Making Bangalore Sound Like Boston

Xenophobia is about to get a whole lot easier.

American consumers are increasingly disenchanted with U.S.-based companies who rely on overseas call centers. Many cite the challenges in understanding accents, while others find the conversational differences between cultures an inconvenience to customer service. To combat this, many companies are turning to more online-based customer service tactics like chat and instant messaging.

According to a story on BusinessWeek.com yesterday, 62 per cent of U.S. consumers say they feel service is subpar if it’s provided by someone with a non-American accent. Troublingly, this is almost double the percent of callers who feel that service was substandard if it was provided by someone the caller thinks is from the U.S. Unfortunately, those numbers matter to many businesses: 7 out of 10 consumers say that they?d rather not do business with a company after a perceived “bad” customer service encounter.

You can read more about this story at Making Bangalore Sound Like Boston.