to wish call centre workers would use their real name

[moogster1a]

being able to get through to customer services to be able to actually speak to a person is frustrating; to find it's based in India and you can hardly understand the accent is more annoying; but the most annoying thing is when an obviously Indian man tells you his name is Steve. NO IT'S NOT!!!
I now refuse to engage in conversation till they tell me their real name. I also tell them that I'm complaining that the staff aren't allowed to use their real names ( that would really pmo if it was my name).
last week, I was told by "Steve" that my 'phone wasn't registered to me as it was registered to someone else. Ater lots of trying to figure out the name he was saying, he spelt it. The name of the mysterious use of my 'phone..." nonameset".
Please stop pretending these people are based in London. we are not stupid.

YANBU

Another here who is frustrated at call centres - supposedly set up to assist English speakers with queries - that employ staff who can barely speak any English; and even if they can have accents so thick that it's a constant round of asking them to repeat, speak slowly or even spell out the words.

Absolutely stupid idea.

India's main problem was their accent and adherence to process. The latter is great on paper for a company. A workforce who will unquestioningly follow process to the letter. Unfortunately in practice often it fails because the process doesn't cater to every eventuality. Plus the Indian's used to have a culture of not challenging their superiors. So even if they were being asked to do something illogical, they'd just sit there doing it.

But the newer generation and the newer places we're going to like Egypt, Philippines. Their accents are much much easier to understand. Filipinos like many chinese will have adopted western names and lets face it, nowadays if someone is called Ahmed or Mostafa, it's not necessarily a sign you're speaking to someone in a foreign land at all. There are plenty of them in the UK.

Some of the better educated English speakers (generally level 3 & above) are better spoken than native speakers.

...if they give their address as a UK address for correspondence, that's not lying. The fact they are in fact not in payables, phoenix house, topcliffe lane, tingley, wakefield, WF1 3WE (do you get how often i talk to this particular call centre??) is irrelevant to the fact that you have to send post there....

I have a lot of love for Indian call centres, they're usually well-qualified people (they have, after all learned English sufficient to the job!) doing a rather dull job and getting crap from people in the uk. People at my work talk disparagingly of our colleagues overseas....which always makes me think: they use their wages to send their kids to English school...in twenty years my job will be done overseas too (or sooner, unless they programme a computer to comprehend, talk and interact convincingly).