shouldcustomer service telephone operators be required to speak clearly, not broken english?

Question

it seems everywhere i call to deal with any account, i get someone who is difficult to understand at best. i continuously ask them to repeat and often give up and hang up.very frustrating for me and them.

this is frustrating for both parties.i have to keep asking to repeat and often issues end up unresolved. are americans going to contiue to let OUR JOBS go overseas? our town just lost 8,000 jobs and any of us would take the job and be glad to, not just a job americans wont do. and lets don't even get into automated service.

Answer 1

Well customer service is for the the customer's profit and if he is not able to understand the thing for which he called - it is of no use. i know that not everybody can speak perfecly but atleast training must be done. it is not any kind of discrimination.

Answer 2

Most of these answers got a little far off the subject. This is not about discrimination. To the question, should these people be able to speak in an understandable english? Yes, they should. I am from Germany and had to learn english too. Nobody did me any favors and I speak it fluently, as well as italian, french, spanish, yugoslavian and turkish, so it has nothing to do with how many other languages you speak.
I too get aggrevated when I can not understand the person I am trying to solve my problems for me. I guess we all just have to live with it. Is it right? No, I don't think it is. But, patience is a virtue and the more contact these people have with engish speaking customers, the better their english will get.

Answer 3

YES!! . ..of course, but the problem lies in Outsourcing. . Companies want to save money. Did you know an Average Call center "Executive" get's paid 7,000 - 10,000 Rupees per month in India. that's like $175 / monthly!! . . Compared to atleast $10 / hour for CSR's here in the U.S (About $1,600 monthly) Think about the amount of money all these greedy Corp.'s are saving. . are they re-investing in the community :? .. no!. . .do they really care about their customers ?? .! not really! .. .coz the Quality of Service sucks overseas. & companies know that!

Recently Dell pulled it's Contract out of Bangalore, India. .due to lack of Communication skills & a large amount of Unhappy customers.

In regards to some comments above.. Indians are not willing to work for 2/3 or whatever .. we the U.S went there to take advantage of the Tech savvy people. Did you know India has the Second largest English speaking population in the world, next to the U.S.A . .not even Europe comes close. They have an accent coz they can speak other languages. where as some people here can hardly speak the English language correctly. (ebonics, slang, too much environmental factors)

And let's not forget $1 = 40 Rupees. the cost of living is different there, rent is cheaper. . I can rent a 2 bedroom house with car park for $100 / month.

boycot these companies, if you are not happy with thier service. .Dont discriminate the People providing the Service. . for them it's just a Job. Everyone's gotta live

Answer 4

I have no problem with outsourcing, as long as the operator and I can understand each other. Vonage is one such company that is outsourcing. I've called them a few times, and each time was pleasant. The Indian operators were courteous and clear. Okay, not clear when s/he spoke my name. It's a Spanish name, so okay, understandable.

Should an operator be able to speak clearly? Absolutely. If s/he has an accent it's fine, no problem, as long as they can be understood. If not, then it's not the job for them.

I worked at a medical center many moons ago, and the owner of the medical center was from Sri Lanka. He didn't want anyone using the loud speaker if they spoke with an accent. He had an accent, and you never heard his voice on the loud speaker either.

Answer 5

I agree that a person on the other end is "serving" you, the customer. So, they should speak in a way you can understand.

But, have patience. Nowadays, most of this type of work is outsourced to all countries - India, Philippines, Indonesia etc... whose first language is not English. You should appreciate that a human is answering and you are getting first-rate help in solving your problems. And, they speak English. Wow. If it is not done by these countries, by this time, you would be paying a lot of money for this service.

These countries have 'native' English speakers doing the training. It will get there soon, because these are smart people.

Be thankful.

Answer 6

This is an issue for company management. Register your complaint to the head of the company or better yet, the board of directors if one exists. You are the customer and have a lot of power. If enough people bring the issue to the boss and business is hurt by the problem something will be done.

Remember, the bottom line is the dollar sign. If you, as a customer, can cause a change to that bottom line, your squeaky wheel will get some grease.

Answer 7

Yes! I hate it when I can't understand what they are saying. They have a job that requires speech and nothing else. If they cannot speak clearly why should they be hired for the job??!!!! It's so frustrating. I have asked to speak to supervisors before in really extreme situations and asked the supervisor to handle my issue after I've complained about the person's speech. It's crazy and I DO NOT understand it.

Answer 8

I agree with the person who said its all about the bottom line. We here in America are always looking for a deal. That causes the companies we buy from to outsource to keep prices low. If we would be willing to pay for quality we would keep these jobs at home and would be able to understand to customer service people.

Answer 9

I agree with you. Customer service telephone operators should speak clearly. If they want to do that job people should be able to understand them and not have to keep asking them to repeat everything they say. If they live in this country speak english or else go to school to learn how to speak it better.

Answer 10

English is usually a requirement, but it's hard to place a judgment on what can be understood. I spoke to a C.S. rep once who spoke perfect English, but she was not a native English speaker and could not COMMUNICATE. I did my best to use direct, non-idiomatic words, but it was impossible.

The best thing to do in these situations is ask for a supervisor. And the more people who do it, the better. Tell the supervisor that the rep could not be understood, or that they could not understand what you were asking and if they would please help you or transfer your call to someone else. This helps the supervisor weed out people who should not be on the English-only phones.

Answer 11

I know EXACTLY what you are talking about! Just a couple months ago I was having trouble with my BRAND NEW computer, so I called Compaq. It was amazing to me that my call for help for something that I bought here in the states was answered in India! And they never seem to know exactly what you are talking about. I understand that some things are not made in the USA, but if they plan on selling their goods here, they should at least set up a call center in the states, and employ people who were raised speaking English, and understand what we are talking about, be it in a Georgia, Boston, or Portland accent. So I agree with you!