Do Accents in Call Centers Make or Break Customer Satisfaction?

OABPO Blog Team Published on February 28, 2014 Last updated on October 10, 2020

Outsourcing customer service presents a unique challenge: the impact of diverse accents in call centers. While cost-effective, this approach introduces a dynamic that can significantly influence customer satisfaction

For some customers, a distinct accent shows a call center has a diverse workforce. However, other people might struggle to understand certain accents. Customers will always have a certain reaction to how people speak, but how impactful are accents in their overall experience?

If you have an outsourcing partner, have you also thought about the accents that your third-party teams may have? This may not be a big deal to you, but it’s not exactly negligible either.

The Role of Accents in Communication

Communication is a complex interplay of words, tone, and delivery. Even outside the customer service setting, accents play a role in how messages are received.

Keep in mind that a person’s accent reflects their cultural and linguistic background. So, if a call center agent’s accent is too strong, your customers may focus on the person on the other end of the line instead of the concern they want to raise.

Then there is also the social identity factor. This theory states that people tend to favor those with the same cultural markers as them. In other words, people orientate themselves more exclusively with groups whose accent is similar to their own.

Putting this in the context of call centers, customers would prefer conversing with agents whose accents they are familiar with.

How Customers Perceive Accents

How customers perceive accents is influenced by a mix of cultural, social, and psychological factors. Depending on the customer’s background and expectations, customer service accents can evoke a range of emotions and biases.

The Presence of Accent Bias in Customer Support

Customer satisfaction is better achieved when the customers themselves are involved in the service delivery process. On that note, Leeds University Business School conducted a study on how willing customers are to cooperate with agents based on the accent they hear.

This study found that there are certain accents that customers “positively receive” but there are also those that are “commonly stereotyped in a negative way”. Unsurprisingly, the customers in the study were less cooperative when the service agent had an unfavorable accent, regardless of the quality of service they experienced.

Is Accent the Only Factor?

Despite the influence of customer service accents in the overall customer satisfaction, it is not the only factor that should be considered. Another study has found that the accent alone has no effect on how customers judge the service agent’s credibility. Instead, the service agent is assessed based on how the customer feels at the moment.

More specifically, the accent has more bearing if the customer makes the call while feeling frustrated or upset. From there, they start to judge an agent’s competence based on how that agent delivers the solutions.

Challenges that Accents in Call Centers Pose

As mentioned earlier, having different accents in your call center partner is a reflection of inclusivity on your brand’s part. But sometimes, these accents could also complicate customer interactions.

Yes, the accent of a customer service representative does have an impact on the customer’s satisfaction.

multilingual customer service team speaking to customers in call center

This is what a Zendesk research revealed, underscoring that “The problem with foreign call centers are the foreign accents.”

However, the software development company disclaimed that not all outsourced call centers fail at customer satisfaction.

Zendesk also guessed that the service vendors may not provide sufficient accent training to foreign staff. In addition, the call equipment might even be the one causing customers to mishear agents over the phone.

The customers’ reason for calling could also have an effect on their understanding or reception of the person on the other line. The study says that callers making inquiries and expecting to receive a product are the most satisfied customers, while people who call to complain or check the status of their order are the most dissatisfied.

Whatever the main reason may be, we should not discount the fact that the manner your agent pronounces words still has an impact on your customer’s satisfaction.

To emphasize how much accents really matter, refer to these figures garnered by customer feedback insights and analytics firm CFI Group:

  • Customers handled by American agents rate their satisfaction at an average of 79%
  • Customers handled by foreign representatives are only 58% satisfied

When it comes to customer service effectiveness, here is how foreign-accent call center agents fared against American representatives:

  • Problem resolved: US - 94%; non-US - 85%
  • Problem resolved on first call: US - 67%%; non-US - 50%
  • Problem handled by more than one agent: US - 21%; foreign - 32%
  • Ease of understanding: US - 85%; foreign - 54%
  • Effectiveness in handling issue: US - 84%; foreign - 62%
  • Courteousness: US - 87%; foreign - 75%
  • Interest in helping: US - 85%; foreign - 70%
  • Overall satisfaction: US - 85%; foreign - 66%

In the issue of trust, accent also plays a significant role. The University of Chicago pointed out that if the customers cannot understand the agent, they cannot give their trust. And the heavier the accent, the less information the agent could get from the person on the phone.

Should these numbers discourage you from outsourcing customer service?

customer service agent talking to customer using laptop

Outsourcing is still advisable, especially if you choose BPO centers where voice services are dominantly delivered in the English language.

Companies that concentrate on this are mostly found in countries where the official language is English or in territories where Western culture has a great influence.

As the aforementioned Zendesk research said, accents may only become a problem if the outsourcing firm lacks the right training, so look for a service vendor that goes beyond intonation exercise and focuses more on familiarizing agents with the cultural and lingual context of the customers they serve.

Get in touch with Open Access BPO to outsource your English and multilingual business needs to our highly skilled teams.

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