Indian call centres - why?

[AgaPanthers]

Jesus Christ. Just on the phone to Santander to close very old credit card.

Spell my name using phonetic alphabet.

Indian chap: "That's 'D'?" Me: 'No, B as in Bravo'

Give date of birth, Indian chap 'September?' Me: 'No, May'. (how do they sound even similar?)

Indian chap '1992?' Me: 'No, 1982'

Give address, accidentally say 'F for Freddie' instead of 'F for Foxtrot'. Indian chap: 'what is that?' repeat, using 'Foxtrot', and he understands.

Indian: 'I am sorry I have to transferring you to different department'

Me:

New person answers: 'Hello how can I be helping you?'

Me:

Eventually done, but not before he struggled to pronounce my very ordinary street name.

It's not all northern accents. DH is from the north and he can't understand some really strong southern accents ie Jeff Brazier. It's just that northerners aren't proud of not understanding other people's accents so don't tend to boast about it.

Tbh I think that to be able to work in a call centre you need to have good communication skills. If you speak with a broad accent that hinders communication over the phone, you probably aren't in the right job. Be it in India, Glasgow or the south east.

I don't mind who or where call centre workers are as long as their efficiency is good. It's not fake names or hard to distinguish accents that are the problem, it's the fact that they often don't deliver what you need from them.

I had an overseas call centre worker ring me on behalf of BT to tell me that my problem was fixed, only it wasn't fixed, which I told her and that totally stumped her. I said 'listen, it's my other line, listen to this noise, can you report back that BT is wrong, the problem isn't fixed' but she didn't understand at all and just put the phone down on me.
Of course then your problem with the line is reported as a new fault because it's 'been fixed' and so a problem that's a couple of weeks old already goes right back to the bottom of the queue all because the representative was only equipped to deliver from the script.

I hate complaining about Indian call centres because it seems mean, and on the whole they offer excellent customer service, but it's just so bloody difficult to understand them over the phone. It can be incredibly frustrating but I feel too guilty to actually complain to them - it's not their fault.

The whole idea of foreign call centres is a sad indictment of where we've gone wrong in the UK. We can keep millions of people in a very expensive and demoralising benefits trap and yet we outsource all these jobs to India or Eastern Europe.

Mad.