Phone Tech Support (voice prob)

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An internet call center is looking to hire several peoples for technical support by phone.

I have more experience than what it require and it pay well.

The only problem is my voice, I have an accent and a monotonous voice like many aspie and it seem to bugs some peoples.

Is it a good idea to apply to a job who I have to speak on phone all day long when my voice is not in the average.

Cause they can use this argument to fire me.

Last edited by atxa on 19 Dec 2006, 11:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Depends on how broad your accent is.
Monotone's ok, but I'd suggest learning to vary the pitch now n then. It does require conscious effort but it's doable.

As far as whether or not the job's a good idea, I'm the wrong person to ask. I did phone tech support for 6+ years and after the first 6 months I hated it. My misanthropy went from bad to worse after having to deal with 70+ idiots a day who were unable to follow simple verbal instructions.
And so help me Dog, one more person asks me "Now, is that a left click or a right click?" I'm afraid I'm going to have to beat them to death with a hard drive. They'd ask me that question within 30 seconds of my telling them "Ok, all mouse clicks will be left clicks unless I say otherwise."

thats why I'll never work phone tech support, don't have the patience to deal with idiots all day.

Practice making different intonations of your voice and it should get better right away. Though I have been told that I sound like a recording on one occasion (once out of the hundreds or thousands of calls I've taken at the technical support center I work at), I think people enjoy hearing some intonation of the voice on the other end (and no matter how goofy you come across). Don't worry about making mistakes as you practice. You will always know that you are doing a better job than anyone in an Indian phonebank who can barely speak English.

It happened to me several time.

Go for it. Don't even worry about your voice.

I did tech support for 6 months and there were many people with heavy accents. Did they ever lose their jobs because of their voice? No. If you can help people with their problems faster than average, then they won't ever think of firing you.

I'll do it, if I'll get an interview I'll ask them for another departement or commercial, I'm not sure to like doing tech support by phone all day long. I'll already do some and it's very painful sometime.

Dealing with enterprise and commercial is more interesting than residential.

If it's the cable company I'm thinking of, what they're looking for now is residential/soho support, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go for it. At the very least, you'd have a foot in the door for transferring to enterprise/corporate later, as well as the likelihood of finding out about job postings before they hit public listing.

Axta, probably best to approach the job with caution. If you just want to do it for a little while to earn money and try to transfer to another part of the organisation, it could be worth a try. A few people might be bothered by accents but most people are looking for someone who will treat them with understanding and helpfulness.

Unfortunately, I might be one of those people who find it hard to understand phone instructions by techies. The reason is I didn't grow up with computers and tend to panic if something goes wrong. I'm not stupid but sometimes need things explained a couple of times before I'll understand. It is mostly a confidence thing.

Yes, some people are just dopey but others like me, didn't grow up with computers and so we are not as confident with computer terminology.