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