RANT: Phone support reps who can't speak English!

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-21 09:57am

Why the fuck do they hire these retards to do phone support in this fucking country? Obvious immigrants with extremely thick accents who can't understand a goddamned word I'm saying!

Call me insensitive to immigrants if you like, but if you can't speak English, then maybe you should look for work in some field other than fucking phone support!!!!!!

Can you tell I just got off the line with one of these people? It took me ten fucking minutes to ask a goddamned one-minute question, and by the end, I just gave up.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2003-02-21 10:00am

Ouch. That's affirmative action for ya....

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-02-21 10:00am

Darth Wong wrote:Why the fuck do they hire these retards to do phone support in this fucking country? Obvious immigrants with extremely thick accents who can't understand a goddamned word I'm saying!

Call me insensitive to immigrants if you like, but if you can't speak English, then maybe you should look for work in some field other than fucking phone support!!!!!!

Can you tell I just got off the line with one of these people? It took me ten fucking minutes to ask a goddamned one-minute question, and by the end, I just gave up.

not the immigrants fault. it´s the companie´s fault.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-02-21 10:01am

Darth Wong wrote:Why the fuck do they hire these retards to do phone support in this fucking country? Obvious immigrants with extremely thick accents who can't understand a goddamned word I'm saying!

Call me insensitive to immigrants if you like, but if you can't speak English, then maybe you should look for work in some field other than fucking phone support!!!!!!

Can you tell I just got off the line with one of these people? It took me ten fucking minutes to ask a goddamned one-minute question, and by the end, I just gave up.

Who were you calling?

I've dealt with Dell's customer support and from what I've heard a lot of their customer service is handled by call centers in India. The guys I talked to had slight accents but were more understandable than half the doctors and nurses at my hospital.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-02-21 10:04am

No worry! Mr. Wong like movie-star! You be very popular, very happy! What you say?

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-02-21 10:06am

Poor guy. It makes NO sense to hire someone unintelligible in a service job. Or food service. Try going to a McDonalds in Arizona:

"And a large Iced Tea"
"Hi-C?"
"No, ICED TEA"
"HAI-EE SEE"
"NO, ICED TEA!"
"HI-EE SEE?"
"NO, a large Coke!"

theski · Post by **theski** » 2003-02-21 10:08am

This also means you won't be calling back. So they can cut back on cust support.. (very cynical)..

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-02-21 12:35pm

Depending on the type of company you called you might have gotten an overseas call center. I had to RMA something for IBM once, and the guy that was helping me was in Indonesia IIRC.

Hehe, one time I called for software support and the call center was in Toronto, I should have asked him if he hung out at SD.net.

Here in CA there are lots of H1-B Visa employees some of whom have almost zero English skills. Its very frustrating at times.

Him: "blah blab blah blah printer blah blah"
Me: "Um...er..can you just open ticket for me?"

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-21 12:49pm

They do have people with an IQ lower than the first to digits of the area code here on support lines.... (all area codes her start 01) ...its bloody impossible....even directory enquires is manned by morons these days....

Here in the UK I will say this much they very often have hiring policies based on accents.....looking for ones that are good on the phone for call centres.....trouble is they still seem to hire morons every place its been my misfortune to call....

Do they charge you by the minute for the call? It might explain things....

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » 2003-02-21 12:49pm

What really irritates me about phone support here is when they can't figyring what state I am in. For example when I was setting up my mobile I had to call to get my card activated and they asked which city are you in, I say Adelaide. The idiot responds "Is that in Melbourne?" (For those who don't know Australian geography, Melbourne and Adelaide are two very distant cities, with a lot of animity between them). Then I explain that I am in fact in Adelaide, SOUTH AUSTRALIA. Then five minutesd later in the conversation the moron says "You are in Western Australia right?"

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-02-21 01:30pm

Darth Wong wrote: Call me insensitive to immigrants if you like, but if you can't speak English, then maybe you should look for work in some field other than fucking phone support!!!!!!

YOU INSENSITIVE RACIST!

Ahem. That felt good...heheheh...come over to the dark side of
Conservatism, it's good, Mr. Wong.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-02-21 01:34pm

Heh, try Compaq tech support. While they speak English, they obviously have the IQ of a 3 day old rhesis monkey, same goes for the Activision tech support. It took 5 FRIGGEN EMAILS for them to realise that I had updated drivers and my computer was perfectly capable of running a program. In fact, I told them that in every correspondence. They asked me to take a survey concerning it, and I took it, and I told them exactly what I thought about it (quote: "YOUR TECH SUPPORT SUCKS!")

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-21 01:42pm

Darth Wong wrote:Can you tell I just got off the line with one of these people? It took me ten fucking minutes to ask a goddamned one-minute question, and by the end, I just gave up.

There was a subtle hint of that in your post, yes.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-02-21 01:44pm

NF_Utvol wrote:Heh, try Compaq tech support. While they speak English, they obviously have the IQ of a 3 day old rhesis monkey, same goes for the Activision tech support. It took 5 FRIGGEN EMAILS for them to realise that I had updated drivers and my computer was perfectly capable of running a program. In fact, I told them that in every correspondence. They asked me to take a survey concerning it, and I took it, and I told them exactly what I thought about it (quote: "YOUR TECH SUPPORT SUCKS!")

Well at least Activision sent me replacement discs for Interstate '76. However they were unable to help me later when the installation program didn't do anything. In the end I figured it out: the setup was a "multi-regional" thingy, and it would run a different routine for each language (English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc) except that the only one implemented was english. So I just changed my regional settings saying that I was in the US and it installed fine. The morons.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-02-21 01:46pm

Two days ago my friend called Pacbell to troubleshoot his DSL. They would not accept that is was a problem on their end. They kept wanting us to reinstall the software. This is a PPoE connection. We asked them if they could ping us and they kept saying yes. They would not believe us when we told them the modem was unplugged. Finally after being bumped up to a Network Support person they believed there was a problem on their side and not the PC.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-02-21 01:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:Call me insensitive to immigrants if you like, but if you can't speak English, then maybe you should look for work in some field other than fucking phone support!!!!!!

It's simple really, if they can't do the job they shouldn't be doing it. There's nothing insensitive about that; it's common fucking sense.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-02-21 02:58pm

Huh, well I'd rather have my tech support not speak English than have my fucking TA not speak English. Nothing like spending thousands on a University education from those who barely know the language...

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2003-02-21 03:01pm

Durran Korr wrote:Huh, well I'd rather have my tech support not speak English than have my fucking TA not speak English. Nothing like spending thousands on a University education from those who barely know the language...

Try having a physics TA for a 2 hour lab at 8am on Fridays who can't speak english very well.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2003-02-21 03:10pm

The only thing that matters in tech support call centers is average problem resoultion time. This is generally measured, however, by how long a customer talks to a customer support rep before hanging up. Hiring stupid people and non-English speakers reduces problem resolution time as customers simply hang up out of frustration. Keeping resolution time down keeps the PHBs happy, so more idiots get hired.

'Aint capitalism grand?

Sidious · Post by **Sidious** » 2003-02-21 05:21pm

Frank Hipper wrote: Poor guy. It makes NO sense to hire someone unintelligible in a service job. Or food service. Try going to a McDonalds in Arizona:

"And a large Iced Tea"
"Hi-C?"
"No, ICED TEA"
"HAI-EE SEE"
"NO, ICED TEA!"
"HI-EE SEE?"
"NO, a large Coke!"

I've determined there is no spanish/english translation for the words "Onion Rings". Since the concept of sustituting fries for onion rings at the burger king by my work is an utterly foreign concept to the mexican crew members there. I want ONION RINGS! NOT FRIED GOD DAMMIT!

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-02-21 06:18pm

Mmm. This is what happens when corporations hire cheap immigrant labor. They don't know enough and are just happy to have a job so they don't care that they get paid less. Add into the mix the fact that the corporations don't care about the customers (since they know they'll come back anyway; they have them by the nutsack) and you have a recipe for frustration.

I'm guessing this is why most fast food restaurants have pictures of the food.

I don't want to be ultra-right-wing about it, but immigrants should be relegated to jobs where they don't have to interact with other people until they learn how to speak and understand English.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2003-02-21 06:41pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Ouch. That's affirmative action for ya....

Affirmative action my ass. They can hire illegal immigrants for less money.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-02-21 06:52pm

You know how they hire those tech support guys? They just get people who are good at "communicating" with the customer, then teach them the tech stuff. That's why so many of them are crap.

Maybe we should start hiring doctors and nurses who have good "communication" skills, then just teach them how to perform surgery

Sidious · Post by **Sidious** » 2003-02-21 06:57pm

Well I've worked external tech support before (ISP support)and this is how it works, they grab the majority of their people off the street, total morons with no expertise who dropped out of school. Theres usually 5 or 6 people in a call center that actually know what they are doing and have the background/experience to actually HELP the customer. The rest just talk out of their ass.

I gotta say though, the public is pretty stupid too.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-02-21 06:58pm

Exonerate wrote:You know how they hire those tech support guys? They just get people who are good at "communicating" with the customer, then teach them the tech stuff. That's why so many of them are crap.

Maybe we should start hiring doctors and nurses who have good "communication" skills, then just teach them how to perform surgery

I hate to tell you this but my experience with nurses makes me think that a lot of them aren't much better than you're suggesting.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

RANT: Phone support reps who can't speak English!

RANT: Phone support reps who can't speak English!

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