 I am without question a fan of accents. I delight in listening to them done well. I can manage a passable job on a few myself; the key for me is listening to several minutes of a given accent. I guess I got the mimicry gene.
Having said that, I am not a fan of strong (and unfamiliar) accents when dealing with customer service. What's worse is a strong accent coupled with a fast talker. If you're a customer service rep and you're on the phone with me, saying "biddi biddi tlippitti wibbidi" is only going to force me to respond with "What, pray tell, are you gibbering about?"
Case in point. I called Fedex a few days ago to ship a time-sensitive package. The contents of the package were extremely valuable, and I absolutely, positively, had to get it there before blah blah blah. As a result, I needed to be sure that the CSR had all of the details correct.
Given that I was speaking to a Fedex call centre that served English-speaking Canada, I expected the CSR I spoke to would, you know, speak English, and speak it well. The CSR I got spoke English with a heavy accent -- which would've been fine if he didn't also speak at 300 words per second.
CSR: Thenkyewfokkalleeng FEDex, wipply-doo-da spikking, howkin eh hepyou.
Me: Uh, I need to ship a parcel from Vancouver to Edmonton.
CSR: Virwirsir dippy spuppy ding-dang?
Me: Wha...what?
CSR: Pustule puppy seepseep.
Me: I'm sorry, I don't understand you.
CSR: POSTAL CODE PLEASE.
Me: Oh, uh, [I rattle off the postal code]
CSR: Amwhutt verviff oodoo syke?
Me: Wha...WHAT?
CSR: Eppeh vat. Whutver siff?
Me: Look, please just have a courier come to $ADDRESS. I need the fastest service possible.
CSR: Yeffir, thanooforrcallink FEDex.
It didn't help that the CSR was moderately combative; he seemed to be annoyed that I didn't understand his no doubt scintillating patois. And for the life of me I couldn't place the accent. I've been to a lot of places on this planet, but never did I come across this particular accent.
To top it all off, when the courier showed up he was under the impression that the package was to go via a slower service. I nearly popped right there, but restrained myself because it clearly wasn't the courier's fault. He based it on the info given to him by the CSR.
If you're a VP or C-level at a Big Company, please consider this advice offered freely. Unless you want to give your customers aneurisms, you need to hire people who can speak the language(s) of the area being served by your call centres, and they need to speak said language CLEARLY. If your CSRs have heavy accents, that's fine, but tell them to SLOW THE EFFING EFF DOWN. In my experience, most customer service screw-ups come from broken communications between the customer and the CSR. If I ask for "fastest service possible," there is no way that can be mistaken for "put it on a camel with a hangnail." Unless your CSRs are using the Hungarian Phrasebook.
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