Does it make me a bigot for me to expect customer service operators to speak clear English?

Question

The other day I called a Internet company about their new DSL service to ask some basic questions. The customer service operator had a mid-eastern accent and spoke horible English, it was so bad that she was barley audible. I asked for a manager, who also spoke English so bad that I finally had to say "forget it" and I hung up. When I came to work the next day I was complaining to a coworker about this. I said that these companies need to hire people who can speak English, and she took offense to my position. She now seems to think that I owe her (or at least foreigners) an apology for my comments on what I said. By the way she is not a foreigner herself.

Answer 1

I'm a really liberal person and I struggle everyday with this topic, I try to be good and think that everybody deserves an opportunity and a heavy accent just requires a little bit more concentration and there is no reason to get frustrated. At the end of the day non of these work for me, I hate the fact that I can't understand a word of what my customer service representative is saying. And I think it goes further than just language there is some cultural barrier too that interfere with their ability to help, one of the guys at Dell couldn't believe the Internet was included on my building, and he kept insisting that my computer wasn't working fine because I was stealing Internet from someone else.

Answer 2

Well the country we live in unfortunately claims they care about cus serv but i think not !! i had the same thing happen to me a few days ago how frustrating ??
Those companies go to foreign countries especially{ middle -eastern} ones and hire natives there with minimal English to work for 3 dollars a day when people here that work cust service lose their 10 dollars an hour so they can move the company over there , their only concern is to spend less money and make more money
so no i don't think you are a bigot to want to understand someone you speaking to about your bills ??

Answer 3

Hello!

You are definitely NOT a bigot. I've had the same thing happen to me several times. It's frustrating as hell because the information you seek is important--you're already upset that something isn't working (e.g. a computer) and the fact that you can't understand the person on the other end makes it worse.

Your co-worker is looking at the situation with a very narrow perception. You're not saying that people with accents are worthless and unproductive--they are indeed very intelligent, just as well as any other race. The point is that it's great that foreigners choose America as a the land of opportunity, and I respect them for learning an entirely different language; however, their communication skills aren't up to par for the business atmosphere regarding American customers.

They could be good translators though!

Answer 4

I'm with you. I am tolerant of others everywhere. We live in America where English is the traditional language and on the American business phone lines I do want to understand the person answering. Unless I'm calling places where they are foreign such as a chinese restaurant, then I know I'm probably going to deal with an accent. I get VERY frustrated when over technical lines they give me a foreigner who cannot speak english and they are trying to give me direction. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. Now if I were in a foreign country, I would not be upset or angry if English were not spoken.

Answer 5

This is America. The primary language in America is English. Everyone that lives in or associated with America should speak English. No you are not a bigot. We are not given a choice to decide who we are going to speak to on the phone when dealing with customer service reps. There should be an option button that we can press, like for example, "if you speak spanish press 2, if you want to speak to a foreigner who can barely speak English press 3, otherwise remain on the line and our cheap a_____ will try to connect you to an American who can speak the English Language clearly but that might be next to impossible since we have outsourced to foreign countries". I feel your pain.

Answer 6

No, it does not make you a bigot. Have you ever tried calling HP? You will never get anyone that speaks English well. I know that they are doing their jobs, but one would think that part of the hiring process would be that they have to be fluent in English to help their customers here in America. If you can't hear them well, how are you going to fix the problem. I got in touch with a repair guy one time that was based in Paris, France. I was so happy that I could understand him that I cried.

Answer 7

Not at all, it's very frusterating. not to mention when you're calling a customer service line, your already frusterated about something, that just makes it worse. As for your co-worker...she needs to chill out. It didn't seem like a comment directed to offend foreigners(or anyone else for that matter), but more of a general statement and opinion(which you are entitled to) that American companies need to provide better training and screening before hiring someone to answer phone lines. Don't feel bad, everyone I know agrees with you.

Answer 8

The whole point of giving someone a job, where they need to speak to people on the phone, seems to be that they are understandable, or else why bother to employ them??? This doesnt seem to be happening a lot lately, and I also have hung up in frustration at not being able to understand what someone is saying. Like, would they give someone with a bad speech impediment the same job? No, so why waste out time trying to work out what these people are saying.!!

Answer 9

No. It doesn't make us a bigot. Although I don't agree that workers should make English as their primary language but if companies intend to serve their customers in English-speaking countries, it doesn't take an MBA to figure out that customer satisfaction begins with mutual understanding... that is both the customer and their operators do understand each other. As far as I know, outsourcing does cut a huge amount of money but they can always go to countries where English can be spoken well. Please don't resort to very cheap labors while their operators sounded like they're stoned. I should say non-English speaking workers could continue using their native language as they please in their own country please...

Answer 10

She was probably some tie-dye wearin', mantra chanting, 3rd world hugging, caucasian hatin' hardcore liberal with a problem. Sadly these people pop up everywhere.

They (the workers) should speak English as a primary language and speak it with some respect for the language. And if wanting that makes people like us bigots, well then, I'm a bigot too!