Anita just upgraded her service and phone, and once again demonstrated the reason why off-shoring service centres is a bad idea.

Still companies have not worked out that talking to people who can read a script and generally follow the word, but who have an accent so thick that they are almost incomprehensible, is something which irritates the people to whom they are trying to sell things.

This is not to denigrate in any way the poor chap at the end of the line. His English was without doubt better than my Tagalog, but his impenetrable accent, his need to stick to the script, and huge amounts of read-out-loud boilerplate rendered what should have been a five minute process into half an hour of mutual incomprehension.

Meh.

And while they're at it - when you've already answered the question 'which phone would you like' don't try and sell a different one. If she'd wanted a different one, she'd have asked for it.

I've just had a very similar experience with Talkmobile. No matter how I approached the problem (I have a faulty week old phone), I got exactly the same response from the heavily accented Indian chappie.

And to be called 'Mr Ian'.......

It's the same with Vodafone

I got a bill for £73 and after about forty minutes on hold I finally got through to a man I really struggled to understand, annoyingly he also seemed to struggle with what my problem was and how to resolve it.

In the end I hung up and went in store!

I recently spoke to a man from Vodafone in Capetown. He was very comprehensible, diligent and effective in explaining why my bill was massive (eye-watering call charges to daughters' French mobiles).
If firms insist on exploiting low wage economies, they should at least ensure the people they exploit can speak good English. French companies' call centres suffer the same problems with North African staff.