Am I the only one?

[upnorth]

Who is getting totally fed up with the language barrier when having to call for some things? Or even worse when someone calls looking for info on what can be valid things.

[Dave S]

I had to deal with this a couple weeks back. I dropped a very loud, very pronounced W T F and immediately asked to speak with an english speaking representative. Queue in the "Peggy" commercial as I was transferred to a supervisor in the same office.

[DTro]

It's out of control IMO. I wanted to call Wally and see if they had a certain camera battery I was looking for. I might have just as well been looking for the holy grail because I had about the same chance as finding it.

The gas money spent to go look myself was 100 times less painful then the conversation I had.

[Ufatz]

I hear you boys and I feel your pain but it is TOO LATE to hope for any change. Tragic fact is the greatest nation the world has seen is now totally controlled by corporations and lobbyists and billionaires. Until you can convince HP and W'Mart and all the rest to make an honest effort to return jobs to this country and take LESS profit there will be no change. Think how many ENGLISH speaking young men and women in THIS country would LEAP at the chance to have one of those "phone tech" jobs....even at minimum wage.

A great many people my age now realize that we are not coming back from the edge of this one.....it's all downhill from here.

I am happy I will not be here to see the end. It will be too....too sad.

[Slabasaurus]

I'm not sure there's any way around the language barrier in a free market economy and the surge in globalization.

All of the foreign business I do is in English. All I've spoken when traveling abroad is English - with the exception of a negotiation I had to do in a market in Budapest, where I needed to use what little Hungarian I knew.

[upnorth]

I got totally fed up this am and just hung on them. Not got time for that krap!!

[Scott K]

My company does work for all 50 states, Mexico, Canada, Porto Rico, and to be honest, the people in some of the southern states, are the hardest to understand with their southern drawl. Although some of the french speaking Canadians are a little tough to comprehend at times.

[tunrevir]

Hello my name is Peggy how can I help you? I am Peggy...................................or The guy that calls the suicide hotline only to find out it is outsourced and when he explains he is despondant and going to take his life, the operator gets really excited and asks if he can drive a truck full of explosives

Tunrevir~

[upnorth]

I have less problems with the southern folks as I do with the people from Mexico and India. Not had to deal with French Canadians as of yet.

[Scott K]

Dont get me wrong, I dont speak any spanish. But the clients we have from Mexico, have learned english well enough for me to understand them. Every once in a while I will run into a problem.

[pushbutton]

When i had a problem with my phone and computer communicating with each other, I ended up with customer service from abroad for the phone, and here for the computer. In order to get the problem solved I literally spent a good part of one day calling each side trying to narrow it down. While the communication was not easy on the foreign side, they were the ones that were finally able to figure out the issue. I ended up being more frustrated with with "our" tech support because they seemed incapable of reasoned thought and were lost when the script could not come up with a solution........blame the other side was the only "help" i got from them!

[mrklean]

its only gonna get worse, im sick of Sprint calling me every two weeks to thank me for using them and want me to buy another phone, first i cant understand what your saying and second if your gonna read off of a script at least make it seem like you want to talk to me instead of read off that thing

[pooly_31]

When i had a problem with my phone and computer communicating with each other, I ended up with customer service from abroad for the phone, and here for the computer. In order to get the problem solved I literally spent a good part of one day calling each side trying to narrow it down. While the communication was not easy on the foreign side, they were the ones that were finally able to figure out the issue. I ended up being more frustrated with with "our" tech support because they seemed incapable of reasoned thought and were lost when the script could not come up with a solution........blame the other side was the only "help" i got from them!

So if it was the "other side" that fixed it in the end, was it possible it wasn't "our sides" problem in the first place and they were right to place the blame? haha!

[pushbutton]

Google versus Apple, the two big dogs lifting their leg on each other......problem is not fixed..... Motorola's Indian call center at least figured out a way to "work around it". We are talking about an Android and a Mac...not a Trac phone and an old Acer. My old Mac used to communicate with my Android. Tried telling that to Apple, but apparently i am the only person on this planet that owns a new Mac and not an I phone All i got from Apple was (in my best stoner voice) um, yeah, wow man, ah, i guess i really don't know what to tell ya

[upnorth]

There are reasons I am not a MAC fan. They make great devices that work well with other MAC devices, but when you want to get them to work with other non MAC devices they are hell to work with. I am a Network Admin and have worked with MAC in the real world of business and business networks spent an asinine amount of time trying to get them to work on the network and interface with our other apps. Finally had to just give up and leave them as specialized machines and give the staff Windows boxes so they could do their work. It is not a rip on their product as they make a fine machine, it how they design them to work.

If you have and like MACs stick with MAC products it will cause you less stress in the long run. They are very proprietary.

[c0untryf1sh3r]

I know this is going to sound racist and I appologize if I offend anyone but it isnt intended. I am just as sick as everyone else here is of calling tech support and getting someone from India or Mexico or where ever. Why should English speaking Americans have to talk to a foreigner when we need help or have a question. I have no problem understanding the southern drawl and I know enough spanglish to work around the issue, but when I get someone from India I'd be better off sending smoke signals or writing lines of binary. (neither of which I know how to do) Also like Ufatz said, there is a plethora of people that would jump at the opportunity to take a call center job and needless to say that would ease our current number of call center verbal abuse claims!!

[Knoc]

I hate it when you call for tech support and it tranfers ya to india (or some other country, but thats more for the fact of companies in America exporting jobs. As far as the language barrier here in the united states, you have to remember that immigration is what made this country. English was once the "different" language.

I understand peoples frustrations though, but I think its more the employers fault for hiring someone with a strong accent to work on the phones with people. I agree too that it does get frustrating having to try to tell someone about a problem or ask them a question when you can understand them or they cant understand you.

[harvey lee]

I have had those calls answered and I could hardly understand the one on the other end. I mighht as well talk to my dog as I simply cannot understand them at all.

My cure, I ask for a supervisor that can speak english. I keep asking until I get one. If they call me, I aske for a english speaking rep or I hang up.

I also e-mail or call the companies ZI do business that are hiring those who speak very poor english and let them know that I will no longer do business with them if I cannot understand there employees.

Those jobs can be in a country where english is spoken fluently or else forget about talking to me. They need me more than I need them.

Very simply, speak english or don't call me.

[DARK30]

Ah. The new Sillytown.

The Germans are the worst...

[bucketmouth64]

I too get really frustrated when I need to call some 800 customer service line. You have to have them repeat what they're saying 2-3 times before you get their drift and you have to guess you got it right. They know what they're saying and they won't try very hard to make it more clear to what they are trying to say. I've also encountered bad connections which compounds the problem. I don't have a problem with a southern accent, it's the overseas or foreign speaking people that can't speak english well that I have a problem with. My former company had a call center that was in one of the Carolina's and when customers called they get some southern person having no idea what kind of weather(typically winter)we go thru. No empathy, very "cold" personalities, so many complaints regarding the call center. There were just as many complaints regarding the call center being out of state with the normal daily calls. So company contracted a firm in the twin cities to take the calls. Now when customers call they are talking to someone who knows what's going on locally and has a more intimate conversation with each other so to speak.

[DonBo]

How about "press 1 for English"? Huh? How about "press 1 if you can not speak English."?

[Down Deep]

If you want cheap stuff then the cost of it is to deal with cheap labor, and you know where American business finds cheap labor. We do it to ourselves.

[upnorth]

If you want cheap stuff then the cost of it is to deal with cheap labor, and you know where American business finds cheap labor. We do it to ourselves.

The stuff I deal with isn't cheap stuff. High end business computer systems! Servers, switches, routers, firewalls and the business software running on the stuff.

[Down Deep]

Not everything is cheap, but there is lots of competion for the computer equipment dollar. Price plays an important role in what a business or individual buys for themsleves. I'm a business owner and price of product and equipment drives what I purchase and, I'm not above twisting some arms and getting them to try to undercut each other to improve my final price. So the manuafactures are simply competing to deliver the best product they can with the best price. The largest cost of most businesses is labor and that is where the savings are going to come from. They look for cheap labor and in a global economy its the third or so-called developing world they go to. In the end we have to deal with the same people when we need assistance. That's why I say we do it to oursleves.

By the way I agree with you about Macs. I have no choice, but to use Windows and MS systems at my day job, but at home I have a Mac and have for years. I carry my MacBook Pro and use it at my day job constantly. It provids a better organized and problem free work station than our company network. It is also very easy to interface with our system. I'm not that in to high level network stuff, but for personal or small business applications they are great.