Yup. I was literally born in India, lived there until I was 7, and have an Indian mother who very much still sounds Indian, and even I struggle to understand what outsourced Indian/Pakistani call centre staff say sometimes, especially when there’s background noise.
And there’s almost always either background noise or a bad connection. Sometimes I go sit in my car and listen over my car speakers, which are decent speakers, and it doesn’t even help.
I had to call into Fedex Worldwide’s help center for an issue with a shipment on my company’s account the other day, and there was so much noise in the background, the guy I was speaking with actually stopped mid sentence to tell a bunch of people behind him to be quiet, then continued on like it was a normal.
Not that it should be acceptable to happen with a retail consumer level call, but it just seemed so unprofessional for communication related to a business account.
Tell that to my employer… We moved to a bigger office a little over a year ago. The old office was cramped, but it was reasonably quiet. Those of us who are on the phones were in a corner pretty well shielded from everything else. The new place is one huge continuous expanse, and we’re right in the middle of it. And it’s what I would call cheap and unfinished, but a commercial realtor would call it “modern industrial” meaning you can see all the wiring and ductwork and such- and bare concrete. Which makes sound carry throughout and echo. Just the other day my boss had to go hush a gaggle of developers that were congregating 20 feet away and laughing uproariously.
