This will be short but blunt. A tweet by Filipino Broadway star Miss Leah Salonga just the other day about a call center rep who left a voice message which Miss Salonga could not understand because the words were “chewed up and garbled trying to sound American” underlines what we have been discussing all along about using a fake accent just to try and sound like a native speaker. For one thing, being a native English speaker is so much more than just accent. Being native involves idioms, phrases, nuances and other characteristics unique to the customer’s particular location. Furthermore, most customers already know they will be speaking with an offshore call center rep and usually would not mind that as long as they can clearly and effectively communicate with the rep and resolve their concern as efficient as possible. Customers can sense a fake accent right from the get go and may even trigger the customer to question the rep’s honesty and integrity. Customers will always appreciate clarity of communication over accent, especially if customers sense the rep is just faking the accent so please lose the fake accent!
Hats off to Miss Salonga, by the way, for being very polite with her tweet. She neither bashed nor said anything degrading against the rep or the call center industry. She merely reminded call center reps to “PLEASE ENUNCIATE! Clarity is everything” like a sup coaching her team. Although there were a lot of positive comments on social media regarding Miss Salonga’s tweet, it disappoints me to see some not so savory remarks. As call center agents, we have a responsibility to continuously improve ourselves and an important part of continuous improvement is the ability to accept constructive criticism like mature adults regardless who makes the criticism. Feedback and constructive criticism from our sups or from customers themselves point out opportunities where we can further improve ourselves so we should always have a healthy attitude towards constructive criticism. The day we stop improving is the day we stop growing professionally. Have a great shift!
For US-based call center services , clarity trumps accents. Customers value understanding over background.
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