I have sometimes had that problem calling customer service, due to different accents in different parts of the US.

And having grown up in the NYC area at a time when I constantly heard various accents from different immigrant groups, I like to think that this would not be a big problem for me.

But, then there was the time, back in college, when I had a blind date with someone with a thick Boston (actually Dorchester) accent, and I made a great impression by saying, "what?" after everything she said....

I worked with a man named Henri, who was born in Haiti and schooled in Paris and London. His English was impeccable, but he had a bit of a French accent.
One day he asked if he could transfer a call to me because the customer was being rude to him.
I took the call, and the customer said “That feller cain’t even speak....he don’t know no English”.
Henri was perhaps the one person in the company whose English was better than mine (and certainly his grammar was a lot better than that customer’s).
However, I have dealt with representatives who didn’t speak English well or just didn’t know what they were doing....and that can be quite frustrating.

I went through that this morning...for the 100th time I think. We could not understand each other. I try to not get mad at the person. Gotta make a living. I blame the companies who put the customer and the CS person in this most uncomfortable situation.

This is how tech support works ....

They use a lot of Indian call centres and their language skills vary. It can vw frustrating.

Yes...BT had call centres in India.
And I have had more than once been unable to understand the person I was speaking too!
Sometimes it was because of their accent and sometimes because of the speed at which they talked...
Mind you I have had trouble with Scottish and Yorkshire call centres too..
Welsh accent versus a broad Yorkshire one....yes...I did get my rugby league tickets eventually.

When I say,“You’re an American !” It could better be express ,"You speak conversational English that I understand although The Aussies and S.Africans are great too...a little trouble with folks from the Indian sub continent and one computer guy from there deleted two browsers and lots of programs before he heard me shouting,"NOOOOOO"... didn't help anyway

I feel for people who do product support, but it's also the company's responsibility to make sure they can communicate in English, if their target audience is USA residents.

A few days ago, the support person could hardly speak English and I could not understand one word they were saying. I called again, and had the same problem.

Halloo, dis is Pat from Mumbai! 😄

When in doubt, just tell them to switch device off and switch it back on again. Everyone understands that.

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