Foreign language accounts

[psychosonicindy]

Does anyone here work in a call center with a foreign language account? I know INFONXX has a spanish directory assistance account but I'd like to know of other call centers which require people who speak Japanese or French or Russian or some other foreign language.
What sort of accounts are these? For example, roadside assistance or other customer services. How much is the basic pay? And I've heard that a 'premium' is paid for proficiency in a foreign language; now, what's the range for that? And how proficient must one be in a foreign language? if, for example, I'm at the intermediate level for Spanish, is that good enough? and how long would training normally be?
any views and information would be extremely welcome. G'day! :D

[Ice Burn]

To name a few...

Etelecare - French and Spanish
Convergys - Spanish
Telus - Spanish
Accenture - Spanish
Intercontinental Hotel - Mandarin, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish etc.
24/7 Spanish
NCO - Spanish

If you type in Jobstreet "Spanish" or any other foreign language at the search, you'll see the companies that offer the said foreign language accounts.

At where my husband works, he gets a Spanish language bonus. His bonus is much higher than the Spanish speaking agents because he's a manager and he's a native Spanish speaker. At his company the Spanish bonus starts from P18K up on top of the basic pay.

[psychosonicindy]

^^thanks Ice Burn. that's exactly the kind of feedback I wanted but could you ask your hubby what level of Spanish their Spanish agents need to have since I can imagine the language required for an account would be quite specific? Would intermediate-level Spanish be quite sufficient? What's a ballpark figure for their basic pay, btw?

[Ice Burn]

When my husband interviewed at the company where he is at now, they got a Spaniard consultant from the Spanish embassy to interview the applicants to gauge how well their Spanish is. Apparently they were quite strict on the fluency because the interviews were conducted entirely in Spanish. So the Spanish speakers do have to be quite proficient.

Considering the accounts he manages (which is collections) get a lot of latinos, it is important to be fluent because of the said account. Heck the agents need to collect and there are many latinos with debts. So it means talk offs after talk offs with people who speak only Spanish.

His spanish speaking agents get a basic pay of P14K + the Spanish allowance of P18K + the other bonuses and allowances so the Spanish speakers average salaries of above P32K.

My husband also did consulting work for other call centers in developing Spanish programs. He got extremely frustrated with the agents those call centers hired because they claimed they spoke Spanish when apparently they barely could speak to him. Some call centers prefer to just train people who already have some spanish skills (or chavacano) to boost fluency.

[metropolitan]

Sykes Asia has the Palm Inc. account where they have French speakers to support French speaking Canadian callers.

[twistedlily]

any info sa comp and benefits for french reps?