaking to someone in England' :p.

That same insurance company was later taken over by the ex-head of what was Norwich Union and was known for outsourcing his call centres to India, luckily for us though he kept ours in sunny Halifax :)

If i'm honest then I do generally prefer to speak to an English call centre, however if the person on the other end of the line is coherent then I don't have a problem with it :)
 
Really?
I am not making a sweeping generalisation about any of the accents that will follow, but...

When I used to call A&L I would get a scouser, always very nice, but sometimes damned near impossible to understand. Similarly, when I call Sky I get a Geordie (not so bad on the whole), or a Scot which is a lottery since the accent is either very heavy or not. There is another company, which I cannot name here, which has its call centre operations out-sourced to a company in Cardiff, and a lot of the time I cant understand them either....which is amusing since I lived up that way for years.
Face to face I have no issues so I can only assume that accents+telephones='Can you repeat that please'.
 
I actually prefer foreign call centres: when they're Canadian. Very helpful, more polite than UK call centres, and you can giggle to yourself when they say "aboot" instead of about.

What's not to love?
 
toon_mad said:
Pakistani Indian
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That's racey!
 
Newm0 said:
[..]
Race, colour, location, accent these are all irrelevant when it comes to getting support from a customer service advisor. If you get a good agent you will have a good experience regardless.
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Yes, yes, yes, no.

Accent is very relevant. A fairly large proportion of the calls I've had to or from call centres (either me phoning for service or them phoning me to try to deceive me into buying something) have been made worse by communication problems caused by accents. Communication is diminished on both sides as we both have some difficulty understanding each other - how can that not have an effect?

Also...who on earth expects "a good experience" from a phone call with someone at a call centre? It's a call to resolve a problem or to buy something, not entertainment.
 
PapaLazaru said:
I'll leave this here. :D
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:D

I actually don't mind, it's sometimes a pain if you get someone who is hard to understand but what really irks me is I know his name isn't "Paul" or "Andrew" or so forth. I think they do it to try and alleviate the contention raised by the OP, but it is just so obviously false.. and if I were in my shoes I would find it a bit offensive..
 
Lots of companies are moving call centres back from abroad and you often see companies advertising the fact they have UK or BRITISH call centres (because a lot of call centres are within the UK but NOT IN ENGLAND:mad:). Sure some back office stuff may be done abroad but I much prefer speaking to a UK based person.
 
Virgin Media needs to take note of this.

Damn Asians and their lack of understanding!
 
Maybe it 'was' but it certainly was not when I called multiple times a few weeks ago!
 
Ah, it's been a few years since I last called them so there's a good chance they've been shifted - shame!
 
3's call centre is terrible, not only can you not understand them, they have no idea how to actually help you. I tried getting them to turn off the adult content filter on my account (yes to look at porn) and it took me 4 phone calls, and being passed around to iPhone support (not that it matters what phone I have, just turn the content filter off, I'm 24 FFS!)

I just tweet them now to get help lol
 
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A question kinda related to this topic - I'm registered partially hearing (and partially sighted), category moderate-severe deaf. I have great difficulty understanding foreign accents. I know in the ideal world that out-sourcing should be completely stopped. However, if that's unrealistic, do you think that those registered partially hearing (upon valid proof) should be allowed to talk to a UK call centre agent? You would dial the normal call centre number followed by a PIN. Think about it: for the partially sighted like me, most companies will issue documents in large print, Braille or on tapes/CDs upon request, so on a similar vein, there should be communication leway for the partially hearing.
 
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