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CALL CENTRE CULTURE
Myth or Reality?
 Sandhya
turns into Sandy, Sumitra to Sue, Anita to Annie, Rajeev
to Roger...
These are the new kids on the block. All fitted out
with yankee expressions, accents, mannerisms and dress
code. They are yankee right down to their toenails.
They even have an attitude - any kind of 'Indianism'
is 'gross'. To their friends, they're totally
cool and, besides, they make the big bucks.
Its an entire new culture that is mushrooming all over.
Fresh graduates, drawn in by the big bucks, are trained
and groomed on every aspect of Americanism. They are
even trained to appreciate foul language rather than
get upset, as swearing is part and parcel of American
speech. For this, they are made to watch Eminem, Friends
and Eddie Murphy. They have to unlearn all that they
have learned so far and re-learn the American way. They
now answer the phone with a 'Hi this is Sandy, how
may I help you?' or 'Yo, what's up?'. The
'arre yaar' has got to go. They are now familiar
with typically American expressions like 'in the
red', 'run interference for me' and 'a
rain check'.
 This
new breed of kids are not the usual party-hoppers. Instead,
they sleep during the day and spend the night talking
on the phone to strangers hundreds of miles away. They
make around Rs8,000/- a month and are made as comfortable
as possible in their work places: they are picked up
and dropped home from office, provided with excellent
cafetarias, millions of phone lines, given tickets to
movies and plays and even their home phone and electricity
bills are paid for. The spin off is even the shy ones
become compulsive talkers. But on the other hand, they
end up with behavioural problems, because they are living
a role which is not their own.
The call centre industry in India
The call centre industry in India is just a couple of
years old, but it went into overdrive ever since the
Nasscom-McKinsey report predicted that the IT enabled
services would be a mammoth $17 billion pie in the sky.
Already, we have 50.000 boys and girls working for companies
like GE Caps, Spectramind, EXL and more in Mumbai, Delhi
and Bangalore. According to the International Data Corporation,
it is poised to register the highest growth rate in
the Asia Pacific region during 2000-2005. To its advantage
is the large English-speaking populace, the well developed
software industry, the computer software integrators
with a proven track record and a large, unemployed labour
force.
 On
the flip side, although India has a large, highly educated,
English-speaking populace, most of them speak with a
heavy dialect - how will this play out over the telephone
and an average American be expected to understand Indian-English.
Secondly, the non-existent Customer Service Culture
in India will make training of reps mandatory and difficult,
since such a luxury as service is not part of everyday
life in India. And last, but not the least, the infrastructure
is bad, no, make that antiquated. This familiar problem
which has affected almost all industries in India may
hit the call centre industry too.
Is it time for an epitaph ?
Source: Outlook
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