Dare to Ask: Resentment over call center accents?

By Phillip Milano

The Florida Times-Union

Question

 Why do a lot of these big companies hire people to answer their phones, and you can barely understand what they are saying? I hate that!

Sherre, 30, black, Kansas City, Mo.

Replies

 It’s just as hard on their end, and they have the added hassle of dealing with people like you.

 Whitney, 24, black female, Mississippi

Some companies don’t care about hearing complaints. That’s why they come up with these never-ending voice mail systems. “Press 1 if your dog smells like tuna. Press 2 if it’s raining outside.”

Taz, 33, male, Detroit

My company hires people from diverse backgrounds. I hear Latino accents, Indio-Pakistani, Caribbean, African and so forth. All of these people are right here in the United States.

 EJ, white male, Dallas

 I know it doesn’t make sense from a consumer side for a job that hinges on communication skills to be shipped overseas to people who don’t speak English well, but from the corporate side, it means more money for them.

 Ed, 26, Asian male, Milpitas, Calif.

Expert says

 They do it ’cause they hate A-murr-ica. For more on how to take back our country, text YOURACCENTTERRORIZESME to some office in Mangalore. Of course, chances are your message will be routed to the Philippines, China or Latin America, because a ton of folks are sitting in cubicles wearing headsets in those places, too.

And, according to P.V. Kannan, whose California-based 24/7 Customer Inc. has about 9,000 call center employees worldwide, most of these outsourced tech-service people know the language and are trained to deal with Americans.

It’s just that you’re expecting something for nothing, think your tech problem should be resolved in under three minutes, and have been brainwashed by the media, movies and culture to think most call center operators are dweebs who you can’t understand.

“Tech profit margins have eroded; they make their money on volume,” said Kannan, whose company provides training and screens its applicants for pronunciation and clarity of thought. “There are hundreds of thousands of operators who handle calls and usually satisfy the person on the other end.

“I don’t buy the whole accent thing. Often if I order a sandwich, I meet someone from a foreign location, too. No one using the Queen’s English is serving you a hamburger. Human nature, though, is that if someone’s accent is different, and our patience is already at wit’s end, we get even more frustrated.”

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Phillip Milano, author of I Can't Believe You Asked That! (Perigee), moderates cross-cultural dialogue at Y? The National Forum on People's Differences. Keep the cross-cultural dialogue going at our Jacksonville.com blog or at www.yforum.com, or mail comments to Phillip Milano, Times-Union, P.O. Box 1949, Jacksonville, FL 32231. Send general column comments to yforum (at) yforum.com. You can also hear his podcasts.