# Why can't American companies hire English speaking employees?



## quiller (Dec 25, 2010)

At the risk of being branded ethnocentric,I am very frustrated that the service personnel in many American companies speak English in a very limited way.In recent days,my calls to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, ebay[don't get me started on them],and paypal have all resulted in conversations with pleasant ,but incomprehensible persons whose mastery of English was minimal.
I am starting to realize this is a great way to deal with customer issues,since only the most determined callers will continue to try and get an answer after spending 10-15 minutes trying to understand what the customer representative is saying.
Am I being unreasonable?


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Ahem...no offense, but American "companys" or "companies"?


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## quiller (Dec 25, 2010)

I stand corrected.Wrong in the title,right in the text.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Honestly? Sure, I've run into the same thing but I'm not as annoyed as you. 

Listen, these folks are trying their best and earning a living and supporting their families. I'm usually patient and I've never felt like it was impossible for me to communicate my question or to understand their answer. Sometimes I just ask them to repeat themselves and I'll sometimes confirm the answer by quoting them back and all is well. 

It's a great big world. We just need to deal with it.

Also keep in mind, most of these "American" companies are international and serve an international customer base.


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## cosmic_cookie (Jan 30, 2014)

I just ask if they can transfer me to their manager or someone else.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

quiller said:


> At the risk of being branded ethnocentric,I am very frustrated that the service personnel in many American companies speak English in a very limited way.In recent days,my calls to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, ebay[don't get me started on them],and paypal have all resulted in conversations with pleasant ,but incomprehensible persons whose mastery of English was minimal.
> I am starting to realize this is a great way to deal with customer issues,since only the most determined callers will continue to try and get an answer after spending 10-15 minutes trying to understand what the customer representative is saying.
> Am I being unreasonable?


You'll find that most of them are actually in India or the Philippines.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Chouan said:


> You'll find that most of them are actually in India or the Philippines.


I just assumed the OP was aware of that. Perhaps I was wrong. This has been standard practice for quite some time actually.


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## 32rollandrock (May 1, 2008)

I've had varying experiences, some good, some bad. I've grown somewhat used to it.



SG_67 said:


> Honestly? Sure, I've run into the same thing but I'm not as annoyed as you.
> 
> Listen, these folks are trying their best and earning a living and supporting their families. I'm usually patient and I've never felt like it was impossible for me to communicate my question or to understand their answer. Sometimes I just ask them to repeat themselves and I'll sometimes confirm the answer by quoting them back and all is well.
> 
> ...


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

If you woke up one morning to discover (i) "English-speaking" employees at your insurer and (ii) the corresponding premium to pay them, you'd lament the latter MUCH more than you'd celebrate the former.

DH


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

Also, here's the rather (actually very) embarrassing flip-side to your complaint: why can't Americans speak languages other than English?

Education: it's a thing.


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## cosmic_cookie (Jan 30, 2014)

Dhaller said:


> Also, here's the rather (actually very) embarrassing flip-side to your complaint: why can't Americans speak languages other than English?
> 
> Education: it's a thing.


I've only met a handful of non-Indians that speak an Indian dialect fluently, in my life. I'm always impressed; that's some serious dedication for a ten minute talk with Manmeet from Dell.


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

cosmic_cookie said:


> I've only met a handful of non-Indians that speak an Indian dialect fluently, in my life. I'm always impressed; that's some serious dedication for a ten minute talk with Manmeet from Dell.


I actually studied Sanskrit as a youth (teenage interest in world religions), though I suppose that's not especially useful for speaking with tech support folks!

Better used in yoga.

DH


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## phyrpowr (Aug 30, 2009)

Dhaller said:


> Also, here's the rather (actually very) embarrassing flip-side to your complaint: why can't Americans speak languages other than English?
> 
> Education: it's a thing.


Because we deal almost exclusively with each other, over 300 million of us.

Plenty of US citizens speak other languages but the vast majority just don't have the need.

Speaking to quiller's initial point, I can work with someone whose English skills are not top level, but why should a US call get sent to someone who is unintelligible?


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

phyrpowr said:


> Because we deal almost exclusively with each other, over 300 million of us.
> 
> Plenty of US citizens speak other languages but the vast majority just don't have the need.
> 
> Speaking to quiller's initial point, I can work with someone whose English skills are not top level, but why should a US call get sent to someone who is unintelligible?


Because they are so much cheaper for the corporation to employ. Whether they're good at customer service or not isn't the "bottom line".


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

^ customer satisfaction also impacts the bottom line.


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

SG_67 said:


> ^ customer satisfaction also impacts the bottom line.


It *does*, but it's hardly an absolute - CS is very, very optimizable.

I remember Dell's study many years ago which found that 70% customer satisfaction was a sustainable growth level.

DH


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## quiller (Dec 25, 2010)

I am aware of outsourcing. However,I doubt Horizon Blue Cross is an international company [the alleged justification for outsourcing]. With respect to Dell,I stopped buying their products because their customer service was abysmal.


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## tocqueville (Nov 15, 2009)

quiller said:


> I am aware of outsourcing. However,I doubt Horizon Blue Cross is an international company [the alleged justification for outsourcing]. With respect to Dell,I stopped buying their products because their customer service was abysmal.


I loath the Blue Cross/Blue Shield network and long to see them destroyed by a single-payer system. I've had a host of nightmarish Kafkaesque experiences with them. On a few occasions I am convinced the deliberately lost claim forms I mailed to them and had to resort to mailing them in through registered mail that required a signature on the receiving end. I'm also convinced that they conduct written communications deliberately designed not to communicate. I receive too many things from them in the mail that I can't make heads or tails of and in any case have to sit down and study. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm among the best educated, hands down, speak and read a bunch of languages--some in different alphabets--and I figure that if I have to struggle to understand a letter or a prospectus, that's deliberate.


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## tocqueville (Nov 15, 2009)

But to get back to the OP's point, I sympathize. It can be worse: the other day at the airport I couldn't understand an announcement because the person tasked with making the announcements had some sort of speech impediment. It turns out he was calling me to the gate...and I arrived late, not having understood the announcement (that was my name he was saying?), and the people at the gate said, "we've been calling your name!"


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## quiller (Dec 25, 2010)

Dhaller said:


> Also, here's the rather (actually very) embarrassing flip-side to your complaint: why can't Americans speak languages other than English?
> 
> Education: it's a thing.


 So are you saying that I should learn a myriad of languages so when I have a problem with my local health insurer,insurance agency,any company I deal with regularly in this country or ebay I can communicate with them.


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

quiller said:


> So are you saying that I should learn a myriad of languages so when I have a problem with my local health insurer,insurance agency,any company I deal with regularly in this country or ebay I can communicate with them.


No, I'm saying that you live in a multilingual and multicultural world, and it's more likely that you can adapt to it than it can adapt to you.

In other words: when in Japan, eat sushi, not Big Macs.

DH


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## quiller (Dec 25, 2010)

When in America,speak English


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Anyone who has endured the misfortune of interaction with Virgin Media customer support could easily be forgiven for believing that their barely intelligible staff are a vital component of a strategy which deters customers from pursuing grievances.


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

quiller said:


> When in America,speak English


Why? It's not the official language of the United States!

Also - brace yourself - but when you're calling those customer service numbers?_You're not actually calling the United States!_

You are actually _visiting their country _courtesy of the magic of telecommunications. So, really... be polite.

The Ugly American is very real, alas - don't be "that guy".

DH


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## Dmontez (Dec 6, 2012)

Dhaller said:


> In other words: when in Japan, eat sushi, not Big Macs.DH


I completely agree with you. When you travel abroad you should absolutely try and speak their language, and be courteous and respectful of their culture.

BUT when you are calling a company that is headquartered in America from America, there is absolutely no reason other than saving money, and using it as a deterrent, to have someone whom's first language is not English.


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Dhaller said:


> Why? It's not the official language of the United States!


It should be.



Dhaller said:


> Also - brace yourself - but when you're calling those customer service numbers?_You're not actually calling the United States!_
> 
> You are actually _visiting their country _courtesy of the magic of telecommunications. So, really... be polite.
> DH


No, no you're not. They are _visiting your country_ throughout the magic of telecommunications.

My old car insurance company had it's call centres in India. My current car insurance company has it's call centres in England, and has lower premiums.
The Indians may have had fairly fluent English, sometimes with impenetrable accents, but the main problem was one of idiom.
Now, taking to some woman in the north of England is just so much better because they understand what you're saying straight away.


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## Joseph Peter (Mar 26, 2012)

GoPro, the camera manufacturer, seems to have a US based customer service call center and they are - sit down for it - open on Saturdays. I say "seems" because when I called them, my reps were named "Scott" and "Joanne" and spoke better English with no discernible accent than most of my 'Merican born friends/associates. Plus, they actually helped solve the problem.


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## phyrpowr (Aug 30, 2009)

tocqueville said:


> But to get back to the OP's point, I sympathize. It can be worse: the other day at the airport I couldn't understand an announcement because the person tasked with making the announcements had some sort of speech impediment. It turns out he was calling me to the gate...and I arrived late, not having understood the announcement (that was my name he was saying?), and the people at the gate said, "we've been calling your name!"


You can hear that annoying "do not take packages from strangers" announcement perfectly, every thirty ?%$& seconds, but yes, the speakers used by the gate personnel seem _designed_ to distort what they're saying. Not to mention they say the same thing so often they think they're enunciating properly, when it sounds like a drunk with no teeth .


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## ran23 (Dec 11, 2014)

I went to Amy's Kitchens (frozen food packaging) to apply. They said I had to be bilingual. I asked, "Bilingual what?" They said, Don't you know what that means?? I said, "You are not using it correctly, perhaps you do not know what it means'. They said it means mexican. I said no, it doesn't. didn't get my foot in that door at all.


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## mankson (Sep 27, 2012)

ran23 said:


> I went to Amy's Kitchens (frozen food packaging) to apply. They said I had to be bilingual. I asked, "Bilingual what?" They said, Don't you know what that means?? I said, "You are not using it correctly, perhaps you do not know what it means'. They said it means mexican. I said no, it doesn't. didn't get my foot in that door at all.


This reminds me of that old Steve Martin joke where he is asked if he is "Bi".


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## gaseousclay (Nov 8, 2009)

> You'll find that most of them are actually in India or the Philippines


yep. when i've had to call customer service for my internet service I was always connected to someone in India. The customer service reps were always proficient in English and in some cases sounded just as 'American' as anyone in the US, but I could always detect that barely noticeable accent. What I found amusing was how the reps used Western names. "Hi, my name is Bob. How can I help you today?"


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

gaseousclay said:


> What I found amusing was how the reps used Western names. "Hi, my name is Bob. How can I help you today?"


This is actually quite common. They are also taught certain colloquialisms so as to better communicate. It's funny that most of these tech support folks have computer programming and engineering degrees and yet are able to make good money doing this.

60-Minutes did a story on this over 10 years ago:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/out-of-india-23-12-2003/

I'm sure much has changed since then, but it's an interesting story nonetheless.


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