Translation serves Aaaggghhh

Ok I’m going to have a gripe, a whine a cry baby tantrum about getting calls through translation services. Now I don’t know if this is the same in all call centers but whenever I get the prompt that the call is from a translation service I feel like hanging up and here’s why.

Now this may just be the people my company uses but what they do I find extremely frustrating.

Firstly when answering a call we all give the company introduction and most customers by the large majority, even the brain dead Karens let us finish it. No they talk through it.

Secondly in a lot of cases the customer speaks very little English and the interpreter will speak half to them and half to me. All the while I can hear both people and the customer will say somethings in English that seems to be to me and sometimes the interpreter will say things to the customer but then again it could be me. Then it will be half English, half the customers language. Also to add a lot of the interpreters come from the country they are interpreting for; no surprise there and thus often have very strong accents making it even harder to know if the interpreter is talking or the customer. So is the customer speaking to me directly, to the interpreter. I have only had a few who do something remarkable which makes the call a lot easier. Now I don’t know if those people have a better system but they put me on hold so I don’t hear the conversation b/w them and the customer and they put the customer on hold when relaying it back to me and getting the answer. That way it’s not a jumble of talking.