VANITY: Call center problems with Spanish speakers

self | 04/16/2026 | self

[Dr. Sivana]

I was never one to make a big deal out of call center prompts that state "Press 1 for English ... blah blah blah Espanol". My assumption was that a large company wants to be able to assist customers by being able to communicate with them. So in a room with 20 operators, maybe 15 would be native English speakers, and five would be native Spanish speakers. That used to be the case.

Not any more. My wife had to call Capital One. She selected English, and the person on the other end could barely speak English, and had a heavy Spanish accent. The communication was non-existent. My wife got transferred to someone who was better, but could only barely communicate in English. So I figured, Capital One hired a lot of people who do not speak English well, for the purpose of answering phone calls in English ... nlt a good idea.

Today, I had to call Lycamobile (a cell phone carrier). I had a similar experience. She was asking me to talk slower and louder (I naturally have a very loud voice). Her own Spanish accent was thick enough that we both had to repeat constantly.

We were both frustrated.

I have now come to a new conclusion: they are NOPT hiring 15 English speakers and five Spanish speakers. They are hiring 20 Spanish speakers who claim to be bilingual, and who ever does the hiring (possibly also a Spanish-first speaker) figures, close enough.

I had enough of a problem with the Indian call centers. This is just very frustrating.

The other possibility is that calls from my state of Arizona are being routed to Spanish heavy call centers on the assumption that I would be okay with it.

I have been in Arizona for eight years, and have not picked up any Spanish. I know cerveza and raspadillos and manana, and that's about it.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: callcenter; english; spanish; vanity

[Tired of Taxes]

Yes. After the banks were bailed out in 2008 by U.S. taxpayers, they repaid us by moving their call center operations overseas.

It started with call centers in India and Asia. Now, it seems, more and more call centers are in Mexico.

Many of the call takers have a professional demeanor, but there is a language barrier.

Calls that handle sensitive information (banking, medical, etc.) for Americans should not be handled by anyone outside U.S. borders. (The same goes for billing.)

Anyway, we need those jobs here.

Luckily, someone has been paying attention:

Trump Administration Pushes for Companies to Bring Call Centers Back to America

[ridesthemiles]

THANK YOU FOR THE INFO.

I WILL NEVER HAVE A CAPITOL ONE CARD.

[FrankRizzo890]

You can spot a Filipino accent by the elongation of the R in “sir”. It comes out in almost a sing-song manner “Good morning sirrrr”.

(I have an in-house expert as my lovely wife is Filipino) :)

[GreenHornet]

When people in Pakistan call customer service, do they get an American on the line?

[Vendome]

Pretty sure the call was answered by a Filipino

I don’t of any call centers in Mexico

That said, no one goes to an office for that job

They work from home

But, it is possible they hired someone in Mexico

I dont see happening in Mexico because the majore centers of each country Filipinos, by a greater percentage of population, speak English and enjoy the American culture

[Vendome]

He looks like a man

[packrat35]

Been that way for around 20 years now. Used to be Indians, who they claimed spoke English, but no real English speaker can understand them.

[packrat35]

Thats a well known scam that still gets a lot of older people.

[Sirius Lee]

And who is this woman Kay? I keep telling them that I’m a man and that my name is Lee, but the keep responding “Kay?”

[BenLurkin]

[Paal Gulli]

There’s no regional accent when you use Online Chat.

[BFW]

You are right, B.W.R! and the reason is “MONEY”.

India was the first call center base after most companies closed their support centers. India started to a rotational call center stradgy by taking the CSR’s who got better and and were good at their jobs, they were then rotated to higher paying contracts.....$$$$

This caused them to be priced out. Moving on....$$$$

The Philippines had a large number of adapt English speakers from the US bases that closed. The same stradgy was used and the best CSR’s went to better paying contracts......$$$$

This caused them to be priced out. Moving on....$$$$

The support contracts are and were never, NEVER written to set and identify a dedicated group of CSR’s. So by taking out the confident and poised CSR’s and replacing them with newbies all the time was the norm....$$$$

This caused them to be priced out. Moving on....$$$$

End result the short term call centers make more money and then get a bad rep for useless service.

This caused them to be priced out. Moving on....$$$$

They used to make up for this by having dedicated and identified level 2 and 3 support centers staffed with well trained and experienced CSR’s and Tech’s. That was and is until the money monster pops up again and they do the call center fire drill and start the process all over.

Oh by the way, AI may be able under most of the voice incoming calls but there is nothing it can diagnose with falling back on lists and 200 questions.

Remember follow the money and of course the stupidity of the accounting department and that one leveraging “A.H” MBA.

😀😀😀😀

[DataJunkie]

I went through this quite a few times. The most memorable was about 20 yrs ago when my mortgage company at the time kept sending me delinquent notices and charging me late fees. I was never late and had the receipts to prove it but the Asian person just could not, would not, understand, instead they kept stating that my account was late. Got my bank involved, did a conference call with the mortgage company. Again, they could not understand and would not relent until I finally had enough. I was quite loud about it, told them that I was an American citizen with an account in America and it is my right to ask that I speak to someone IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PERIOD! They tracked down someone from the USA which my bank confirmed with them and then my bank said they’d take if from there. I hung up and the issue was resolved quickly. More recently, John Hancock farms out to foreign customer service centers. Having recently retired and wanted to move my money out of there, three times I got individuals who couldn’t speak English clearly and who just could not understand nor answer any questions beyond their ‘script’. It’s a cost saving to the company to hire outside of the US where in the US the employee would get at least minimum wage and maybe perks, but in say the Philippines, the cost of living is much different and the pay scale much lower. I’m spoiled because the company I just retired from did not farm out tech support, sales nor customer service. When a customer had an issue they spoke to a real person in the USA.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Yes. Fortunately, I have always had a lot of contact with people whose first language is not English, and I am able to understand them, but not all of the time. If I have a problem understanding them, then I figure everyone is going to have an even worse problem. No one whose pronunciation of English is pretty much unintelligible should be on the phone with English-speaking customers, even if they do work for a lot less than native speakers.

[kawhill]

Ich glaube, mein Schwein pfeift!

Translates to: I think my pig is whistling!

I haven’t heard that yet. Try calling Oracle Tech Support in India sometime.

[wardaddy]

I’ll take a Spanish as primary language call center anyday over Bangladesh or India

[b4me]

if it’s not an accent issue that I can’t understand the call center person, it’s the fact they talk so fast, or breath heavily in the phone that I wonder are they ok and lose my train of thought, or you hear young kids or other voices in the background. Worse when I ask about some thing like that and they hang up on me.

The AI customer service is horrible. I speak slow and clear and 3-4 times they repeat back the wrong birthdate or spelling of my name etc etc

*** I have been told, I forget which company, but to ask for a state side customer service rep. They are fluent and understandable speakers.

Maybe try that?

[wintertime]

Interesting. Thank you.

[Snowybear]

I recently called Xfinity customer service and it was all AI bots, I spoke to three “people” and they were all bots. Oh, and they didn’t solve my problem either.

-SB

[CFW]

I’ve gotten where I no longer will put up with this. I now immediately demand to speak with someone that speaks and understands English.