They think they do . Wrong ...

Hellooo, my name is Bob, and I will be of service to you today...

No it's not.

Sir, you are correct, but you cannot possibly annunciate my name in correct manner, so I now go by Bob

I have had to actually ask someone to transfer me to another person because I could not understand their " English " .

When I had to talk with the call center for the university's enterprise software, I always had a coworker with me so we could both try and understand them. When I'm talking with the call center for Xfinity I have to ask my wife to come in and help me understand them unless I get the hillbilly girl who doesn't know beans but will try and find an answer.

I’ve got an issue at one of my sites with a business DSL line. I’m past tired of it. My account rep calls into the support folk, and this clown, in India, says “My name is Mike”. Yeah sure it is. Took climbing Mt. Everest to get a fucking truck roll. All of us know the modem needs to be swapped out.

Gen Z all need jobs. Bring the support jobs back here to the US. As much as I loathe that generation, I’ll take it over the overseas bullshit.

Now various call centers are moving to the Philippines. Accent isn't as bad as India, but often the call connection isn't clear enough to understand them fully.

Post bankruptcy General Motors closed the call center in Grand Blanc Michigan that us in dealerships used to communicate with for all replacement parts concerns.

Off to the Philippines it went. And the fun began. It wasn’t so much a language barrier but between the difference in customer service philosophy and phone connections being a nightmare. Every response they made was scripted with a minimum of background information, that sometimes helped us in making a decision what to do on our end.

Supervisors were still U.S. based as before. But the call center’s personnel normally did a soft refusal to transfer for additional help, popular opinion with us in dealerships was that they were graded on call completions and marked down on next level transfers.

Finally GM reestablished the call center in Saginaw Michigan citing dealership personnel dissatisfaction with the outsourcing. But they also got in the statement that the change was not made as a result of the bankruptcy and was in process prior to that. Yeah sure……

Of course in the Philippines they’re up working the backside of the clock. Look at the bright side, while chatting with they you can ask if they have a cousin that’s looking for a sugar daddy.

I was just at a call center, talking with them. It took some effort to understand them, but good enough.

My wife had a bad experience with " Shawn " at Amazon Customer Service yesterday. She had the phone on speaker and all I can say is that she put up with a lot more than I would have .I could barely understand his version of English but she did ok . She understood it well enough to know that he was full of shit , and not a very good liar .

I had to be in a weekly meeting with people in the US and people in India by telecom. We could not understand them. The "translator" was the Chinese IT Project manager sitting with us and he had a heavy accent as well.

I started this thread after a go-around with Capital One. Somebody there thought (maybe I'm being too generous, attributing the capability of thinking to them) that there had been fraudulent activity on my credit card. They have my phone number and email address, but there was no attempt to contact me to ask whether the transaction in question was legit or fraudulent. They just chose to act unilaterally and "temporarily suspend" the card.

I am hearing impaired, my hearing aids do not play nicely with the telephone, so I sought a different way to communicate with them. A lot of searching, then I discovered the "accessibility" link in tiny type at the bottom of a web page. As far as I can tell, this link is the only way to get a chat session with Capital One's so-called support department.

Wasted the better part of an hour, before the chat agent finally told me that the problem had been moved to an "account specialist" who was only reachable by telephone. No chat, no email. So much for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance.

I bit the bullet, made the phone call, and got to a call center that was clearly offshore. Philippines maybe? I started a timer, wanting to see how much more time would be wasted.

The agent had a really heavy accent and spoke faster than an Air Traffic Controller who had descended from a family of tobacco auctioneers.

I repeatedly told her that I was hearing impaired and could not understand her. I would say, "Do ... you ... hear ... how ... fast ... I ... am ... speaking? That ... is ... how ... fast ... I ... can ... listen."

Ninety-seven minutes later (remember, I had set a timer), I finally got her to understand that the transaction in question was not fraudulent, there was no reason to suspend my card to "protect me" and she finally agreed to release the temporary suspension. Royal Pain In The Ass.

I gave up my American Express card many years ago when they switched their call center outside the country. Don't remember where it went, probably India.

Hey, assholes, do you know what the "American" in American Express means?

I was dealing with an internal customer care call center a few days ago at work. Some Chinese girl that, no matter what I asked said, “Yeeeeeeaaah….”

quote:

chat session with Capital One's so-called support department.

I had a different out come with Capital One.
Avast tried to charge me for a service I did not want so I got tired of playing games and cancelled the card.

quote:

Originally posted by newtoSig765:
I gave up my American Express card many years ago when they switched their call center outside the country. Don't remember where it went, probably India.

Hey, assholes, do you know what the "American" in American Express means?

I ended my relationship with AmEx almost twenty years ago. Applied and received the Costco branded card. One of the questions on the application wanted prior address if at present one less that five years (we were two years)so I put the prior one down. Received the cards and the first billing no problem.

Three months later, my wife used the card, maybe two hundred dollars worth and I didn’t know nor receive any bills, she thought I paid it. Suddenly I get a letter saying my card was shut off and was going to collections. Called and was on the line a couple hours, finally a supervisor found that my last couple bills were being sent to our old address, the new residents never returned them, they just tossed them. Could not get a good explanation how the “prior address” could have gotten changed to “billing address” without our requesting such to happen. Especially after initially getting our cards and first bill at the correct and current address at the time.

So AmEx apologized, said it was all their mistake, got a letter from them in apology,etc.

Used the card, next billing came in with the APR defaulted to something like 29% interest. Called AmEx, the CSR said that the interest was high due to my card going into default three months prior!

I paid and closed that out once the payment hit the account, never again.

Often, when "Bob" finally answers and I cant understand him, I say "hey Bob, connect me with someone who actually speaks unaccented American English"!
"Bob" then disconnects me.

quote:

spoke faster than an Air Traffic Controller who had descended from a family of tobacco auctioneers.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
I love these metaphors. I worked in southern Appalachia for a few years and they had plenty. You had to stop and think what they meant. She cleans up well is pretty common along with jerk her bald.