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Changing an accent doesn’t change the content the person on the other end receives it with. Most of my issues with overseas support is that they have no real co

Changing an accent doesn’t change the content the person on the other end receives it with. Most of my issues with overseas support is that they have no real context for my problem. It’s not just a language barrier, it’s a culture barrier. When calling support in my own country it is much faster and easier, because they intuitively understand the type of issue I’m having and can better relate. I question if changing the voice would make it more frustrating, as I’d have similar issues without the obvious explanation as to why it’s happening.

Fogest 6mo ago
The other issue is that this further incentivizes companies to off-shore their support. A lot of the reason companies don't use it comes back to the reputational style issue. Where people don't want to feel like they are getting crappy support and having to deal with not understanding people. This is a different kind of way of using AI to eliminate local jobs and allow them to more easily outsource it to countries with low labour costs and poor labour conditions. While I would appreciate being able to understand them better, I would not at all support this. You could maybe make an argument that using this with local staff could have some merit. As at least then they are not exploiting cheap foreign labour. There are still people living within the country of the caller who may still have strong accents like in the example you gave about yourself.
- cik 6mo ago
  > The other issue is that this further incentivizes companies to off-shore their support Why is this a problem? Why are we so attached to the notion that a role must be completed from a specific jurisdiction (outside of regulatory). If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered? Plenty of small companies offshore early support, to reduce costs. In many cases this provides jobs in economies that otherwise doesn't have them, and can lead to a tech industry that in turn hires globally. There are several economies that received a boost this way, and now benefit. I don't see the problem. Yes, there may be uncomfortable shuffling of roles, layoffs,etc. But, as a believer in globalization, this will just happen. Yes, it will impact me as well.
  - dlenski 6mo ago
    > If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered? Okay, well that's easy then. In general I am highly concerned about the negative social and productivity costs of remote work, in industries ranging from tech support to software development to medicine.
  - charcircuit 6mo ago
    >Why is this a problem? Because it means that I will have to interact with foreigners instead of my own people. It means that a job that my people could have done gets sent off to the lowest bidder in an economy far away. It means that I get a lower quality service as I believe my people can do it better. >Why are we so attached to the notion that a role must be completed from a specific jurisdiction (outside of regulatory). Because in group preference along with wanting to win and be the best are human nature. >If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered? There is a difference between the location a job is done and who is doing the job. If I remote work from China, I am still American. Changing my location on planet earth didn't change who I am, nor does it change my values and work ethic. >In many cases this provides jobs in economies that otherwise doesn't have them, and can lead to a tech industry that in turn hires globally. Which I see as a bad thing as it means money and jobs that could have gone to my own country are leaving and being sent to another. I would rather have local companies invest in local AI than to hire foreigners. >There are several economies that received a boost this way, and now benefit. I would rather boost my own economy than someone else's.
    - intended 6mo ago
      First off, I get the nationalist instinct. I don’t think it’s bad per se. However, it’s nearly the same global economy. At some point those issues in faraway places are the foreign policy issues in your localities. This is not a defense or argument in favor of hollowing out local economies. Sadly, cost arbitrage will remain a thing. One underused avenue to make it a more even playing field, is to exports labour and safety standards from the developed world. Arbitrage built from factories and sweat shops which have suicide nets should be anathema. This type of enforcement is well within the realms of possibility. FDA inspectors travel to the source factories in other countries to ensure they are compliant.
j45 6mo ago
Some call centers do train on the cultural and society side of the places they serve. Obviously not enough of them. Most are used to under-bidding and being stretched to take the lowest possible price.
- chistev 6mo ago
  Hey, J, I sent you an email.
timcobb 6mo ago
How unique are our problems? They have utilities, airlines, etc in India. Everything you'd talk to a support agent with is basically the same globally, and if not, can easily be explained to a person who hasn't been living in a yurt and burning yak dung for fuel; and tbh I think you could explain return processes to those folks as well.
- tehlike 6mo ago
  it all depends on their training. And with the churn i imagine they are getting, or the cost measures, it's usually not quite the same. And yes, cultural difference matters. Americans often have more agency to take initiative, on average. Knowing there's an American on the other side puts me at ease, mentally.
- al_borland 6mo ago
  I’ve spent time in India, and while they have many of the same things, they sometimes operate very differently. I assume call centers don’t pay that much, so it’s very possible that while India has certain things, the people I’m talking to have limited access. If I’m trying to convey an issue about a flight, per your example, it may very well be to someone who’s never flown or has very different expectations for what it looks like to fly. At one of the airports I was at in India, I was trying to find my gate and was pointed to a guy at a card table with a 3-ring binder, where he flipped through to find the flight. This was maybe 10 years ago; I had never experienced anything like that in the US, even going back several decades. This is a cultural and experiential difference. If someone from that airport in India called me for help (prior to that experience), I would have had an really hard time parsing their problem, as I wouldn’t have any context for seeing a man with a binder about finding gate information. Someone saying that wouldn’t have made any sense to me. Other airports there were more akin to what I’m used to in the US, but still had their local quirks. This same type of issue could play out regardless of the country. India was the example brought up, but I’ve run into confusion due to cultural differences everywhere I’ve been to some degree. How impactful this is to support will vary based on how common the issue is, but I’m usually not calling support for common issues now that most of those can be handled via a website.
faangguyindia 6mo ago
[flagged]
- yonatan8070 6mo ago
  > It's not X, it's Y = AI pattern. Yeah, a human has never used this pattern before! Good thing AI always leaves this digital signature which is never wrong, so you always know if the person on the other end has used AI.
- al_borland 6mo ago
  I did not use AI for the comment. AI usually does that at the start of a paragraph, not the end. I tacked it on the end to better clarify my actual point, as it required reading between the lines too much, which can be problematic on a forum.
- Terr_ 6mo ago
  FFS enough with these goddamn witch-hunt anti-shibboleths. It is neither reliable nor clever nor funny. —Some human that actually uses em-dashes
protocolture 6mo ago
>Changing an accent doesn’t change the content the person on the other end receives it with. Most of my issues with overseas support is that they have no real context for my problem. It’s not just a language barrier, it’s a culture barrier. Its not for the person on the other end. I used to do phone tech support, and: 1. Lots of my female coworkers would end their shifts in tears because men would yell at them for no reason. A male voice would absolutely make the job more bearable for them. 2. Singaporeans hate Australian accents more than anyone over here hates indian accents. I had a nearly 100% strike rate with singaporeans demanding local tech support, calling me names and hanging up.
- idle_zealot 6mo ago
  Something seems very wrong with observing that people are shitty and terrible to each other and proposing interposing a machine between them to make communication bearable.
  - DANmode 6mo ago
    It’s either that, or letting more people meet their demise for rudeness.
- AussieWog93 6mo ago
  >Singaporeans hate Australian accents more than anyone over here hates indian accents. No way, I've never heard of this before. Does anyone know why this is? Do they have a bad experience with Australian colleagues? Do we harrass them in public the way that the British backpackers do here?
  - pyuser583 6mo ago
    That may be true, but I find Australian accents the most beautiful.
  - protocolture 6mo ago
    I think its partially the australian reputation for being assholes overseas, and partly a sort of unionistic culture that tries to demand locals do everything to maximise employment. I got a similar vibe from people in the phillipines, just not to the same extent.

Fogest 6mo ago

The other issue is that this further incentivizes companies to off-shore their support. A lot of the reason companies don't use it comes back to the reputational style issue. Where people don't want to feel like they are getting crappy support and having to deal with not understanding people. This is a different kind of way of using AI to eliminate local jobs and allow them to more easily outsource it to countries with low labour costs and poor labour conditions. While I would appreciate being able to understand them better, I would not at all support this. You could maybe make an argument that using this with local staff could have some merit. As at least then they are not exploiting cheap foreign labour. There are still people living within the country of the caller who may still have strong accents like in the example you gave about yourself.

cik 6mo ago
> The other issue is that this further incentivizes companies to off-shore their support Why is this a problem? Why are we so attached to the notion that a role must be completed from a specific jurisdiction (outside of regulatory). If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered? Plenty of small companies offshore early support, to reduce costs. In many cases this provides jobs in economies that otherwise doesn't have them, and can lead to a tech industry that in turn hires globally. There are several economies that received a boost this way, and now benefit. I don't see the problem. Yes, there may be uncomfortable shuffling of roles, layoffs,etc. But, as a believer in globalization, this will just happen. Yes, it will impact me as well.
- dlenski 6mo ago
  > If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered? Okay, well that's easy then. In general I am highly concerned about the negative social and productivity costs of remote work, in industries ranging from tech support to software development to medicine.
- charcircuit 6mo ago
  >Why is this a problem? Because it means that I will have to interact with foreigners instead of my own people. It means that a job that my people could have done gets sent off to the lowest bidder in an economy far away. It means that I get a lower quality service as I believe my people can do it better. >Why are we so attached to the notion that a role must be completed from a specific jurisdiction (outside of regulatory). Because in group preference along with wanting to win and be the best are human nature. >If you believe in remote work, then why should it matter from where that work is delivered? There is a difference between the location a job is done and who is doing the job. If I remote work from China, I am still American. Changing my location on planet earth didn't change who I am, nor does it change my values and work ethic. >In many cases this provides jobs in economies that otherwise doesn't have them, and can lead to a tech industry that in turn hires globally. Which I see as a bad thing as it means money and jobs that could have gone to my own country are leaving and being sent to another. I would rather have local companies invest in local AI than to hire foreigners. >There are several economies that received a boost this way, and now benefit. I would rather boost my own economy than someone else's.
  - intended 6mo ago
    First off, I get the nationalist instinct. I don’t think it’s bad per se. However, it’s nearly the same global economy. At some point those issues in faraway places are the foreign policy issues in your localities. This is not a defense or argument in favor of hollowing out local economies. Sadly, cost arbitrage will remain a thing. One underused avenue to make it a more even playing field, is to exports labour and safety standards from the developed world. Arbitrage built from factories and sweat shops which have suicide nets should be anathema. This type of enforcement is well within the realms of possibility. FDA inspectors travel to the source factories in other countries to ensure they are compliant.

j45 6mo ago

Some call centers do train on the cultural and society side of the places they serve. Obviously not enough of them. Most are used to under-bidding and being stretched to take the lowest possible price.

chistev 6mo ago
Hey, J, I sent you an email.

timcobb 6mo ago

How unique are our problems? They have utilities, airlines, etc in India. Everything you'd talk to a support agent with is basically the same globally, and if not, can easily be explained to a person who hasn't been living in a yurt and burning yak dung for fuel; and tbh I think you could explain return processes to those folks as well.

tehlike 6mo ago
it all depends on their training. And with the churn i imagine they are getting, or the cost measures, it's usually not quite the same. And yes, cultural difference matters. Americans often have more agency to take initiative, on average. Knowing there's an American on the other side puts me at ease, mentally.
al_borland 6mo ago
I’ve spent time in India, and while they have many of the same things, they sometimes operate very differently. I assume call centers don’t pay that much, so it’s very possible that while India has certain things, the people I’m talking to have limited access. If I’m trying to convey an issue about a flight, per your example, it may very well be to someone who’s never flown or has very different expectations for what it looks like to fly. At one of the airports I was at in India, I was trying to find my gate and was pointed to a guy at a card table with a 3-ring binder, where he flipped through to find the flight. This was maybe 10 years ago; I had never experienced anything like that in the US, even going back several decades. This is a cultural and experiential difference. If someone from that airport in India called me for help (prior to that experience), I would have had an really hard time parsing their problem, as I wouldn’t have any context for seeing a man with a binder about finding gate information. Someone saying that wouldn’t have made any sense to me. Other airports there were more akin to what I’m used to in the US, but still had their local quirks. This same type of issue could play out regardless of the country. India was the example brought up, but I’ve run into confusion due to cultural differences everywhere I’ve been to some degree. How impactful this is to support will vary based on how common the issue is, but I’m usually not calling support for common issues now that most of those can be handled via a website.

faangguyindia 6mo ago

[flagged]

yonatan8070 6mo ago
> It's not X, it's Y = AI pattern. Yeah, a human has never used this pattern before! Good thing AI always leaves this digital signature which is never wrong, so you always know if the person on the other end has used AI.
al_borland 6mo ago
I did not use AI for the comment. AI usually does that at the start of a paragraph, not the end. I tacked it on the end to better clarify my actual point, as it required reading between the lines too much, which can be problematic on a forum.
Terr_ 6mo ago
FFS enough with these goddamn witch-hunt anti-shibboleths. It is neither reliable nor clever nor funny. —Some human that actually uses em-dashes

protocolture 6mo ago

>Changing an accent doesn’t change the content the person on the other end receives it with. Most of my issues with overseas support is that they have no real context for my problem. It’s not just a language barrier, it’s a culture barrier. Its not for the person on the other end. I used to do phone tech support, and: 1. Lots of my female coworkers would end their shifts in tears because men would yell at them for no reason. A male voice would absolutely make the job more bearable for them. 2. Singaporeans hate Australian accents more than anyone over here hates indian accents. I had a nearly 100% strike rate with singaporeans demanding local tech support, calling me names and hanging up.

idle_zealot 6mo ago
Something seems very wrong with observing that people are shitty and terrible to each other and proposing interposing a machine between them to make communication bearable.
- DANmode 6mo ago
  It’s either that, or letting more people meet their demise for rudeness.
AussieWog93 6mo ago
>Singaporeans hate Australian accents more than anyone over here hates indian accents. No way, I've never heard of this before. Does anyone know why this is? Do they have a bad experience with Australian colleagues? Do we harrass them in public the way that the British backpackers do here?
- pyuser583 6mo ago
  That may be true, but I find Australian accents the most beautiful.
- protocolture 6mo ago
  I think its partially the australian reputation for being assholes overseas, and partly a sort of unionistic culture that tries to demand locals do everything to maximise employment. I got a similar vibe from people in the phillipines, just not to the same extent.