Quality Assurance Callback, Language Clarity

[wjlambert]

I would like to request that when Turbo Tax offers a Quality Assurance callback, that the representative be someone who speaks the same language as the customer.  (Example: Do not pair Indian English with American English)

Today (Sunday, April 14th 2019) when I received the callback for Quality Assurance, the representative had an Indian accent.  There is an unfortunate stereotype associated with large American corporations, that to save money often they use call centers in nations outside of the US (such as the Philippines and Indian).  Although many people in these nations speak English, it is with an accent.  This accent is not always clear.  When it comes to something as important as US Taxes, clarity is of the UTMOST importance. When it comes to Quality Assurance, clarity is also VERY important.  

Accented language means that each word may be pronounced differently from the expected intonation.  Accented language therefore brings a potential for discord into the conversation when words are mispronounced.  The common result is the necessity for repeating words to clarify meaning, and general, albeit unintentional, dissonance in communication.   

Quality Assurance is a control function, something to offer peace-of-mind and comfort to the intended recipient.  To perform this action with part of the quality missing is a FAILURE to comprehend the purpose of the action.  

Please reconsider the use of foreign language English speakers as part of the Quality Assurance team for TurboTax.  It is not actually a money-saving technique to incur the ire of your customers.

[pk]

Whereas I do agree with the general contention that understanding spoken words is essential on a call back and that accents do matter, it is not a given  that one American  speaker  can easily understand another American English speaker. Accents in the USA are all over the map  -- from deep south to frozen north, from sea to shining sea. People of the Indian subcontinent and the Philippines  do have an accent that is different from those in the USA but to say that this stops one from understanding the spoken words is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps better clarity could be achieved by improving the qualify of the connection  ( audio quality ) and not necessarily accent neutral speech. Personally, I have had a lot of service calls where the person is from India ( very polite ), Philippines ( also very polite and helpful) and from the USA ( more business like but helpful ) and really cannot say that One is better or worse than the other. I am short of hearing and  really value  audio clarity more than accent neutrality.  I find it really shortsighted and very simplistic to suggest that if only Americans were paired with American English speakers  , all our communication issues would be ameliorated. Should we therefore consider "pairing" Brooklyn with Brooklyn, Tennessee with Tennessee, Virginia with Virginia, Arizona with Arizona  ad so on and so forth?  Methinks NO. We need to accept that this is a connected world and accents are facts of life.  Improve audio clarity  not accent neutrality.