Tyrone takes the call of Americans in distress

A Tyrone accent is not without its charms but, on occasion, completely unfiltered and in its purest form, it may not be the easiest for unaccustomed ears to understand. But in one small corner of the county – during working hours at least – there is no confusing the majority accent because it is as American as the Stars and Stripes.

Strabane's Orchard Road Industrial Estate may not officially be a US territory but more than 500 people employed there, based on accent alone, could easily qualify for a US passport. They all work for Allstate Northern Ireland, part of the Allstate Corporation, the largest publicly traded home, personal and vehicle insurer in the US and the largest IT company in the North.

The Strabane operation primarily provides support services to Allstate’s American customers – it is often the first port of call for a US customer who needs help or advice following an accident.

More than 50 per cent of the team in Tyrone also work for the corporation’s technical support contact centre where they also help solve hardware and software issues for other US Allstate employees, agents and other staff.

Bro McFerran, vice-president and managing director of Allstate Northern Ireland, said it was projected initially that the Strabane facility would create some 100 jobs. Ten years ago McFerran took a gamble to establish a new office outside Belfast and Derry and chose Strabane, a town that has long battled its reputation as an unemployment blackspot.

McFerran says: “We had piloted a very successful business process outsourcing and call-centre operation out of our Belfast office but we wanted to find a new location that would give us access to a large workforce. We looked at a few places, including Donegal, but in the end we decided on Strabane. It was set up experimentally. We went there with no goggles on and we really chose it because there were premises available where we could set up straight away.”

A decade later, as a result of the success of its Strabane operation and its expanded Derry facilities, Allstate Northern Ireland is now one of the largest inward investors in the northwest.

McFerran says the “outstanding work ethic” that Allstate discovered in the town has repeatedly won new jobs and additional investment. “ There is a great spirit around the place, people are very motivated, we have very low attrition rates because people come to work for us and they stay with us – a lot of our young leaders started out as call-centre staff and have moved up through the business.

“The nature of the work handled by the team has also changed. Some of it is more complex because the office has consistently proved that it can just quietly get on with it. They just move into problem -solving mode.”

He believes the American accents in Allstate’s Orchard Road facility are just one example of the adaptability of its workforce.

When the US group first opened there in 2004 it adopted a voice coach to bridge some of the cultural issues that popped up when Northern people answered the phone to American customers.

As Strabane handles a significant number of “first notification of loss” (which is the initial report of a claim or accident), McFerran says it is vital for a customer that the voice on the end of the phone is both sympathetic and competent, but it is most important that both parties actually understand the conversation.

The very first question a member of the Strabane team must ask any US caller is “what state are you in?” In Northern Ireland this question would normally have a very different connotation, but addressing it to a possibly distressed US customer requires a succinct answer.

“In the early years the voice coach did have to work on getting the S-T-A-T-E bit right but now I think American accents have become part of the DNA in the Strabane office – we don’t have a voice coach any more, the accent is just right, it’s just there.”