It's not really about the accent. It's just that companies that outsource to Asia do so because they value the cost over quality. Because obviously in-house and

It's not really about the accent. It's just that companies that outsource to Asia do so because they value the cost over quality. Because obviously in-house and in-region support is much better because the agents are more up to speed on the company and to the user's environment. This expresses itself in other aspects than just location, and often the people working there have no product knowledge and just follow scripts. Because knowledgeable workers cost more. Works ok for 80% of the interactions but it really sucks if you're the 20% not covered by a script. This gives Asian callcenters and the associated accent a bad name and leads to a kneejerk reaction from customers as the accent brings up memories of previous frustrating experiences. Of course companies try to avoid this already with the mentioned software and also by moving to regions with more American-sounding people like the Philippines. I worked in contact center management before and I've seen this effect a lot. I'm sure there's excellent contact centers in the region too, but they have an uphill battle to prove themselves as most simply aren't.