Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to be able to understand the person in the call centre?

67 replies

Picante · 05/06/2009 12:05

Is it too much to ask? And before you ask it wasn't even one directed through India, it was a strong Scottish accent and I had to ask her to repeat quite a few things.

Argh.

OP posts:
londonone · 05/06/2009 12:54

If you work in a call centre the most important part of your job is being understood. The employers should provide training to ensure their employees can be understood!

MuffinToptheMule · 05/06/2009 12:55

No matter what your accent is, you won't be understood by everyone.

londonone · 05/06/2009 12:59

I find it hard to believe that there is anyone who cannot understand John Humphreys or Huw Edwards. Perhaps the odd person but to the vast majority they are easily understandable.

snigger · 05/06/2009 13:03

Again, I reiterate - being understood is seldom the problem. At the coalface, as it were, understanding the mumbled drawlings in a variety of dialects, generally with a background of Jeremy Kyle, a washing machine on a spin cycle high enough to test it to destruction, or street/shopping centre babble, is extraordinarily stressful work.

Additionally - dependant upon the work area, diction is not often the primary requirement of the job, generally there is some greater plan.

If I can speak happily to people without English as a first language, to people with disabilities that require the support of Typetalk, or to people who frankly won't stop eating crisps while trying to conduct business down the phone, I demand that you tolerate the odd thick accent in your call centre worker, dammit!

snigger · 05/06/2009 13:06

.. And now I've had my rant -

Yes, I'm sure it's irritating if you can't decipher what you're being told. Just say so - most trained staff would be willing to repeat, or speak more slowly, or with precise diction, if they're told they're not being understood.

Accents are a very personal thing, yet ironically so many of them are derivatives of each other.

burningupinspeed · 05/06/2009 13:07

Bits n bobs don't have strong accents!

If I don't know, and you don't know... and you don't know and I don't know...

Nahui · 05/06/2009 13:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Tamarto · 05/06/2009 13:09

Lets see, one has most likely paid for the service one is being paid to provide the service. Which one has the obligation to make themselves understood?

Training in understanding accents, dulling their own down should ideally be part of the job.

I couldn't care less if it's that persons ideal job or not, they are doing it at that moment and so should be willing to make an effort!

paisleyleaf · 05/06/2009 13:10

a big part of it, for me, is that I just can't even hear them.
Like they're really far away
....I think that must be those little mouthpiece things like Madonna has

trixymalixy · 05/06/2009 13:11

YABU, as a Scot having worked in a call centre i got really fed up of with the rudeness of people who said they couldn't understand my accent.

i have the least strong Scottish accent you could possibly hear, so definitely their problem not mine.

Original poster
Picante · 05/06/2009 13:13

Is it rude though to say you can't understand someone? They're not insulting you are they?

OP posts:
trixymalixy · 05/06/2009 13:13

YABU, as a Scot having worked in a call centre i got really fed with the rudeness of people who said they couldn't understand my accent.

i have the least strong Scottish accent you could possibly hear, so definitely their problem not mine.

snigger · 05/06/2009 13:14

I disagree strongly, Nahui.

Mumbling indistinct speech, obviously, shouldn't be acceptable, but to essentially carve a line through entire swathes of the UK (often the areas with social problems and a need of large-level employers) because of their dialect seems highly intolerant to me.

We live in a country of broad differences, and these should be accepted (and where necessary, endured), or we would end up with the United States of Norfolk, Glasgow and Newcastle.

Personally, I find the 'estuary' accent hard to understand and unpleasant to the ear, but hey-ho, it's not insurmountable.

MissSunny · 05/06/2009 13:14

Message withdrawn

PuppyMonkey · 05/06/2009 13:15

Ooh that was clever Picante - you got sandwiched right in the middle of Trixy's double post...

trixymalixy · 05/06/2009 13:15

It's not rude to ask someone to repeat something they couldn't understand, but it was the attitude and manner of the people that was rude, bordering on being anti-scottish.

fizzpops · 05/06/2009 13:16

I think some people just find it easier to tune into accents. My DH cannot understand accents that I consider to be relatively mild once I have acclimatised to them.

On two occasions in an Indian restaurant the conversation has gone thus:

Waiter: Would you like some poppadums?
DH: (pretending to have understood and waiting for me to bail him out) Oh, er, um... well (to me) What do you think?
Me: (genuinely not having heard) Sorry I didn't catch that.
DH: (to waiter) I'm sorry what did you say?
Waiter: Would you like some poppadums?
Me: Oh, poppadums!
DH: Yes, please. (looking a bit like )

I can now spot similar situations and take over the conversation. He is also not great at speaking other languages or doing impressions of other accents although he tries! I think it is all a part of how some people hear things like accents.

fizzpops · 05/06/2009 13:18

Getting back to the question...

Don't companies like to employ people with friendly accents such as Scottish and Geordie because customers respond better to them?

Sometimes it just takes additional concentration as it is not necessarily an accent you hear every day.

kittywise · 05/06/2009 13:30

ah bits n bobs indeed!!!

I can understand them, my three year old says the words she's hearing back but clearly hasn't a clue what it means. Infact she has been known to repeat what she hears in the said accent and ask what that word is!!!

She has a point!

Rhubarb · 05/06/2009 13:33

If they've a strong accent they are usually aware of this and will be used to people asking them to repeat things.

I've a Northern accent and I live in Wiltshire. I know that from time to time people find it hard to understand me, just certain things I say. It's not a problem though and I'm happy to repeat it.

Scottish accents can be very strong. I remember watching a Glaswegian film once that was subtitled!

laweaselmys · 05/06/2009 13:36

Although I don't have a problem understanding accents generally sometimes I struggle a bit on the phone as I have hearing ishoos. I just ask people to say it again, they've never seemed offended and I don't think it is a big deal.

I'm going with YABU, you only have to ask.

Thunderduck · 05/06/2009 13:37

There are English accents that I struggle to understand,usually Southern accents. Can I request that shows set in Southern England are also subtitled?

Rhubarb · 05/06/2009 13:38

It's all Worzel Gummidge down 'ere! And they call my accent!

SouthMum · 05/06/2009 13:45

YANBU - I usually hang up and hope to get someone else

holdingittogether · 05/06/2009 13:46

I find understanding anyone on the phone a bit tricky sometimes, no matter where they are from! I often have to ask them to speak up and can hear lots of background noise in some call centres. They talk very fast sometimes and add to that my own noisy household in the background.
They do themselves no favours though as you have listened to so many automated messages and awful tinkly music by the time you speak to a real person your paitence has pretty much run out!