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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find phone banking stressful because of accents?

65 replies

Comeymemo · 03/01/2018 11:29

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. ☺️

OP posts:
PinkSparklyPussyCat · 03/01/2018 14:08

Cherrycoke Barclays is the worst bank and I won’t use their telephone banking. Their overseas call centres are shocking and you can’t even go into branch as they hardly have any staff. My local branch has been renovated but there’s no one working there.

I have a problem with their Blue Rewards cashback and they can’t find what’s wrong so they want me to send a secure message, presumably so they can send me another scripted message back. No thanks, I’m not that desperate for 2%!

FlaviaAlbia · 03/01/2018 14:11

I love first direct. They have Scottish call centre staff who can understand NI accents and vice Vera. I really struggle with some English accents

MargotLovedTom1 · 03/01/2018 14:19

Can't stop laughing at 'my husband is partially dead' (and have just seen 'vice Vera' as well) 😂.

OP yanbu. I find a lot of accents very hard to decipher on the phone.

FlaviaAlbia · 03/01/2018 14:24

Blame autocorrect.

I just remembered a phone conversation with a company where I had to email afterwards to confirm something. The man on the phone pronounced sales like 'soials' or something and I asked them to spell it Grin

PerryPerryThePlatypus · 03/01/2018 14:24

I too struggle with accents on the phone. It's like there's a disconnect between me hearing them and me understanding them. Face to face I'm not too bad. DC has a language disorder and has similar struggles.

BMW6 · 03/01/2018 14:26

My DH is a Yorkshireman and I often have to ask him to repeat something he's said a few times (and still don't get it)........

derxa · 03/01/2018 14:35

partially dead Poor man.

MrsMoastyToasty · 03/01/2018 14:36

I worked in a call centre in the late 90's. My biggest problem was understanding Dorset farmers (relevant to job and I'm from Bristol).
I had English colleagues who couldn't understand Scottish accents and would ask me to take over the call because I am attuned to the accent (DH is scottish).
I also had a colleague who was Welsh through and through who was asked if he was Indian.

Hillarious · 03/01/2018 14:37

Accents do come over stronger on the phone. People don't always realise how much everyone picks up on body language and lip reading when communicating.

If I do point out that I have a hearing impairment, I'm frequently spoken to like I'm a bit simple Hmm.

Mainly, though, it's the scripted parts of any phone call which cause problems, as the call centre staff seem to rattle through that at speed!

Scottish accents are great and clear - a lot of Scots read the news for that reason.

DailyMaileatmyshit · 03/01/2018 14:54

DH really struggles with heavy accents, any accent, even where we live. He just has something missing that allows him to hear it properly. In some ways he's worse face to face than over the phone.

Rebeccaslicker · 03/01/2018 15:01

The scripted calls can be amusing. DF once got some poor sod telling him he could reduce his mortgage payments for him. DF pointed out that he didn't have a mortgage. Cue frantic rustling before the unfortunate sod piped up:

"Well aren't you lucky?"

DF, whose parents had no money at all, who worked from 16, who went to night school 5 days a week after work to qualify, and who still works flat out at 76, hit the roof about his "luck"...!

However I had one guy from an overseas call centre who was persistent that I'd been in a car crash and was "concealing" it from him. Eventually it turned out he thought he was talking to my mother. I told him she'd been dead for 6 months. There was a long pause. Then he actually said:

"And that was in a car accident?"

The roof has never been the same again since I hit it!!

heateallthebuns · 03/01/2018 15:14

That is the least annoying thing about having to speak to a call centre.

Original poster
Comeymemo · 03/01/2018 15:16

The man on the phone pronounced sales like 'soials'

Was he the Gnome in Ben and Holly’s little kingdom? 😄

And can anyone tell me what that Gnome’s accent is?

OP posts:
Original poster
Comeymemo · 03/01/2018 15:21

Now I can’t stop humming Don’t go to bed with a carrot on yer head’ 🎼

OP posts:
Original poster
Comeymemo · 03/01/2018 15:23

Rebecca, that’s awful.

I once had a car insurance cold caller tell me to fuck off. I asked if that was part of their script...

OP posts:
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