Accent of Call Center Agents and influence on American Accen

Mark ,
It’s a clear picture that you are one from India. Why do you want to show off that you are not one.....are you one among those turncoats or something like that. If you ever dare to write like this, please have a check on your grammar. Before commenting on others, your grammar needs a clean check. That's real pathetic. Thanks for all your words. I hope you do not take this wrong. Even if so, that would be a good learning for you.

Again, who is this by the name Indira Ghandi. Aren’t you ashamed to name yourself as one of the great Indian and speak so rude? Just to identify yourself, don't you ever blame others. I know Americans very well, or any one else for that matter. They know how to gain respect and also to show respect. Do not anyone ever try to sue the country you live in. At least if you can't be patriot enough, be generous and try not to offend others.

Thanks Uriel for your kind words again.....

Regards,
One educated.

Guest -Terry,

Why the hell are you trying to emphasis again and again that you are from US. Do you want to show off that you are from US? (Which may not be true…)

<<But in our business here in the states>>
Does this statement have any sense? Have you come across anyone from America using a statement like this?.....here in states....

<<Of course they live here and work here I'm sure that helps>>
One more stupid statement (statement???)

<<But the call centers so far - disasterous>>(for your information, it is Disastrous)
<<You ask if the Indian and Irish agents should try to pick up a NYC accent >>
<<are horrible with other languages and that doesn't help and I think that they are trying very hard>>

You call integrating these above words of yours as English?

Stop commenting and try to put in a little effort to learn something. This is again not a right way of learning........ Good Luck....

-One educated

Man,

You the so called educated (but not in my eyes after I reda what you wrote)....why are you so mean? Just take a look at what you said to a few people and maybe you will understand that YOU are mean and rude, not me, not the others.
I didn't say anything against anybody from anywhere. Maybe you are not able to understand, but all I said it was my opinion about the subject asked by the initial poster, nothing more.
You didn't even understand why I chose Indira Ghandi as my name. Does that mean that I don't have respect for him? FYI I've been a yogi and a fun of Indian culture and other things related to it. You play with words in a very uneducated and stupid way.

"I know Americans very well, or any one else for that matter. They know how to gain respect and also to show respect. Do not anyone ever try to sue the country you live in. At least if you can't be patriot enough, be generous and try not to offend others."
What's your point? I am American too and so what? What I said doesn't have anything to do with sueing or patriotism....
Just read what every one whom you blaim had said and try to understand.
Because people have different opinion than you or others , it doens't mean they don't have respect...

scuzzi for the typo
reda=read

still Indira Ghandi,

<<You didn't even understand why I chose Indira Ghandi as my name. Does that mean that I don't have respect for him?>>

FYI, Indira Gandhi is the name of a WOMEN (so…it’s not him) who was the Prime Minister of our country, and also was the first Women to be a Prime Minister. So better don't play with the name when you don’t know who the person is. Imagine me using the name of Bush or Clinton and writing something in this thread. Does it not hurt you? May or May not…!!!! I do not know how you people respect them. But we respect.

Yes! I play with the words in a stupid way. The reason is that, I know how to make sense even with stupid words.

<<Sometimes I have to call a call center when I need to troubleshoot some PC hardware and I get upset many times because I have to ask them to repeat themselves and another reason is that their customer service is bad sometimes. They don't understand that they have to please the customers. I wonder where they get their training from, US or India. >>

OK, it’s hard for you to understand the accent. Right? But it does matter for an executive who dries his blood to learn 8 different types of accent. One for NY, one for the Canadians, one for the Brits, one for those in Russia, one for.......! You would speak in one accent (& only one) on which no one comments on you.
It’s a pity to say that even after these complaints the number of companies outsourcing their work is increasing day after day. Why? Is it to reduce cost to company at the cost of customer dissatisfaction? Or, for the real fact that they outsource it to people who work with better patience to 'please' the customers at a lesser cost?

Anyways, I understand this forum is a place where you can share (any of) your thoughts. But please mind your words if you were to hurt others. I didn’t and don't want to be rude. Give place for growth. Never stand to hurt others.

<<FYI I've been a yogi and a fun of Indian culture and other things related to it>>
Did you mean "fun of Indian Culture"? I hope it’s again a typo. Else that’s again a pity to the way you think. What if you have been a yogi or whatsoever? Respect counts; if you say you really you respect, I am glad for that and appreciate you.
(The starter of the thread and his aspect, both are disgusting. You comment, you are also in the list)

Thanks for your words....which although seems kind....takes time to understand....

Educator....

<<if you say you really you respect>>
if you say you really respect....

I detest Call Centres that are not in my home country. Not only do I have great difficulty in understanding the accents a further problem is they do not have a geographical knowledge of my Country.
At my office we not cease to deal with companies that have out sourced their call centres.

Most people have very busy lives and minor irritations tend to get blown up out of proportion. One such irritation here in the UK is getting to be not so minor.. In fact, it's now a major source of complaints from the general population resulting from misunderstanding and inability to comprehend what the callers are banging on about. The problem is call centres based abroad....almost all of them in India. Accents are at the heart of the whole issue, and busy people here receiving calls from their banks (for example) assume they are talking to a person in their own home areas, or at least somewhere else in the UK. Instead the caller is in Bangalore or Madras or somewhere in India, and it's very frustrating for the banks' customers when they discuss their financial affairs with someone with an unfamiliar accent, and who speaks very rapidly, and all this leads to a lot of annoyance at the amount of time wasted by asking for clarification and repeats and all that sort of stuff.

The headline in one of the UK's main national daily newspapers today (16/06/06) - the Daily Express - says that the UK will axe foreign call centres because of massive complaints from customers here. The basis of it all is down to accents and constant misunderstanding when discussing important issues leading to frustration, annoyance and time wasting.

Others:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/16/ncall16.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/16/ixuknews.html

http://www.insightexec.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=131839

still Indira Ghandi Wed Jun 14, 2006 4:52 pm GMT
Man,

You the so called educated (but not in my eyes after I reda what you wrote)....why are you so mean? Just take a look at what you said to a few people and maybe you will understand that YOU are mean and rude, not me, not the others.
I didn't say anything against anybody from anywhere. Maybe you are not able to understand, but all I said it was my opinion about the subject asked by the initial poster, nothing more.
You didn't even understand why I chose Indira Ghandi as my name. Does that mean that I don't have respect for him? FYI I've been a yogi and a fun of Indian culture and other things related to it. You play with words in a very uneducated and stupid way.

"I know Americans very well, or any one else for that matter. They know how to gain respect and also to show respect. Do not anyone ever try to sue the country you live in. At least if you can't be patriot enough, be generous and try not to offend others."
What's your point? I am American too and so what? What I said doesn't have anything to do with sueing or patriotism....
Just read what every one whom you blaim had said and try to understand.
Because people have different opinion than you or others , it doens't mean they don't have respect...
==========================


before you make a claim that you are American
learn English better
You use wrong grammar...
wrong spelling..

i work in a call center and iam an indian with an indian accent.i have been trying to neutralise my accent or have my own.i dont want to imitate anyone.i dont want to sound like an american,british or anyone else.i want to have a unique accent which will be pleasant and understandable to people around the world of any nationality.
its not easy being a call center agent and i know its not easy for foreign customers.iam not giving up on me or the customers.some are racists,some are just angry but the beauty of it is there are people out there who love to speak to us accent or no accent.i have given it my all to please customers and many have gone back pleased,this from the guy who lives and breathes call center.i make a living this way and have been doing this for three years.
enough about me,let me address the issue you guys have,none of you guys are happy with the outsourcing.i dont blame you guys.you have your reasons but dont live in denial guys.its happened can you do something to make it better.
yes,you guys can.we in the call center sweat blood to make this happen.we stay up all night and sleep in the day and eat at night.our system is messed up and we get paid peanuts and we also have take this shit from all you people.
some much for doing a good job.you know your companies are running sweatshops here and its making us all neurotic,what with staying up all night and all that,cant you guys complain to the companies atleast to hire a language expert,send them over to india to train us in helping you.these guys should help with the intonation and all that and customer service not to help ourselves but to help you.we dont need all that for ourselves,one billion indians can understand each other,no need for any intonation.
personally,i would appreciate any help because every bit counts.the next time one of call a call center,if the agent makes a mistake for gods sake go easy on him,correct him tell him to pronounce it the right way any grammatical mistakes ,correct him.he will appreciate it and in the long run its good for the language english.you are doing yourself a favour by doing that.
keep it fun and long live english,you guys dont want chinese or spanish replacing english,do you.so do your best to propogate english and help us to help yourselves.
help
just help

ravi,

Dude, its good you came out with your words. But wait. You are almost pleading them for help. Why should you ask someone to help you who can't help themselves? Remove your pleadings in your words, the next time you write. We can achieve anything. We do speak neutral accent. However, we do not use a particular US accent to please them. They too are no way perfect. Again, nobody is perfect!
English is not our first preference. However, 32% of the people in India speak English. 19% of them speak real good English. (Although, there is nothing like good, or bad English). 16% of them work in Call centers treating the US and the Brit customers. You should be proud to be one. I understand from your words and writing that you are working hard to improve your English. Don't panic, You can do it with a bit more work on your grammar. There are better trainers in India who are capable of speaking in almost any type of accent, and also in many different languages. (Which you almost lack in the US and very few of them exist in England). I hope you don't plead in front of others. Good Luck.

byron,

<<At my office we not cease to deal with companies that have out sourced their call centres. >>

At my office, we cease to deal with companies that have outsourced their work to the call centers situated in other countries......
I hope I am not offending you by correcting your sentence. (As taught in your country)

<<Not only do I have great difficulty in understanding the accents a further problem is they do not have a geographical knowledge of my Country.
>>
BTW, I could not find the plural of accent in any dictionary as "accents"....
I also assume that one should know how to use the words and not just the accent.

Damian in Edinburgh,

I have read your threads in this forum and liked many of them. I do not want to be rude on you. However, I did not understand your individual opinion on this (Rather than the one from the newspaper or from others beliefs)

I'll wait for your comments before giving my words to you.

Thanks

guest ,whoever you are,its good to have people like you on our side out there.iam not particularly angry at anyone.if you notice it is the system that is making us fight amongst ourselves.the system has divided us completely.i think every bit counts when it comes to learning anything.i learned english on my own without anybodys help.working in the call center only helped fine tune the skill which i had acquired the hard way.
all the aside,guest ,you mentioned i have to work on my grammar.no offence but what do you think is wrong with my grammar.maybe you can help get better.you do know what that will do right,it will only make us get better in getting more business here in india.i would have quit call center work long ago but i know that iam one of the reason behind our economy by doing this i will be helping my brothers know more about the world and earn money for themselves and for the country.anyway help me get better,thats my only request.

I worked in a call center once, and it's boring, mind-numbing work. No thanks.

That said, I get far more irritated dealing with American call center workers who sound bored to death and have crappy telephone etiquette than I do with people who happen to have an accent different than mine. Even when I was hating my job, I made the effort to sound pleasant and professional and to treat each customer who called me like they were the first call of the day. After all, that's how I like to be treated when I have to call up a company.

In my opinion, one should judge the quality of the service one is getting from the human being on the other end of the line, not the way they happen to sound.

Ravi and Guest (Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:25 pm GMT):

My post and the links it contained simply gave you an indication of the current UK news items on the Call Centre situation here. I never gave any of my own personal opinions on overseas based call centres in this country.

There is a problem in that many people in the UK have complained about communication difficulties between themselves and the people employed in the call centres in India and elsewhere. As you must realise, many of the clients calling these centres are stressed to varying degrees in the first place depending on whatever it is they're calling about, and tempers can get frayed. If their situation is made more tense by a difficulty in understanding what the call centre operators are saying then no doubt it can lead to rudeness to you people and that's not at all nice, especially as you are simply doing your job, no doubt to your best ability.

I've spoken to you people a couple of times in the course of dealing with a banking matter, and only once did I have a wee problem understanding exactly what was being said to me. I had to be patient and ask for clarification even though my time schedule was very tight.

I imagine it can be very stressful for you, ravi - working in a call centre, and most probably having to endure rudeness and bad language from callers, and at the same time having to achieve quotas and all that sort of stuff. At the same time doing this in a Language which is (I would guess) not your everyday Language. Correct me if I'm wrong there. Looking at your situation from your angle I can only sympathise with you.

We're used to hearing all sorts of accents in the UK, and I would guess that many of the people who complain are older people who object to change of any kind anyway. That's the way it goes. Brits do have a habit of moaning and whingeing anyway. As I say, I don't have any real problem with it myself

Guest: Let me just tell you this. Before all these call centres were moved to the Indian Sub-continent, many of them were based in Glasgow, Scotland, and these dealt with callers from all over the UK. That resulted in thousands of complaints from people outside Scotland sounding off about not being able to understand what the heck the operators were saying! Irate old guys down somewhere in the South of England whinged and whined about: "Those (BLEEP) Scots! Never understand a word they say!

Ha! Isn't that just so cool? :-)

damien and uriel,
thanks guys,you two are the most helpful on this site.if you look at all the topics on this forum,i thanked you guys for helping me(on thanks a million).
uriel is right about americam call centers,they are downright rude and bored.i try to do the best too while iam taking calls,its not easy but i like doing it.its a challenge to me.
damian,uk guys brits,scots,welsh,irish or for that matter europeans they are the most decent people i have come across.in the last three years only one customer got abusive but when i worked for an american call center for just three months, i had to take their shit almost everyday and almost from everyone.luckily i did not have to work there for two long.i got sent back to a uk process,i love it here.
the people i deal with are polite and nice,everyone.its simply amazing and they are genuinely interested in where iam based and how things are for me.its nothing like what other guys have mentioned on this forum.i especially like to speak to scots and irish because its nice the way they sound.
anyway i have no regrets working here and i dont mind when customers get angry they are not angry at me.i just hope ill be able to speak like fluently and sound like them some day.