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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To expect people in a call centre to speak English...

57 replies

SnowBells · 26/01/2015 20:46

... in an understandable manner????

I have been calling BT today. No one spoke English fluently. One person, couldn't solve my problem and transferred me (apparently) to the wrong department with a woman I could barely understand. Her supervisor also spoke in broken English and - to top it off - lied.

WTF. No. 1 recruitment guideline in a call centre should be "recruit someone who speaks fluent English... because, really, the main requirement is that people working in such environments should be able to speak in the customer's language. No. 2 should be "recruit someone with at least a few brain cells", so that they can actually solve people's problems.

What is going on?!? Has BT outsourced its call centres???

OP posts:

Hatespiders · 26/01/2015 20:50

I've had to ring BT about getting their Broadband, and I got the most helpful polite and nice Indian man. He had a strong accent, yes, but not unintelligible. He was so patient as I find all this technology confusing.
I told him I'd just made a coffee cake and he could come round for a cup of tea. Sadly I reckon it was the middle of the night for him in Mumbai or somewhere. He really was brilliant.

Shakey1500 · 26/01/2015 20:50

I've had a particularly infuriating episode from an outsourced call centre. I had to ask several times for clarification and eventually, the member of staff got my details wrong, processed a wrong payment which domino affected into me "missing a payment", a late fee, my card being suspended and my credit report marred. I got it all cleared but Ye Gads, what a kerfuffle.

MoreBeta · 26/01/2015 20:55

I have had very bad experiences with BT call centres - exactly the same as you have had. I left BT in the end and went to Sky and the call centres were the main reason as well as atrocious internet service.

Its when 'Indian call centre' operators have to pretend to be in the UK that annoys me most. The companies know people hate talking to 'Indian call centres' so they took to pretending they were really UK call centres.

They get special training to tell them where places are relative to each other geographically and also some basic 'UK popular culture' updates.

I had this with an airline one - it was mirthful. The woman I was talking to quite clearly had no idea where in the UK I was relative to Heathrow.

Its not the call centre operators fault but really its just all about cutting costs. Companies just don't care. Its about getting rid of UK staff and Indian call centre firms always over promise on the quality of their staff.

bubalou · 26/01/2015 20:55

I had exactly the same problems with BT. Hours and hours logged trying to sort out issues on the phone but they never understood me and nothing was ever done.

I switched everything over to sky - tv, Internet and phone and it's been perfect for 2 years.

Evil BT!!!!

Hatespiders · 26/01/2015 21:01

I had to arrange travel insurance for my dh last August. The company I rang had UK-based call staff. The woman I spoke to sounded very young, but pleasant. However, her knowledge of geography was woeful. You pay more for journeys to Africa, and more still for West Africa, so this had to be accurate. I told her Ivory Coast and she actually asked me if that was an island in the Med!! Then she couldn't find IC on her computer page. Surely working for a travel insurer she should have known a little more.
So it isn't always non-UK call centre staff that disappoint.

Methe · 26/01/2015 21:05

My car insurance is with Diamond and I couldn't understand a word the poor customer services advisor was saying when I called them to change the car on my policy.

When my police is up I wouldn't renew with them even if they were substantially cheaper that everyone else, I don't think I could take the stress!

Original poster

SnowBells · 26/01/2015 21:12

Hatespiders I am starting to give up on the future of humanity...

OP posts:

fromparistoberlin73 · 26/01/2015 21:13

I ducking hate and despise BT so so SOS much

Yanbu

londonrach · 26/01/2015 21:18

I had 6 months of hell with bt. Simply they cant get their broadband to work. I spoke to people at their call centres every day at least twice a day. Very polite but never understanding what i was saying. I will never ever go with bt even if free and you paid me. Yanbu...

FayKorgasm · 26/01/2015 21:19

I find it very difficult to understand a strong accent on the phone.

mom2twoteens · 26/01/2015 21:20

Ditto BT call centres, staff seem to want to help, but often their English is not so good and they don't seem to have had much in the way of training. I was querying something on my bill and he kept repeating the code that was on my bill which made no sense to me and couldn't actually explain what this payment was for, just that I should pay it.
I too left BT.

Alambil · 26/01/2015 21:24

I find calling the Student Loan people tricky - I struggle to understand the Glasgow accent on the phone (face to face is ok though!)

ItalianWiking84 · 26/01/2015 21:26

I am not British but think my English is acceptable and understandable but when I signed up to sky and had to call their call center I was spoken to as being an idiot from abroad and could hear people in the background laughing about this foreigner who was stupid.... Signed off sky and will never go with them again...

PurpleSwift · 26/01/2015 21:26

My mam had this with BT last week. She got absolutely nowhere because they couldn't understand each other!

WorraLiberty · 26/01/2015 21:27

YANBU although I generally find the BT call centre staff quite well spoken and easy to understand.

But this afternoon I had to call Sky, due to a technical problem.

I Indian guy I spoke to had an extremely strong accent and it made the phone call very uncomfortable, and it took far longer than it should have to resolve the problem.

ItalianWiking84 · 26/01/2015 21:28

I also work in call center but for other languages but sometimes because of sickness we all have to take English speaking calls... Some are better than others, which I think is normal to expect

WorraLiberty · 26/01/2015 21:28

Interesting X post about Sky!

ItalianWiking84 · 26/01/2015 21:30

Worra: I agree

MrsFogi · 26/01/2015 21:30

Yes it's infuriating - I tried to call Barclaycard to get a card cancelled but had to give up and call again later to get someone who was comprehensible.

Salmotrutta · 26/01/2015 21:31

Where are you from OP?

Do you talk with using Received Pronounciation?

Are you the person who told my relative (who worked in a call centre at the time) to get back to India where he belonged?

My relative and I are Scottish by the way.

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 26/01/2015 21:32

I'm really good with all kinds of accents and I don't give two hoots where people are when they're trying to earn a living by giving a service.
That said I've had awful problems with both BT and Three.
Their operators are instructed to deliver the script rather than listen and react to the customer's problem.

It's absolutely not their fault that they've been ill equipped and actually it offends me when they're trained to drop in 'local' comments. I'd far rather they were trained to respond efficiently to the problem raised.

For those reasons I stick with the providers who provide a UK based call centre, so I can cut to the chase and get my problem dealt with in the quickest manner.

Salmotrutta · 26/01/2015 21:32

And my relative has no "strong" accent like Glaswegian or Aberdonian either.

And has very clear diction.

playftseforme · 26/01/2015 21:38

We just rang BT last night to cancel broadband, and got a guy with a Newcastle accent which my Dh and I struggled w simply because he spoke so fast. I am not accent free myself, and am normally good with other people's but I think that the phone has the effect of strengthening accents.

GooodMythicalMorning · 26/01/2015 21:43

Yes it does, plus you cant lip read the speaker like you normally could when speaking to someone face to face.

WorraLiberty · 26/01/2015 21:43

Their operators are instructed to deliver the script rather than listen and react to the customer's problem.

Yes, that's another problem I had with Sky today.

It was incredibly frustrating when I'd told him that I had the signal page up on the screen already, yet he still tried to talk me through the stages to select it.

Then when I'd told him a couple of times I had no input 2 signal, he went all through the script and ended up proudly telling me, my problem was that I had no input 2 signal!

Not his fault of course, but added to his very hard to understand accent, it all took so much longer than it should have done....about half an hour in total.

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