The Voices of Customer Service

(Note: the views and opinions expressed below are in no way meant to demean the peoples named. The commentary is on accents and staffing and meant only in jest.:))

Don't you just hate making calls to customer service/technical help depts? Every call in the states like that gets forwarded to India.

So, after you've lost your cool in the first place and had to call for help, then you had to dig out the number from their literature or website (it's the small print on the back page underneath the 5o other numbers, or in some remote corner of their website where they've directed you to their help forums and online directions in an effort to throw you off your path calling them), then you had to push like 10 numbers minimum to get you to the right service center for the correct product and problem, you finally get a warm body on the line only to discover they don't speak your language. Well, okay, they ARE speaking English, but with accents so heavy you both just struggle and struggle to communicate. Don't you find that amazing? I mean, here are companies main contact with their customers, and they put you in contact with people that you just can't understand. Your blood pressure shoots through the roof. The customer service person must be paid some fantastic amount of money to endure the onslaught from frustrated Americans thousands of miles away. They always stay calm and cool. It just amazes me.

Then I came to England. Okay. I need to make some customer service calls. You go through the same exact steps as above. Finally get to the warm body on the phone and. . .they're Scottish! Scottish, of all things! Every call I've made over here. Every one. I'm pretty sure understanding a heavy Scottish accent beats out understanding a heavy Indian accent. It's the only English language I've seen where they SUBTITLE it on films. Really. It's that heavy.

So now I'm convinced there must be some sort of conspiracy on banning all customer service calls to other countries - and other countries with people who have heavy accents. They obviously don't do any sort of vocal test before hiring and placing people in these phone support roles. Anything goes. Knowledge of product far outweighs anything else. I think they want to do away with this cost and just have website support only. Because don't you find that once you've struggled through one such call, you don't normally call again. You end digging through online documents, calling local stores for help, or just living with the problem.

And now, I can't help but wonder. . .who answers the phone when you call from India or Scotland? Do they come back to the US? How about a deep southern US accent? or someone from the Bronx or Long Island? or some rapper from LA?

Wouldn't that be interesting. . .its like the Tower of Babel.

:p