will i sound racist??

[billb]

i want to complain to our support company that the person at the other end doesnt seem to understand me and i cant understand him v much which doesnt help when dealing with tech issues.

i couldnt care if he's black, white pink or green but i do need to be understood but will it get taken the wrong way if i complain as he doesnt sound v english??

v sensitive to this having watched crash last night!

[timmy30]

Sounds like you have a genuine reason to complain, as far as I'm aware your skin colour doesn't affect your command of English

[mybrainhurts]

If he's Welsh, you'll be OK.....

[simpo two]

Employees have to be fit for their job, whatever their background. If that involves talking to customers, they have to be intelligible.

The only exception is the Geordie who presents Big Brother

[mybrainhurts]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Ooops....

[MILF]

Bedford Rascal.

Was the reference to calling a spade a spade in the overall context of this topic a Freudian slip at all ?

[B17NNS]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

[lanciachris]

Our tech support helpdesk is in manchester, the offices that seem to have the most it trouble are in scotland, the people who actually know how to fix it are in somerset...

We have this sort of trouble all the time

[lazyitus]

Just wade in. Colour isn't the issue here, its speech problems.

It annoys me when I get through to a call centre. Its like trying to hold a conversation with a 2 year old with a lump of plastercine in his gob.

[BliarOut]

Just make sure they can't see your golliwog

[/Extras]

[Eric Mc]

I would suggest that you write to them but your written English doesn't look much like the English I learnt in school.

[Vitesse39]

Anyone in a customer facing roll must be able to understand and be understood, otherwise they are not suitable for that post or able to carry out their duties.
If your support co. has taken on an unsuitable candidate it's their problem and have to deal with it, if they want to keep your custom, unfortunately they have to be informed by you the customer. I don't envy your position, a very awkward situation that shouldn't be.

all the best mate

[IvIark]

Eric Mc said:

I would suggest that you write to them but your written English doesn't look much like the English I learnt in school.

Yeah but it's been a long time since you went to school Eric

[Lois]

You aren't being racist, it's a valid point so I don't think you should be worried about sounding racist. If someone has a problem with it then get them to explain why and then explain your problem and the fact it has nothing to do with what colour he is.

[Munter]

Eric Mc said:

I would suggest that you write to them but your written English doesn't look much like the English I learnt in school.

It may not look like you expect. But at least you understood it.... Which I think is the point.

[silversun]

I wouldn't say it was racist. I regularly deal with a data centre in Bangalore and I won't take phone calls from them because I can't understand them. However, I have no problem with communicating via IM or email as their written communication is excellent.

[bad_roo]

Vitesse39 said:

Anyone in a customer facing roll

[bjwoods]

billb said:

i want to complain to our support company that the person at the other end doesnt seem to understand me and i cant understand him v much which doesnt help when dealing with tech issues. i couldnt care if he's black, white pink or green but i do need to be understood but will it get taken the wrong way if i complain as he doesnt sound v english?? v sensitive to this having watched crash last night!

Just say the chap? doesn't seem to have a full command of english. Could be french, japanes , german, italian, indian, for all you know or care.

B

[tinman0]

Its not racist and I have had exactly the same situation.

I was speaking to a datacentre in the UK, an engineer had been despatched to a rack and was typing in commands onto a server.

I could not understand a word he said to me, and he couldn't understand me. When you are on a unix prompt i don't want any old rubbish typed in or mistakes made. Accuracy is everything.

After 3 attempts at getting him to do the first command, my patience wore very thin. I told him that I would call back in a moment and that I needed to speak to his manager. I spoke to the manager and explained the problem and asked for an English speaking engineer to be put on the case.

This was duly done and no one was offended as I had been up front about it from the start.

[shadowninja]

bad_roo said:

In-the-field marketing for new Preparation H product?