I think it's dehumanizing. Yes, they have accents. English isn't their first language. TELUS decided to move jobs they could have given to Canadians offshore to save a buck or two. We're already conditioned to treat service reps like punching bags; now we're literally taking away their voices and further devaluing them. Not okay.
> We're already conditioned to treat service reps like punching bags; now we're literally taking away their voices and further devaluing them.
I've tried to keep the habit of talking about things in the third-person when I'm on the phone with someone: instead of saying "you messed up the billing" I say "BigCo messed up the billing".
It's a small mental reminder that it's not the fault of the person I just happen to be talking to.
I'm unclear as to where your outrage is directed. Is it that they give jobs offshore? Or rather that those who get them are now victim of their original accent not being heard by Canadians?
I don't understand the locus of the arrangement/decision that you find dehumanizing. There are several distinct ways I perceive how someone might find aspects of such an arrangement and change of arrangement dehumanizing, and I shall list them out, though I may or may not subscribe to them (for the purpose of this comment, I am assuming Filipino call center contractors, though one may substitute in any other country where the population knows English and jobs are outsourced to):
- Is it dehumanizing to Filipinos that Filipinos probably now do their job more efficiently without having to learn an accent that they are not exposed to?
- Is it dehumanizing to Filipinos that they no longer enjoy having their accent heard as a externality of a counterfactual arrangement?
- Is it dehumanizing to the customers that the company does not expect their customers to be cosmopolitan enough to understand a foreign accent with ease?
- Is it dehumanizing to the customers that the customers are now more sensorily shielded from a current-day reality regarding globalized providers of service?
- Is it dehumanizing, not due to this decision itself; but the globalized arrangement, to Canadians that they cannot expect to hold such a job and get by in Canada? Or perhaps to Filipinos, that such a job might be low-paying in their own country (or in respect to non-domestic goods that need to be purchased from outside their polity)?
- Is it dehumanizing, regarding not this decision, but the offshoring decision, that such decisions can be made without consent by employees and contractors?
I am not impacted by this issue on either side, but I am in the "dehumanising" camp, so here are my opinions:
> Is it dehumanizing to Filipinos that Filipinos probably now do their job more efficiently without having to learn an accent that they are not exposed to?
It's already demeaning to expect them to "learn an accent", unless their job description is to literally pretend they are from a different culture (e.g. if they were actors). Introducing an "AI" middleman to change their voice is demeaning and dehumanising.
> Is it dehumanizing to Filipinos that they no longer enjoy having their accent heard as a externality of a counterfactual arrangement?
It is dehumanising to any person that their own human voice is no longer heard when performing a job involving human contact.
> Is it dehumanizing to the customers that the company does not expect their customers to be cosmopolitan enough to understand a foreign accent with ease?
Not quite dehumanising, but it is certainly patronising that the company has an opinion as to what voice their customers can or cannot understand. And if the company is hiring customer service agents whose accents are a serious hinderance to understanding, I would argue that their hires are not likely to accurately understand the very customers they are supposed to assist.
>Is it dehumanizing to the customers that the customers are now more sensorily shielded from a current-day reality regarding globalized providers of service?
Not dehumanising, but again patronising, and also disrespectful and borderline dishonest.
I won't get into the final two points, as those are prior to the accent-middleman "AI".
> It's already demeaning to expect them to "learn an accent"
Uh, what? Excuse me?
The purpose of spoken language is communication. Accents can frustrate or enhance communication. In this case, conforming to the accent of the client enhances communication, because it is what the client is familiar with.
You do realize that the obligations of service are on the agent, right? It is the agent, as representative of the company providing a service, who is serving the client. If the aim of an agent is to assist a client, then using an accent that is more intelligible to the client is part of serving them.
You might as well claim that - given that language is part of culture - learning to speak another language at all is "pretending" that you're from a different culture. It's a ridiculous take.
> It is dehumanising to any person that their own human voice is no longer heard when performing a job involving human contact.
What does this even mean? What is your "own human voice" here? Accents are learned. They are conventional, even if they have objective properties that allow them to be compared. An agent's job isn't about him; it is about the client. It's not about "being heard" (whatever that means), but being understood by the client within the context of the purpose of the job.
Imagine if diplomats thought the way you do. Diplomats serve and represent their country, just as agents serve and represent their company. It is in the interest of the diplomat, his country, and the other party to communicate as effectively as possible with the other party.
> Not quite dehumanising, but it is certainly patronising that the company has an opinion as to what voice their customers can or cannot understand.
This, too, is nonsensical. Given that companies record calls, it is fair to assume that the company has statistical evidence concerning the accents of their agents and how well they're understood by their clients.
Now, if you want to criticize the use of AI in such cases on independent grounds, maybe you can make a case. I don't think it would be a very strong case, as this is such a trivial matter. But you cannot claim that learning accents is "dehumanizing". Accent is part of language. If you wish to communicate with a people, you need to speak a common language. That generally means learning their language. The better you speak that language, the better you can communicate with them. If you are serving, the burden is on you to speak in a way that can assist understanding. It's that simple.
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> It's already demeaning to expect them to "learn an accent"
The concept of an accent is broad, but at least part of it you need to learn together with the language, as speaking a non-native language with a thick accent is partly based on the fact that you have yet to learn.
Without being exhaustive, things that might fall into the "speaks with an accent" concept in this thread:
For India, English is an official (government) language; it may not be their first but they're really good at it. But, heavily accented, not unlike other English native speakers, and the less exposure one has to the accent the harder it is to understand. (Americans will have trouble with British accents that aren't london too)
I went to Newfoundland and I went to a bar one night and met a guy from a small town along the coast and I literally couldn’t understand a single thing he said. He was apparently speaking English but it may have been Ancient Greek for all I was able to make out. The only way we could communicate was via the bartender, who would interpret what he said and tell me. He had no trouble understanding me. It kinda blew my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs-rgvkRfwc
Newfoundland
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u9eTOIGZkOI
> heavily accented, not unlike other English native speakers
One could just as well argue the opposite position.
Dunno, a ton of UK born and raised people have accents so thick that I struggle to make out what they're saying.
I am from a Canadian maritime province. I have had Americans (particularly from the south) who at least claimed they couldn't easily understand me, despite me understanding them just fine.
Agree!
I play destiny in a clan, most of them are from UK. I don't understand a single word from some of them...
And i honestly don't think they would get hired for a call center job.
On the one hand, I agree with you, and your reasoning is self-evident IMO.
On the other, too many customers are complete racist dicks to people who they perceive as not "belonging to their country". I... don't think this is the solution to that problem (people will just start applying their racist views elsewhere), but it could be argued by some that it might help.
I'm still against this, don't get me wrong - we absolutely should not be doing this to anybody. I can understand the appeal, though.
Or perhaps you treat the customer support workers as humans instead of worker drones and give them the agency to terminate the call when they are getting abused, with the contracts of repeat offenders getting terminated?
> On the other, too many customers are complete racist dicks to people who they perceive as not "belonging to their country"
nunez alluded to the reason why people will do that. And no, it's not racist in the way you're trying to frame it.
The callers are angry that they're being forced to talk with people which don't even speak their language well enough for it to be a non-issue. Despite being paying customers.
Because the company had a genius MBA which wanted a bigger bonus, so they outsourced/offshored it.
These workers may not deserve this treatment, but it's completely understandable - and the foreign workers ARE the representative of the company doing this shit. And thus... Framing this behavior as racism will not help your message whatsoever.
You're making the assumption people with accents are necessarily foreign-based workers. You can be a US or Canadian citizen and have an accent. I worked in a call center in Canada servicing Americans, I was born in Canada and lived here my entire life and I can assure you I definitely sound canadian but customer still accused me of being located in India, a place I have never even visited. So I don't think customer opinions on the matter are 100% justified and fair.
Would the cuwotmers also be willing to pay 2x the price for the product or service? These decisions do not happen in a vacuum.
> Would the cuwotmers also be willing to pay 2x the price for the product or service?
Would the executives, especially the C-suite, be willing to make $8M instead of only $10M in salary and bonuses?
What a strawman
1. The price would not be double. It'd be at most a marginal change. No company I've ever seen has more the a single digit percentage of their revenue in customer service
2. The customer was never given the decision wherever theyd be willing to pay ~1-5% more for better service, hence entirely useless to discuss
3. How the hell do you think that makes the people calling customer service racist? Or was my comment too challenging for you to read and comprehend?
Not sure why you're being downvoted but this is the truth if you live in a western country (probably other countries too but I have never lived outside of a non-Western country).
Literally the thesis of Sorry to Bother You (2018).
I fucking hate this. This is a literally racist technology. What's next? Painting everyone's face white on Zoom? Why don't you just fucking ask for clarification?
One of my cousins works for a call center from the Philippines - or used to, anyway. He would comment on how callers would ask to immediately be escalated to a manager upon hearing his accent despite speaking perfectly fluent - even native proficiency - English.
It's hard to describe how this affects your self-esteem and self-image, especially when it gets to the point where Filipinos will actively practice out any trace of their accent to sound as white as possible. You are now altering your identity in order to appease some racist shithead overseas and fit into their projection of what the world ought to look and sound like.
My mother was proud of the fact that she had "no accent" and laboured for years to make that the case. Contrariwise I consider this cultural genocide and the erasure of an entire people's way of speech.
Just goes to show how fucking full of shit Canadians are when they parade around their "commitment to diversity and inclusion." Orwellian lies and lip service, from both Telus for enacting these measures, and the callers who presumably spurred Telus to take this action.
What if I genuinely don’t understand what they’re saying, and neither does anyone in my team? This happened many times. Is this racism or a practical inconvenience?
I find the sensitivity on this topic regarding racism kind of overshadowing the practical aspect of not being able to understand what the other person is saying.
We offer people in our company English language training, because we’re a world wide remote company and everyone should be able to understand each other. Is this racism as well?
> What if I genuinely don’t understand what they’re saying, and neither does anyone in my team?
This sounds like a severe deficiency in your team, but it's not hard for you to learn to handle other accents.
Learned helplessness is not an excuse.
Does your company offer courses to help you speak English with a more Filipino accent? If not, why not?
I actually happen to be in The Philippines right now, so funny you mention that.
No of course we don’t, and neither do we offer one with a more Spanish, French, Russian, Polish, Thai or German accent. This is because we decided upon American-English as the language, which is also reflected in the grammar choices on our website (despite being a French company).
The courses are entirely optional. Some colleagues don’t take them, and they have problems communicating with customers, which is very frustrating. I’ve had an Indian manager of a customer complain that one of our Thai support engineers was incomprehensible, and my boss complain that this Indian manager was incomprehensible. It’s just a mess all around.
I’m Dutch myself and these languages courses have benefited me a lot to remove some of my Dutch accent, which helps during business conversations. I’ve traveled the world pretty much constantly over the past 12 years, so I’m quite tolerant of many types of accents, but even just arriving in the Philippines for the first time last week required some recalibration, because they have their own way of pronouncing things.
If you are in the Phillipines, you might notice that English is an official language of the Phillipines - unlike Spain, France, Russia, Poland, Thailand, or Germany (or the Netherlands). This means that the Filipino English accent is just as much a native accent as the Scottish, Canadian, or American, Indian, Australian, etc. accents. And yet, no one is requiring people from London to change the way they speak their language, even if it's sometimes hard to understand for people from NYC.
You know that people studying a second language often study native pronunciation, right? Thats just standard curricula for language acquisition. Youre fishing for racism where theres none.
English is one of the two official languages of the Philippines, so their English accent is native, just as much as the English accent, Scottish accent, American accent, NYC accent, etc.
There's definitely racism in a global apartheid.
I understand the words you are saying, but struggling to make sense of what you are trying to say. We're talking in this thread about learning a native accent in a second language. I do the same when I am learning Hungarian, as the phonemes are different than what I am used to in my native tongues.
I had a Southern accent and had to train it out because my northern colleagues kept making fun of it. I noticed that I was perceived as "smarter" without it. My story is not exactly uncommon and there are a bunch of famous people (e.g. Stephen Colbert) who did the same thing.
The technology discussed here is reinforcing that stereotype
It has less to do with reinforcing stereotypes and more with fooling customers into thinking the company they're trying to get support from isn't so fucking cheap that they won't spring for tech support workers in a first world country.
> Filipinos will actively practice out any trace of their accent to sound as white as possible
Oh, so they have strong Swedish accents? Or South African?
On the topic of racism, skin colors don't have a particular sound.
It's also hard to describe the feeling of watching the entire world infiltrate your culture.
>Contrariwise I consider this cultural genocide and the erasure of an entire people's way of speech.
Are they adjusting their tagalog accent too or so?
Either way. Consider how it feels elsewhere where the majority of such calls are not anywhere close to "native proficiency" English,...or Dutch or German or what have you and it's instead thick accents to the point you end up making your grandparents calls for them. It also doesn't help when they don't understand already suppressed and half erased local dialects/accents of the region they're servicing. Which indeed contributes to "erasure of an entire people's way of speech"
It also doesn't help that these people are often on the other side of the goddamn world and have usually a lot lot less tie-in to the company (if they even work directly for it) than when you get someone local on the line. I remember having to call one such company half a dozen times to get someone to understand that: no i was not the 1000th regular customer using one of their devices but wanted to make software that connects to it and had questions about their dev kit. It was the most infuriating experience figuring out again and again whether they couldn't understand the words i was using or just couldn't grasp that someone had a question that was unusual and didn't fit the scripts that they seemed to try to pull back to. In the end i had to weasel my way into the dm's of someone i once met working there who then immediately connected me to someone at the right department.
And everyone is abjectly aware that all this is just local companies outsourcing and suppressing wages.
Having a more difficult support experience is in no way erasure of a culture
Globalisation in many forms does contribute to erasure of culture. If that's not the case you can also tell the other guy that his dad adjusting his accent in English is in no way erasure of a Philippine culture.
> often on the other side of the goddamn world and have usually a lot lot less tie-in to the company (if they even work directly for it) than when you get someone local on the line.
What the fuck does this have to do with accents?
Are you Canadian or something? Your entire comment is just tantamount to a defence of racism.
White first world workers doing a job, often with lower intensity and workload, yet higher wages than overseas workers,is the definition of racism [0] and white privilege. If Canadians are getting outpriced by hard working Filipinos overseas, that just means Canadians are not competitive in that labour market. Any attempt to correct this fact is a market distortion and artificial advantaging of your own nation over others - i.e. racism.
[0] DiAngelo 2011
>What the fuck does this have to do with accents?
I'm trying to convey that the moment i hear that i am speaking to a foreign contractor i know that they won't tell me "oh thomas from the dev team will probably know who worked on that part." For people who make such calls a lot it becomes an incredibly frustrating experience and I get why they immediately try to get escalated.
>Are you Canadian or something? Your entire comment is just tantamount to a defence of racism.
What pray tell was racist about it. Sorry but your insults don't work as deflections. You're the only one that immediately has race on their mind.
It doesn't even work either when we have plenty of people living here locally of african descent.
>White first world workers doing a job, often with lower intensity and workload, yet higher wages than overseas workers,is the definition of structural racism and white privilege.
And Philipinos doing a job, often with lower intensity and workload, yet higher wages than people in Burundi ,is the definition of what?
>If Canadians are getting outpriced by hard working Filipinos overseas,
Why the fuck do you assume I'm canadian? I'm Belgian. Flemish to be specific.
>that just means Canadians are not competitive in the labour market.
That just means the labour market expands but only towards the lowest common denominator to undercut wages and no not just the ones of those jobs being outsourced. It has wider effects.
> Any attempt to correct this fact is artificial advantaging of your own nation over others - i.e. racism.
That has nothing to do with racism. That's just....not globalism which has absolutely nothing at all to do with racism. You might not believe it but not everyone is a proponent of unfetered hypercapitalism and rapidly growing inequality in the way that you are.
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So, better if they have no jobs because of things that arent under their control?
Technology is supposed to make life easier and better