am I racist?

[peanut]

I know I can be a grumpy old git at times but lately I am getting all hot under the collar about foreign call centres.(FFC's)

I know that FFC's are a way of saving a shed load of money for Europe based companies but the downside is we the consumer are left with having to try and understand technical issues from a person in a customer call centre on the far side of the globe whose first language isn't English!

I have just had a most interesting conversation with the Ebay call centre help line from what I took to be a Chinese Lady.
She didn't understand 1 word in 3 from me and I didn't understand much of what she was saying. So we both resorted to shouting and using Alpha Tango Seirra Romeo etc.

Is it fair that we have to give some foreign national our intimate and personal details including banking information, passwords, ID's and date of birth address etc and yet when I asked her to verify the date of birth ebay held for me she refused saying it wasn't allowed. not allowed to tell me what date of birth they held for me ???

Grrrrr deep breath and breathe out relax and....

 

[accountantpete]

Shouldn't that be FCC's -unless you have added an adjective before "foreign" which would be understandable?

 

[Theseus]

An' in whit way is thaur a leid barrier when talkin' tae a scot?

 

[Maz]

Why not speak to them in Hindi if they struggle with English?
That's what I'd do.

 

[Radius]

I feel sorry for the people who work there, but what gets me is the way they change their names in a pathetic attempt to make us believe they're not a thousand miles away.
"Good dey to yooser, mey name ees Linda"....No. No it's not.

 

[Speicher]

No, I don't think it's racist if the problem is understanding what they are saying. I had two conversations with a lovely gentleman from Scotland at the weekend.

Fortunately, I already knew sort of what he was trying to tell me, otherwise I would not have had a clue what he was saying. It was not so much the broad accent as the speed at which he was speaking.

Perhaps I should have given him a Speeding Ticket.

 

[Crackle]

All call centres are the same. I think the ones based abroad suffer also from a downgraded phone line and god know what technology sandwiched between everything. Sometimes the call is like a ship to shore phone, you daren't interrupt or the whole conversation is lost. I've spoken to people in Los Angeles and Australia and had as much trouble understanding them as any Indian call centre. Trick is to speak slowly, repeat everything back, ask again if it's not clear etc..

 

[Flying Dodo]

It's not racist at all. If a firm outsources somewhere, they should ensure there are certain standards in place, not just ensuring data protection issues are in place, but also that the staff can actually do the job, which includes being able to communicate with you.

If I end up speaking to someone who is not able to understand me, I make a point of complaining to the firm itself, as they clearly haven't done their job properly in selecting the call centre.

 

[Wigsie]

Why not speak to them in Hindi if they struggle with English?
That's what I'd do.

Ha ha not everyone has that luxury Maz

Dell have a FCC (in Mumbai I think) but I have an account manager called Manish and he is brilliant.... far better than any uk based sales contact i have had.

Virgin Media is infinately worse... I started my account with them in January and they still dont have my direct debit set up properly... I cant even argue with them it drives me insane (not quite mad enough yet to go back to BT though).

Getting frustrated with language barriers is not racism though, sure the guys/girls in the call centres get as frustrated with us as we do with them.

The UK is such a small country but the accents change so drastically with such a short distance it must confuse the hell out of them.

 

[chirk2000ad]

Have you ever phoned bt? You get patched through to India. The operatives are fantastic. So polite and helpful. They can take over your computer and fix whatever, I even ask them to sort non broadband probs and they do quite happily!

 

[Mr Pig]

I agree. Time after time I have to spell out words to morons who behave as though there is something wrong with me! But I guess you have to make allowances, they are English after all. ;0)

Some of the poor souls do not even that there is life north of Manchester.

 

[Danny]

Have you ever phoned bt? You get patched through to India. The operatives are fantastic. So polite and helpful. They can take over your computer and fix whatever, I even ask them to sort non broadband probs and they do quite happily!

I have similarly had good experiences with Indian call centres, and some terrible experiences with UK call centres.

The point is that it is entirely down to the training that staff receive, not their nationality.

As others have said blame the company not the staff if the service is poor.

 

[karen.488walker]

BT internet. If you want a challenge in anger management and to spend an entire week on the phone to India I'd highly recommend them.

 

[Wigsie]

BT internet. If you want a challenge in anger management and to spend an entire week on the phone to India I'd highly recommend them.

Similar to my experience with them... Despise BT so expect them to dissapoint, but I was expecting better from Virgin.

Although I agree its the company not the staff to blame.

 

[mookie]

I work for an outsourcing company and their sell is that they "offshore" work to save you money - I should be spouting the party line, but the minute I call up and I have to spell my surname, I get *absolutely infuriated* because these people are taking jobs that me and my team could do a million times better but because we're dearer, they pap it off abroad.

Don't even get me started