You work for a BPO/ KPO.
Your job profile requires you to interact with foreign clients/ customers every day. And you find that, sometimes, they do not follow what you are saying. Could it be because you have an Indian accent?
Could it be because you are feigning a foreign accent, which sounds unnatural?
Or could it be because your pronunciation is incorrect?
BPO training expert Nasha Fitter tips you off.
Nasha is the CEO of Fitter Solutions, a communication and training company. She is an expert in vocational and communication skills management for BPO and service-based organisations. She is also involved with the upliftment and development of rural youth through basic education, vocational training and entrepreneurship, and writes for a variety of publications. She has a degree in business administration from the University of Southern California.
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Do you have a question for Nasha? Write to us!
I don't have any problem with my English. I am good at it and even got 7.0 in my IELTS. I don't have a problem understanding any accent of English including Scottish. I am presently in a BPO and even my trainer feels that I have no MTI issues. But the problem arises when I am on calls. Every other call, the person on the other end says that he cannot understand me and asks me if I am an Indian. This really offends me and I am not able to perform well. Can you please give me a solution to the problem?
-- S K S
First of all, there is nothing wrong with 'sounding Indian'. Just because you don't have a Mother Tongue Influence, it does not mean your 'Indian accent' will disappear. We all have a certain uniqueness to our accents.
While it is important to eliminate MTI problems, it is awful to try to cover up an Indian accent with an American or British one.
Instead, you should focus on aspirating key consonant sounds and stretching certain vowel sounds. I am sure you learnt this in your training.
Possible reasons why callers can't understand you could be that you are trying too hard to 'put on' a foreign accent or that you are simply speaking too fast.
In your earlier advisory column on eliminating Mother Tongue Influence, you have mentioned that there is the need to 'realize enough air especially for 'p', 'k' and 't' sounds' and also to stretch the vowels'. Please elaborate on this.
-- Manoj
Place your hand in front of your mouth while saying the P, K and T sounds. You should feel a gush of air on your hand while saying these sounds. If you don't, you are not releasing enough air. These are aspirated sounds and lots of air should be used.
For vowel sounds, it is important that we emphasise and stretch them when required. For instance, the word 'bed' does not require that you stretch the vowel sound 'e'.
The word 'bead', however, does require the vowel sound to be stretched. If the lengths of the words 'bed' and 'bead' are the same when you speak, you know you are not stretching certain longer vowel sounds enough.
In order to learn more about long vowel sounds versus short vowel sounds, I recommend buying a pronunciation CD and watching English television shows.
I work for a call centre in Bangalore and do not have any problem with spoken english with my Indian counterparts or foreign customers whom I cater. However, I do feel that I get a false accent when I deal with my customers and want to get rid of this. Can you advise how can I communicate in my normal tone while speaking english with people.
-- Mohit
I agree that it is not a good idea to use a false accent while speaking to different people. What I suggest:
1. Concentrate only on your aspirated consonant sounds (p, k, t, f, s)
2. Make sure your tongue does not reach too far back in your mouth for the t, d, l, n sounds.
If you follow these tips you will sound clearer and more enunciated. When we 'put on' a fake accent, we do so by altering our vowel sounds. Thus, if you concentrate more on your consonant sounds you should be okay.
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