Non-motoring > Call centre locations.	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: crocks	Replies: 26

New Tue 12 Nov 13 16:58   Call centre locations. - crocks

A few years ago many call centres were offshore and I struggled to understand some of the accents. More recently I have seemed to been talking to people from all over the UK, can usually guess where they are located, and after a few seconds tune in to the accent. Today, during the annual car insurance renewal pantomime, I heard an accent I wasn't sure of so I asked the woman where she was based. "Halifax" was the reply. Halifax, Nova Scotia !! Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 17:14   Call centre locations. - CGNorwich

Admiral? Nice city Halifax. Well worth a visit. Fantastic Harbour where the WW2 convoys were assembled. Nice museum with wreckage from the Titanic and the site of one of the worst explosions in history prior to the atomic bomb. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 18:00   Call centre locations. - RattleandSmoke

I have been saying for years I don't understand the logic of Indian etc call centres. I don't see how they save any money. I know labour is a lot cheaper BUT it takes them 20x as long to complete the call and they only alienate customers. I have to ring a lot of ISPs as apart from the job, and I find with UK based call centres I explain who I and all the diagnostics I have done and they quickly put me straight to level 2. In the Indian call centres you just get computer says no and two hours later the situation is still not resolved. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 18:09   Call centre locations. - Meldrew

Vodafone have a call centre in Egypt which sorted a problem with my account. It took forever but I had nothing better to do. 2000 minutes a month to landlines and mobiles, unlimited texts and 500 Mb of web for £12.50 a month - worth negotiating, at the time at least Last edited by: Meldrew on Tue 12 Nov 13 at 18:10 Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 18:31   Call centre locations. - crocks

>> Admiral? Yes. From the Admiral website - "The Admiral Group has three offices in the UK, in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and an overseas call centre in Halifax, Canada." I wouldn't have thought Canada to be a low-cost environment but I must be wrong. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 18:46   Call centre locations. - Lygonos

>>I wouldn't have thought Canada to be a low-cost environment but I must be wrong. I would presume it is a high quality environment as far as call centres are concerned. I ordered a dishwasher from costco.co.uk, and the call centre lady had a US accent and excellent telephone manners. Unfortunately the delivery agent used by Costco is utterly hopeless and I ended up cancelling my order and getting one from John Lewis instead. My bottles of Johnnie Walker Gold Label for £37 delivered, however, were delivered without any problem :-) Last edited by: Lygonos on Tue 12 Nov 13 at 18:47 Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 18:52   Call centre locations. - R.P.

Dunno what the job situation in Nova Scotia is but there may be generous subsides for going there. People moan about BT broadband's Indian Call Centres. We had some broadband troubles here last year - the staff there were unfailingly pleasant, polite and spoke good English (of a higher standard than some native UK centres) Smile is based in Warrington and they are just superb. Just acquired an Amazon Credit Card - it was managed by the Bank of America in Chester (Engerland) - well spoken classy call handlers...! Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 10:28   Call centre locations. - Ambo

>> the staff there were unfailingly pleasant, polite and spoke good English (of a higher standard than some native UK centres Quite, but although the English is good technically, can you make out the accents? I often can't, and I spent 16 years hearing Indians speak English daily, in work and socially. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 10:54   Call centre locations. - Mike Hannon

My hearing is nothing like as good as it was and it's the sub-continent accents that give me most trouble. I can pick out and cope with virtually any UK accent - my No2 years ago was Glaswegian and for a long time I was the only one in the firm who could communicate with him. I dread dealing with Barclays these days and would certainly pull out everything from them if I was resident in the UK and it was uncomplicated. What gets right up my nose is some moron who keeps repeating 'I can certainly help you' when it's patently obvious that they can't. French companies are now siting call centres in places like Morocco and Cameroon - with the same sort of hassle ensuing. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 12 Nov 13 18:52   Call centre locations. - RattleandSmoke

I booked a hotel in Salou over the internet and it was a pre paid booking. After a few days I got no confirmation and no money was debited from my account. I phoned up the support line and was surprised to through to an American with a very strong East Coast accent. Turned out it was an American call centre (I guess the website I booked it through was American). They sorted the problem no problem by phoning the hotel but I was very surprised how human and unrobotic the call centre was. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 05:15   Call centre locations. - Pat

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new fridge online from Appliances Direct for delivery (free) the next day and paid for the old one to be taken away. I was able to do this online at 4am when it was convenient for me to deal with it. Later that morning, while at work, I had a phone call to confirm every little detail of the order which I felt was unnecessary and defeated the object of what I was trying to avoid. After delivery I received an email questionnaire asking me to rate the transaction, so I rated it at 6 out of 10 giving my reason that for me, the phone call interrupted my work and wasn't needed. Two days later I had yet another phone call while I was at work from customer services(???) apologising for the phone call.... Yesterday I had to call Kwikfit insurance (the reason will be the subject of another thread!) and a very polite but completely unintelligible man tried to deal with my complicated reason for calling. This ended badly with me telling him to just cancel the policy and I'll go elsewhere simply because I couldn't understand a word he said, and he gave the impression it was my fault. I would like to see a pledge from anywhere who sells online saying they will never contact me by phone. Whatever is wrong with email after all? Pat Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 07:28   Call centre locations. - R.P.

Just occurred to me - we have a mini call-centre whee I work, a mix of paid and volunteer staff answer calls from across Wales. I occasionally supervise activities there - my mantra is to be as friendly and as warm as possible, to answer a call with a smile and to be as human as possible - we have mega scripts we should be reading out but this destroys the "feeling" of the call - in 15 minutes (call takers are expected to take up to and write up about 3 calls an hour) we need to gather basic data, engage with the caller and take detailed information and offer information and advice. This is not an easy task (given the nature of the calls we take) and involves painstaking training to get it right. Our little centre takes the highest rate of calls across the country and calls are monitored centrally for quality and content. We get very few "complaints" from our HO. I have a lot of respect for call-centre staff in general and is a necessary evil. Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Wed 13 Nov 13 09:31   Call centre locations. - madf

Youngest son works for phone insurance call centre in Crewe - has done for 10 years. Calls are monitored and scored on meeting quality standards- including how you address people etc. Failed calls = due to not meeting standards - impact monthly bonuses.. They also ensure their staff speak intelligibly and don't cold call etc.. It's amazing how his vocabulary has developed over that time... for the better.:-) When I contrast him with some cold calls I get,... "morning Mr madf, how are you today?" gets my goat particularly.. I give cold callers - especially the Microsoft security scams ones- very short shrift.. I find most call centres OK: Virgin very good, Microsoft excellent, Barclays bank - rubbish. Most insurers very good. Government departments mainly hopeless. Last edited by: madf on Wed 13 Nov 13 at 09:33 Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 10:07   Call centre locations. - henry k

>>When I contrast him with some cold calls I get,... "morning Mr madf, how are you today?" gets my goat particularly. >> I get " Am I speaking to the Householder ?" Reply is" I am not interested - Goodbye!". When I call Orange and get put through to the sub continent they seem unable to deviate from their tick sheet of questions. I do get a little angry when they do not listen to what I have to say and want my details. When I say No! they start to argue. " Listen to me ! you do not need my details but do need the immediate area I am complaining about. "No it is not my phone it is your cell that is faulty. " "Listen!!!! My phone, wife's phone, neighbours phones are all not working. You do not need to know what model phone I have. " Bad training and bad tick sheets ! Orange UK staff are great. Waitrose CC call centre staff are ace Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 11:29   Call centre locations. - Roger.

>> Government departments mainly hopeless. >> Except the Geordie based overseas pensions department of the DWP. They are superb. Phone answered by a real person after two or three rings: helpful, knowledgeable and always do what they say they will. Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Wed 13 Nov 13 09:38   Call centre locations. - VxFan

>> I would like to see a pledge from anywhere who sells online saying they will >> never contact me by phone. Just give them a false number / a disposable PAYG mobile number that is never or rarely switched on / local call box number Delete as appropriate. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 09:43   Call centre locations. - madf

>> >> I would like to see a pledge from anywhere who sells online saying they >> will >> >> never contact me by phone. >> >> Just give them a false number / a disposable PAYG mobile number that is never >> or rarely switched on / local call box number >> >> Delete as appropriate. >> Which I do.. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 13 Nov 13 09:47   Call centre locations. - Clk Sec

>> I would like to see a pledge from anywhere who sells online saying they will >> never contact me by phone. In such instances, when a 'phone number is required, I will give my landline number. My answerphone, as always, will be switched on and I will pick up or call back where necessary. Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 14:16   A BAN on a dialect! - Roger.

tinyurl.com/mqgz5jq Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 14:43   A BAN on a dialect! - Duncan

>> tinyurl.com/mqgz5jq >> Surely "It wor me" means "It was me", not "it Wasn't me"? Or is absolutely everything back to front up North? Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 14:43   A BAN on a dialect! - Bromptonaut

There's a differnce the school seems to have missed between slang/colloquial and dialect. Sure kids should be taught to use the proper form in writing but banning playground use is way OTT. Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 14:44   A BAN on a dialect! - Duncan

>> There's a differnce the school seems to have missed between slang/colloquial and dialect. Sure kids >> should be taught to use the proper form in writing but banning playground use is >> way OTT. >> Aren't you supposed to be working up until the time you retire? Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 15:45   A BAN on a dialect! - Bromptonaut

>> Aren't you supposed to be working up until the time you retire? I suspect that's t.i.c. but.... Of course I am. If I had any work left I'd get on with it. The organisation I worked for was abolished over the summer, I'm the last man standing. I've just sent the remaining few files to archives this week and updated the website as a legacy of our former role. Now sitting in a nearly empty room with a couple of crates as need to be out of this (secondary) building by end tommorow. Apparently there's a desk for me in main building from Monday. I've then got a fortnight then to polish my CV........ Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 16:06   A BAN on a dialect! - Zero

don't forget to turn out the lights. Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 16:53   A BAN on a dialect! - Duncan

>> >> Aren't you supposed to be working up until the time you retire? >> >> I suspect that's t.i.c. but.... >> It was intended to be - and seems to have been received as such - as a dig in the ribs and a conspiratorial grin! Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Thu 14 Nov 13 14:49   A BAN on a dialect! - Manatee

The usual mountain out of a molehill. I'm quite sure my teachers corrected Yorkshire-isms . Children who speak dialect still benefit from being fluent in something close to universal English. Who'd be a teacher now? They get 'instructions' from parents all the time about how their child is to be taught/treated/chastised (usually not chastised) which is of course unmanageable but they are never quite sure when one of these parents is going to make a major issue about something. There's a child locally whose parent is adamant that nothing in the school's treatment of their child should restrict its right to self expression. That must be fun. Reply to this message | Report message

New Thu 14 Nov 13 15:32   A BAN on a dialect! - Armel Coussine

A lot of these modern assertive morons of parents must have got their innocent nippers expelled from schools that know a troublesome idiot when they see one and deal briskly with the situation. I feel sorry for the children of parents like that. It must be very embarrassing, and there's the probability that they will end up like that themselves, or worse. Reply to this message | Report message