"You have leave" is common in American English, guv. But what I don't understand is when a British person says he's been "fag-free" for a month!
Aside from idiomatic differences, which really don't belong in an international communication environment, business communication requires confidence and active participation, not passive perfectionism displayed by "expert students". Less well-educated native speakers are going to not only be readier to communicate, not having the self-doubts about being understood, but their listening comprehension (across dialects) is going to be far more facile. The whole thing is arguable of course, like whether it's better for employees to have education or experience; and you make a good point; but experience has taught me that top students tend to overestimate their abilities and underestimate their comprehension errors of - not idiomatic choices, but stylistic inferences.
"Your accent is good enough for us."
"Oh? I am relieved you think so. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"My name is Yvonne." (Yah-von, not Ee-von).
"Are you sure?"
"Are you?"
Swish, right over the head.
It's been my experience that Chinese speakers of English are generally terrified passive spitballers. Rote perfectionists afraid to utter a syllable, because they will certainly make mistakes,and all people who make errors are to be ripped to shreds. This is why inaction and silence is generally the preferred course of action in a Chinese organization. Not all speakers, of course, but they do tend to talk "at" people instead of "to" them. The problem being, of course, overstudy of linguistics and a total neglect of actual use. Sixteen years of English study and the first thing they say is "How! Are! You! Sorry my English."
But more salient to the issue of a Chinese call center would be the cultural tendency towards the business organization being the authority, and the customer being the interruption. The revolving door, cash economy, "Meiyou" culture in which customers need their concerns reframed for their benefits and the provider to do as little as actually possible. Not to mention the absolute dearth of problem-solving capability generalized through the culture. Some things cannot be trained. For example, the will to head off problems before they begin, let alone ability to perceive them. You don't steer the boat, you hit the other boat and then correct.
To put it in a nutshell: Chinese use commands, not requests, and this is customer service death.
But if it's just a simple, cheap solution why not? The business can display the illusion of concern for customers without setting up actual value-adding processes. Yeah, that won't be costlier at all when practices like value-negating "customer service charades" become the norm. Kind of like fake (white) ministers at an Asian "western-style" wedding. The whole thing becomes a farce, and people either live a crappier life of false delusion and banal consumption, become cynical, or start supporting authentic alternatives to manufactured culture. Fake value-added services are going to be costlier in the long run for all businesses. A company may have a customer service hotline located overseas, but instead of generating the reassurance value of a genuine customer connection, the opposite perception is enforced: a corporate frankenstein.
i need somebody for brings me beer, etc..
