Accents

[Caribeing]

Do you find it difficult to understand certain accents especially on the telephone when calling the bank or or other services! I have just had a conversation with a TV service operator who had a Scottish accent I found her very difficult to understand.

[123everton]

Yes I do, and vice versa.

[puddicat]

poor you mary maybe i should have broken it down a bit better for you, forgot that this was one on the top accents to speak to when calling any of the utilities and banks and even one of the most dangerous you will ever hear the glasgae accent!!!!!

[WhiteBear]

completely agree. Glasswegans r the hardest to understand.

scousers accents took me a while to understand, but i got used to it, well i had to ... i lived in Liverpool for 3 yrs.

Indian accents r quite hard to understand too.

[puddicat]

Scottish and Irish acents were the most enjoyed accents that companies used for engaging there customers

[dundurn]

I notice accents more on the phone. Maybe the technology strips out some of the tone from the voice. Plus you don't have the benefit of seeing the person's face - I reckon we all do a bit of lip-reading without realising it. I'm Scottish so I don't have quite as much trouble as most with Glesca but even I take a few moments to "tune in" to some Scots. Call centres can be a problem no matter what the accent - frequently you're trying to explain a problem, sometimes not very well, while they're trying to fill in a form or sell you something you don't want on the back of a service call. Top this off with an unfamiliar accent and I often want to just put the phone down and start again.

[keyplus90]

I have found Scottish as well as my father in law (A Devonish with no teeth) difficult to understand. To make the things even further difficult my own first language is not English.

[daffy654]

I find the Chinese and Japanese accent difficult to undestand. I have a lot of dealings with one particular Japanese company and their operators are all very polite and speak passable English,it is mainly the inflection on the words that stump me.

[scotgal]

If you think the Scottish accent is difficult Mary T you should try the Doric - the accent even when trying to speak Queen's English is bad enough but as a dialect well nigh impossible although when I was in Canada a few years ago my cousin's husband who is Dutch by birth had no difficulty understanding some words because a lot of it is Dutch based. I don't have a strong doric accent but it infuriates me when I use my telephone voice to "English" speakers how often I'm asked to repeat myself.

[terambulan]

Calls from India r difficult/nuisance. They never get past first 3 words, which have to be repeated.....till they get fed with me....then I leave phone off the hook!

[saxy_jag]

I have no problem with Scottish accents in call centres or contact centres, but they become a little cliched after a while.

I have no problems with Asian accents, either, generally. I live in Leicester. I'm used to Asian accents. But when I call a UK number, I expect to get a call centre in the UK, Asian accented operator or otherwise.

My ISP's customer support centre is in India, where I have to speak to a girl whose English is limited to what she can read from the flow chart in front of her, and who knows less about connection issues than I do:

She: Is the yellow cable connected properly?
Me: You mean the CAT5 cable? Mine's a white one. Yes, it is.
She: No, it's yellow one that connects the computer to the hub.
Me: It was yellow, but we replaced it with a longer one. It's now white. I believe it's known as a CAT5 cable.
She: It's the yellow one that connects the computer to the hub.
Me: (in desperation and wanting off the loop) Yes, it's connected.

She can't help and has to get someone to call me back - a bloke with a decidedly British accent who's most likely based somewhere in the Greater London area and knows exactly what I'm talking about. He talks me through the problem - in fluent English - in under three minutes.

Could have saved us all the time and money by having English speakers in the first place, all based in one call centre - here!

[keyplus90]

Good example by Sexy jag- I sometimes really get fed up with not the accent (as in the end I start speaking Hindi or Urdu) of these call centres in India but the way they read things like a parrot. Does not matter what you tell them they have to repeat their lines the way they have been told.

Couple of times they made me delete my personal files, although I said,

�It has nothing to do with my broadband, this is my personal file section����

Can you please just press �OK�, I was told. Done, gone���.. Oh sorry seems to be the problem with main telephone socket, can I get someone to call you back�and then : You know Mr keyplus you have to plug the router into main BT socket without any extension. In the end they want 95% people in the Britain to sit next to their front door with computers.

And the guy you are thinking was from London somewhere I believe even he was from Bangalore as I know couple of people (white English) who have moved to India with families to open and run these call centres, good business.

[R1Geezer]

The sweaties are a peice of cake compared to the indian ones. My heart sinks when I call a call centre and an Indian answers, I spend the whole call saying pardon! Must be hard for them too. I once called BT, indian bloke answered, by shouting at each other a lot we finally figured out what we where each saying, then he trasnferred me to Glasgow, never been so happy to have a sweaty on the end of the phone!