Thank you, come again, tabarnak.
I’m a proud, computer-lovin’ geek Geek Not to be confused with freak; primarily solitary creature; habitats include living rooms, arcades and Dungeons & Dragons conventions; enjoys videogames, LOTR and Star Wars (except the really suxx0rz first three episodes) ; knows what’s cool even if others don’t get it; doesn’t give a shit who cares, because he’ll PWN their ass in a deathmatch anyways; chicks dig, even if they don’t admit and it’s quite rare that I call tech support, unless I absolutely have to. I’m also a writer and fairly adept at language, a good listener and have no comprehension problems when using the telephone to contact tech support should I need to. Until now.
Calling Bell Sympatico Customer “Service” (a term I use loosely) used to be only an exercise in technical frustration. You call, you speak to some tech, they tell you your shit is fixed; it breaks again, repeat. Now, Sympatico can add linguistic frustration and extreme-incomprehension to its list of support features.
Many moons ago, you’ll recall that Bell Canada (in Quebec) moved a good portion of its technical support to international centres. A good portion of this (apparently) is in India. So, when you call for internet technical support, you can speak with a technician who is halfway around the world and has an accent thicker than the bandwidth allotted for our communication.
While experiencing Sympatico’s Customer “service,” I’d estimate 3 out of 4 techs from India to whom I have spoken were very difficult for me to understand. Yes, the techs were nice, polite, obviously erudite and worldly - but they just had really thick accents.
Ok, my white bread brain perhaps doesn’t need to be able to pronounce Jagjeevan Rammajammalammadan, but Christ (and Allah!) - a major corporation with a huge stake in customer relations needs to take in to consideration cultural and PHONETIC differences when planning a customer “service” strategy. Bell obviously has not - to the detriment and frustration of those of us who thought we had the Indian accent down from watching the Simpsons.
Say “no” to Kwik-E Mart
No, I don’t have a problem with India because it’s cheaper labour, nor is my rant is because the Free Market and Global Economy are evil. It’s not because it takes jobs away from Canadians and definitely not because maybe the Level 1 Support Grunts can’t access my line from New Delhi (they can).
It’s simply because because holy FUCK is it annoying when I have to ask the guy to repeat himself - not once, not twice, but practically every other sentence. I’m not kidding. It’s embarrassing - not to mention inefficient. And that’s the experience of a university educated, cosmopolitan armchair politician-wannabe who fancies himself as a perpetrator of mad language skillz, yo. Imagine when Ti-Guy from Shibougaloulou has a problem. Thank you, come again, tabarnak.
Indian food good; tech support bad
I don’t give a pinched-off loaf of nan if you’re from India, Croatia, Ireland or Canada - if you can’t speak English in a dialect comprehensible to your customer, then you are unable to communicate effectively, thus rendering the user experience of your service, extremely shitty. Case in point : customer service from India, in English, in general, sucks.
What’s the solution? Bring our boys home? English lessons? Phonetics and pronunciation class with Stephane Dion’s language coach? You decide. I’m off to Ambala for the most kick-ass butter chicken in town. Thank you, come again, tabarnak.
Other Satisfied Bell Customers
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Move the call centre to a (sic) english-spekaing country
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