Understanding accents can be hard, but if you can easily understand what the person with the accent is saying, there’s no reason to make that person feel bad about their accent.
In today’s story, a customer support agent with a self-described “mild” accent had to deal with an annoying client how wasn’t fond of his accent.
Find out what he did to humble the client.
He wanted a customer support agent that speaks English
Some years ago, I was working as a technical support agent.
The (US based software) company had chat, phone and email support agents, but chose to skimp on the phone support (which included hiring foreigners and paying them less than minimum wage).
They had 3 phone support agents (me being 1 of them) working through a 12 hour business day in 3 shifts.
This meant that if you called in for phone support roughly within an agent’s 4 hour shift, you’d get the same agent every day.
Here’s the deal with the phone support options…
Thing is, this software could be loaded as part of a US telephone carrier’s business tools if you paid extra.
The carrier did offer phone support (general company support and simple questions related to our software) but would forward more difficult/technical calls to us, or the customer could call us directly – which was more convenient, as you wouldn’t need to go through the waiting times for the general support.
He does have an accent…
I am not a US citizen, nor do I have a US accent, but grew up in a former British colony where English is typically the language of instruction (from kindergarten to university).
Yes I do have an accent, I suppose a “mild” African accent, more like, you wouldn’t need subtitles if I spoke to you.
In fact almost 99% customers heard me clearly, even when I’d have to give them technical steps to follow over the phone. (heck, even today as I run my travel & safari company and I have to speak to people from different countries with different English accents, we all understand each other)
This is where it gets interesting…
One day (on a Thursday) I got a direct call from a (white) guy who sounded maybe 50+ with a bit of southern US accent? and the conversation went something like this:
(me) “Hi, this is a_pinchofsalt from x software company, how can I help you today?”
(him) “What? (goes off on a bit of a rant) finally comes back to “I can’t understand you. Why can’t I get someone from this country? Can I get someone that speaks English? “
He couldn’t speak freely.
Now unfortunately our calls are recorded and I knew that if I spoke my mind, it would probably come back to bite me.
However, I knew that from his little rant he did mention an issue that could only be solved by our team and not the general support.
To the best of my knowledge, the US telephone carrier DID employ US citizens for their general support and the waiting time for the general support was about 1-1.5hrs.
So I knew that before he could be routed back to us, it would probably be after my shift was done for the day.
He knew what he was doing!
(me) “yes, that is possible, I can provide you with a support number that has US customer service agents, it’s 800…” (I give him the general support number)
He actually repeats back the number to me and I confirm it…
all this happening in English?
Obviously it bummed me but I’ve had worse before so I was a bit happy that I could be petty.
The guy had no complains anymore!
HE actually calls back the next Tuesday (same number, same voice) and I’m nervous but completely ready to hear him rant, of how I sent him on a wild goose chase, blah blah blah, but surprisingly he somehow, now, completely understands my non US English accent, explains his issue and I solve it in roughly 5 minutes.
No mention at all of the previous encounter.
He even throws in a few dry jokes while I was working on his issue.
Wow! That was a clever petty revenge story! He knew how to tackle the situation!
Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this story!
This user shares how things were in India!
This user shares their experience working in an agency!
This person thinks understanding accents can be really hard at times.
This user went the extra mile to work on his accent and make things better.
This user wanted to hear a stronger accent.
Complaining about a mild accent is ridiculous!
Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.