when companies hire help with foreign accents
By RisaAttrell
@RisaAttrell (418)
Canada
December 2, 2010 2:07pm CST
Today i called a website that sells ebooks. I explained that i'm an author of an ebook and had some questions. Here is something like how the conversation went.
"Your the other" (or at least i thought she said 'other'
Getting annoyed, i said "No, i said 'author' "
"Can I have your order number."
"No, i didn't say order. I said 'author.' Author."
"yes, you are the other."
On and on this went, until i asked to be connected to somebody else. I was practically shouting at her at this point. Finally, i realized that she did finally understand me.
I feel bad that i shouted at her. She remained polite to me- i hope i didn't ruin her day. She must think i'm really nasty.
3 responses
@hardworkinggurl (37063)
• United States
2 Dec 10
Here I find that anytime we call any form of Customer Service all the employees are from foreign countries. I have tried for hours to be patient, I really have. But what I do now is that when someone comes on the phone I immediately politely say Thank you but I dialed the wrong number.
It is my way of not losing my temper, so I will re-dial and hope some who can understand me and or I can understand them will come on the phone.
@TeamCholent (2832)
• United States
2 Dec 10
My husband has an accent and I love it! I guess it depends on what accent it is and what that person is used to as I have no trouble understanding anyone speaking English. I am sure she didn't take it to heart, maybe email the company and say sorry?
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
2 Dec 10
She was probably overseas which is why she had an accent. Many call centers are operated outside of the U.S. because companies can pay those workers a lot less than the minimum wage so they save money...and steal jobs from American workers. I try to avoid doing business with companies that do this but it's not possible to avoid it altogether.
