HSBC - the world's local bank?

Yeah, it's a shame when the UK regional accent is so broad that other English speakers can't understand it.

My experience of Indian Call Centres have all been infinitely preferable to UK based ones.

Is India not on this world?

Jim.

It's not very local to here.

But their English is usually a lot easier to understand than, for example, the fast-gabbled Geordie-speak I couldn't understand a single sentence of this morning. I had to get every sentence repeated slowly, with the Geordie getting increasingly explosive. We used to teach locals how to speak standard English in school, but it's now considered to be harmful to their self-esteem to suggest that people in other parts of the country might fail to undertand the local street argot.

Not loocal at all when it comes to telephoing them: What annoys me is that they will not give you the local number of the person dealing with a particular matter - you still have to go through the call centre. This was enough to make me give up trying to open an executors bank account with HSBC. Natwest don't do this - they will give out direct dial numbers once you have an established need to contact a particular person.

On Indian call centres I disagree; I find the English spoken there to be generally very good - better, I would say, than the average for a UK call centre.

Robert

It appears that was not BrianW's case. If companies was outsourcing to be widely accepted they should be careful of quality on the receiving end. If there's a strong backlash it will be ugly.

Seb

it isnt a problem with the indians englisch it is more about culture. you can say your name is smith and they will ask you to repeat it six times then ask you to spell it. and if you live in kensington avenue it gets worse..

luv curry though

For posterity: "it isnt a problem with the indians englisch it is more..."

Well, any Indian might be pressed to follow your example and make three spelling mistakes and (arguably) four grammatical errors in one sentence!

MC