You know the drill: First there’s a recorded message thanking you for your call. Then you’re put through a maze of select-the-number choices to help you reach the right department. Then there’s the painfully unimaginative on-hold music; finally you hear ringing and a live person gets on the line.
Then your heart drops. Your faces collapses into a frown and you begin to abandon all hope of satisfaction: the person on the other end of the phone has foreign accent.
We’ve all been there and we all feel the same way. It’s been interesting to me to dissect why we feel this way, because I’ve had the opportunity to work with call center employees around the world and here’s what I’ve found:
These people are nice. These people are intelligent (you’d be surprised at the high percentage of off-shore call center employees with university degrees). Once you get used to the accent and the cadence of their speech, you realize that most speak better English than we do.