To find phone banking stressful because of accents?

[Comeymemo]

I’m British but was born abroad and emigrated as an adult. I struggle to understand some regional accents. I very rarely use phone help lines, and I usually do online banking instead. But whenever I have to call the bank, I find it very stressful because half the time the call centre person speaks a very heavily accented English and I just can’t understand what they are saying. I don’t have this problem in face-to-face convos - only on the phone.

AIBU to think banks should train call centre staff to smoothe out broad accents? I’m not asking for Received Pronunciation, just a bit more enunciation and some consonants here and there. ☺️

I expect you’ll get flamed, but yes, I too hate this, which is why I do as much as I can online. I find people sometimes don’t understand me too, as I have an NI accent

Stressful??

Get over yourself

I was watching a documentary once about Indian call centers where they do just that.

YABU it's not difficult to understand regional accents

I'm not uk born & it's not something I struggle with

Also having worked in call centre, I've experienced first hand how rude people can be - especially those with an accent themselves 🙄

Like peachy I have the opposite problem. I hate phoning as they often have difficulty understanding my Northern Irish accent. Automated lines eg where you have to say your postcode or phone number out loud into the phone are the worst. I end up having to put on some kind of comedy posh English accent in the hope that they can detect what I am saying.

I find some strong regional accents quite difficult to understand on the phone, it's partly the phone, I only have a mobile and sometimes the line isn't particularly clear so that doesn't help. I prefer live chat and will use it in preference to calling where it's offered.

YABU it's not difficult to understand regional accents

Not for you it isn't and not particularly for me either, but I know people who do struggle with some accents, especially on the phone.

Cakes I do that too - put on a posh English accent, as those automated services never pick up my postcode when I say it in my normal voice!

I used to manage various contact centres. Most of the time the heavy Indian accents you here are from UK based staff, as the kind of Indians that are hired in call centres (english educated, grads) tend to have posh accents.

Hired in Indian call centres

Sounds like the exact opposite of when most Brits phone their "local" customer services call centre

Ny20005, out of curiosity how many languages do you speak fluently and understand in all accents? I’m just curious as to whether you are gifted with languages.

I understand how you feel OP
I was trying to deal with an issue with my bank and although some people on the phone had accents I could understand them perfectly ( thus was a UK call centre by the way) I kept getting passed through to one person in a specific department that I just couldn’t understand
Eventually I went into branch and explained - they were a bit eye rolling but after a lot of sighing they called for me. The bank lady said that she couldn’t understand a word he was saying, she got her manager involved who agreed and they escalated it. No idea what the outcome was

I admit that I sometimes find it harder to understand people on the phone or over a tannoy if they have a strong accent. Never have the same problem in person. It makes me feel awfully ashamed of myself/ignorant when it happens.

I find foreign accents much harder to understand. I find call center people speaking too fast much more annoying. It sounds like they are trying to hide information by making everything unintelligible, it's infuriating. No wonder clients get in a bad mood.

I try to avoid dealing with them on the phone as much as possible, it's such a waste of time.

I find any callcentre type phone calls stressful. They use my name too much for a start and keep calling me Mrs Mike, when I am Ms Mike. I ask them to not repeat my name in every sentence and they ask 'What shall I call you?'. They are usually Indian. If you ask they will say they're in Leeds or somewhere, but calls from Leeds wouldn't have the satellite delay.

I have far greater difficulty understanding homegrown accents, as native speakers obviously also have a much wider lexical range and often use colloquialisms in everyday speech, whereas nns will not.

Understanding telephone talk is always harder than face to face communication because you can't see the speaker's lips (which has a lot more influence on your brain than you might think)

understanding telephone talk is always harder than face to face communication because you can't see the speaker's lips (which has a lot more influence on your brain than you might think)

^^this.
If I am having trouble understanding agents on the telephone, I tell them I have a 'hearing problem', and ask that they speak slowly, it usually helps.

Araiwa and ny20005 do you always profess to know what people find stressful and if they can understand things better than they do?

I live abroad, speak the language fluently, but still hate having to pick up the phone at work as I frequently can't understand the different regional accents. My colleagues also hate me taking messages as it will go like this "somebody called Ton-something rang from a company beginning with C, which might be in Biddinghuizen. I think it's a pump problem but he spoke to fast. Can you call him back?"
I only get the numbers right because I read them off the display. 😂

YANBU. I find strong accents hard to understand over the phone. I bank with First Direct partly because their phone banking is excellent. No automated bollocks to get through before speaking to an actual person

Perfume and Faded, I do too - although I usually tell them the line is bad/there’s background noise, which prompts similar results. People tend to speak more slowly when they speak loudly

Sorry - you mean you’re English (but moved) and you now find you can’t understand English accents?

I find Scottish accents really hard to understand. I'll just say I love your accent (which is true) I didn't really get that tho, can you repeat? & it's fine. No offence given or taken. Why should anyone change their accent? Change it to what, anyway? The Queen's English? Why?

"Smooth out" accents?!

Oceangirl 💐