Call Centers Return to Mexico, But Sound 'American' Seth Freed Wessler - Al Jazeera
go to original March 20, 2014

... Mexican call centers are like any global outsourced facility — they exist to cut costs while providing services of a high enough quality that customers barely notice they’re talking to someone thousands of miles away. Historically, outsourcers have come up short on the second part of the formula: the experience of calling in to pay a bill and hearing an accented, foreign sounding, often South Asian voice on the other side of the line has become cliche.

Now Mexico is among the countries that U.S. companies look to for help in solving the accent problem. In recent years, record numbers of people have been deported from the U.S.; about 250,000 were removed to Mexico last year. And at least 100,000 more left on their own, often to escape the threat of deportation or the bad economy. For the outsourcing companies and their U.S. corporate clients, the returnees are in many ways the perfect worker. Typically, they’ve lived in the United States for years or decades and often speak flawless American English. Many have attended American schools and understand cultural cues — they can casually discuss In-N-Out Burger or the New York Giants — with the people on the other end of the line.

“Increasingly, companies are looking for as much cultural affinity as possible between the staffing place and the place you’re supporting,” says Katrina Menzigian, a vice president at Everest Group, a consulting firm based in Dallas. She adds that countries such as Mexico where “neutral” English speakers are more prevalent are increasingly being used for direct customer contact, while India — historically a leader in outsourced labor — is handling more tasks that don’t require conversing with Americans.

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