Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims will make them more understandable.
honestly, this is brilliant. Not only is it going to make it easier to understand people with really thick accents – I’ve worked with lots of Indian people before (hotel industry) and I still get tripped up from time to time, especially over a crappy phone line – but it’ll also probably cut down on a lot of the racist shit they may take from customers. I can imagine the average call center employee with a thick accent takes a fair bit more abuse than call center employees who speak without an accent.
on the other hand, this might also make it harder to identify a scam call immediately if this becomes commonplace. Not that perfect English speakers aren’t also capable of scamming you, but, usually the scam callers aren’t perfect English speakers.
honestly, this is brilliant. Not only is it going to make it easier to understand people with really thick accents – I’ve worked with lots of Indian people before (hotel industry) and I still get tripped up from time to time, especially over a crappy phone line – but it’ll also probably cut down on a lot of the racist shit they may take from customers. I can imagine the average call center employee with a thick accent takes a fair bit more abuse than call center employees who speak without an accent.
on the other hand, this might also make it harder to identify a scam call immediately if this becomes commonplace. Not that perfect English speakers aren’t also capable of scamming you, but, usually the scam callers aren’t perfect English speakers.