Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

Jen and munk were Facebooking some frustrations tonight. The topic? Outsourcing North American call centers to the other side of the planet. Mostly to India. Now, my Spidey Sense told me that some people were, if not offended, then surprised that Jen and munk would be so blunt about this, but I totally get what they're saying. I hate it too.

Follow up:

And I like the Indian people as a whole. No haters here. I have two good buddies hailing from the Mumbai area. The men are courteous, the women are breathtaking, the food is delicious, the traditions grand. India is a great country.

Now, while outsourcing jobs comes with a whole armory of complex socio-economic and political loaded guns, the main problem for the humble 1-800 dialer is simple. It's the language barrier. Outsourcing aside, if you are hired to handle calls for a specific region, you need to be able to communicate well. This isn't a wide sweeping dig about the race of any people largely staffing North American customer service call centers. It's a practical objection to the practice of hiring individual persons who can't be understood by their customer base.

It's like if I took a job answering the phones for a French company. I have some French. I could muddle through. I would MAYBE be able to help the caller eventually, but only after each of us ask the other to slow down and repeat everything three times. In a social situation, not so bad, but I would be a hopeless failure at a job that required me to provide efficient assistance and and clear answers. I should not do that job. I should get a different job. For example, tonight my friend munk had a marathon phone session with an Indian lady. Surely sweet as pie and eager to help, but quite unable to speak the same language as her incoming caller. Problem!

I personally don't have the problem a lot. I have a good ear for accents and my brain comprehends differently-syllable'd words and phrasing without incident. MOST of the time. This is unlike my unfortunate work-friend Brian who always says he has a hard time understanding our International guys. He means the Australians and the Brits! "Bri, that's English." "But his accent is so strong!" I guess it's true that one of the London fellas has a regional sort of twang that lengthens and bends syllables a bit. "Hello?" from him sounds more like "Eee ah yellow?" through the nose a bit. But mostly it's a no-brainer understanding those guys!

The worst case of an outsourced call center rep being TOTALLY wrong for the job happened to me about 3 years ago. Incoming, I was the recipient of the call. I was at work and picked up the phone like always. A man said...something. I will never forget this, because after it was over I wrote down what I "heard" phonetically and figured out what he was trying to say. What I heard was: "e-disher refreezing tative for porch hazing?"

Now, in the interest of time, I'll just summarize. This turned out to be a cold call from a company overseas, I never did find out where the caller was located geographically but I know I'd never heard this kind of cadence or pronunciation. I never even totally understood what it was they wanted to do for us. A service? A product? A survey? I don't know. He spoke fast, staccato. I caught SOME words that sounded like they might be...well, it went something like this.

"Good morning, Edit Share?"

"E-disher? You refreezing tative for porch hazing?"

"Excuse me?"

"Refreezing tative for porch hazing please?"

"Re...freezing? I don't quite...I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"ReFREEE...rePREEE...RePREEZE ent ate eev. Poor chasing please?"

"Ree pree...I'm sorry, I don't understand...?"

"Are you for porch hazing?"

"Porch hazing?"

"PORCH HAZING! e-DISHER POOR CHASING!"

"I'm sorry, I just don't understand you."

At the time it was just me and our former Tech Support guy, Erick. He sat across from me and overheard me trying my hardest to understand this caller. Laughing his ass off and motioning for me to just hang up. He didn't hear the guy, just me repeating back what sounded like nonsense words. I finally gleaned enough from the caller to learn that he wanted to sell us something, politely said that I had to go, we are not interested, and hung up.

Purchasing. He was looking to speak to a Purchasing representative at Edit Share. Only he couldn't say "edit" or "share" or "purchasing" or "representative."

How in the name of Satan's asshole was he going to sell me anything?

That's all I'm saying.