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Indain Call centres

post #1 of 21
4/25/03 at 4:31am
Thread Starter 
I think this is my first post of this kind ever on Appleinsider but I would be interested to hear others views.

Today I was watching a documentary on Large Australian and American companies outsourcing their call centre operations to India. Now at face value this would seem like an acceptable strategic business move, to cut cost, increase profits. You know the same old thing.

However as the documentary progressed it showed how the Call centre operations in India would train up Indians to be 'American' or 'Australian'.

I will use the example of the American business like AT&T, American Express etc:

The trainees soon to be employees were literally and I mean literally trained up to Talk like an American, They wouldn?t get the job if there were an obvious hint of Indian. Additionally the trainees had to learn about the American way, that is, what Americans do for Hobbies, sport, recreation, eating etc etc. This very same thing Applied for trainees going to represent Australian companies. Further more the trainees were encouraged to only speak their pseudo American in their homes, to try and improve upon it so as to sound like the real thing.

Anyone who seemed not to like Australian or American values would not get the job.

Do you think it is right for people of another race/culture to be made act like an Australian or an American. To totally remove any multiculturalism from a companies image?

I was really surprised to be honest. Just be interested to see others thoughts/views on this above issue!

Looking foward to reading your thought!
trevorM

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trevorM

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post #2 of 21
4/25/03 at 4:52am
It's a two way street....like they say..when in Rome..do as the Romans do....

When in India.....
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post #3 of 21
4/25/03 at 4:56am
You know the woman that sits behind me at work is french Canadian. Her accent is so think sometimes I can't understand her. So ... could we get her some training there
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post #4 of 21
4/25/03 at 4:59am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by aquafire
It's a two way street....like they say..when in Rome..do as the Romans do....

SNIP

LOL! Very good indeed!
trevorM

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trevorM

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post #5 of 21
4/25/03 at 5:15am
Hey Trev & Scott, .....HELP!!!!
could you pleas both go to Genius box and see my post
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There are 3 types of people in the world.

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There are 3 types of people in the world.

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post #6 of 21
4/25/03 at 9:08am
Quote:
Originally posted by aquafire
It's a two way street....like they say..when in Rome..do as the Romans do....

When in India.....

Nice pic, exept that this garb is not really representative of mainstream India (you know, Hindu majority?), perhaps of some Indians though.

I find it funny that to service costumers located in Australia and North America, call centre operators from India have to pose as generic Aussies and generic Yanks (sorry for the Canadians and US Southerners among you, for restofthewrolders like me those distinctions are minor ones).
Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, and applicants are quite aware of the job requirements, it's not that they have to like American values, they are required to be able to seem familiar to the costumers, who apparently are quite sensitive to the slightest hint of alien-ness.
Now unless things radically changed these last years, it is costumary of a business wishing to make a profit to strive to please the costumer.

Not that I'd apply for such particular work. I wouldn't be keen to ape you unless it was for a seriously top entertainment job with top entertainment kind of money attached, and then take a stage name you'd find familiar and pleasant-sounding, too.
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post #7 of 21
4/25/03 at 9:31am
Quote:
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
Nice pic, exept that this garb is not really representative of mainstream India (you know, Hindu majority?), perhaps of some Indians though.

He looks pretty Iranian to me.
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post #8 of 21
4/25/03 at 5:44pm
He looks pretty Iranian to me. [/QUOTE]

Nah....Nothing doing, I spent time in India & Iran & he doesn't look Iranian at all unless he was a visitor from India.
Never amongst my dozen Iranian friends have I ever seen such headress.
People imitating others is a world wide phenomena. Business makes stacks from people ( especially young people ) who have to chase whatever is the latest fashion / music-rap/homie/wannabes mode coming out of the USA.
And we all know what a fashion house the USA is....
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post #9 of 21
4/25/03 at 6:04pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Immanuel Goldstein
...they are required to be able to seem familiar to the costumers, who apparently are quite sensitive to the slightest hint of alien-ness.

I suppose with some customer, it might be true that even the slightest hint of a foreign accent is a problem.

For myself, the only time this sort of thing bothers me is when I call customer support and get the distinct feeling that the person on the other end of the line doesn't really grasp what I'm saying, when I feel that there's a language barrier impeding progress.

Not that fully native speakers of American English don't do this too, but I find it even more so when speaking to a customer service rep for whom English is obviously a second language that the rep wants to quickly pigeon-hole you into a pre-defined place in their top-ten list of known problems/bugs/complaints/user screw-ups/etc. Anything outside of those narrow parameters leaves them lost -- and often leaves me frustrated.
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post #10 of 21
4/25/03 at 6:50pm
At CVS I was behind an otherwise American White Girl (tm) speaking to the cashier and I couldn't understand what the hell she was saying. Some intra-lingual Ebonical barrier or something. Give me an Indian with an accent that speaks English well any day.
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post #11 of 21
4/25/03 at 7:26pm
As long as it's not really heavy, I have no trouble understanding the indian accent.

Anyway, I know that Dell has call centers in India. My neighbor called um up about his bad Dell (The morons who put it together got wires caught in the Radeon cooling fan, it fried, and shorted out the board not long after he turned it on.) The guy on the other end didn't sound like an American, but not really like an indian either. I pegged him for an Eastern European who came to America in his early teens.

Oh well. Dell came to replace the computer a few days later. . . I don't understand how they make money. . .
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post #12 of 21
4/25/03 at 8:08pm
would you rather your call centre was foreign or felon?
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post #13 of 21
4/25/03 at 8:42pm
My employer is increasing Indian contracting.

That's why I LIKE the tension and possible resulting war over there. More jobs for Americans.
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post #14 of 21
4/25/03 at 8:52pm
Quote:
Originally posted by aquafire
It's a two way street....like they say..when in Rome..do as the Romans do....

When in India.....

Sadness....sadness.....cultural indifference.


....can anyone [HONESTLY] tell me what a green "turban" means?
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post #15 of 21
4/26/03 at 1:49am
Quote:
Originally posted by aquafire
He looks pretty Iranian to me.



Nah....Nothing doing, I spent time in India & Iran & he doesn't look Iranian at all unless he was a visitor from India.
Never amongst my dozen Iranian friends have I ever seen such headress.
 [/QUOTE]

I've spent time in Iran as a kid and in India as a human being, and I say that that turban is certainly no Sikh head-dress, if that's what you're thinking. He looks a rural village elder-type from the mountains come into town.
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post #16 of 21
4/26/03 at 2:54am
Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah

I've spent time in Iran as a kid and in India as a human being, and I say that that turban is certainly no Sikh head-dress, if that's what you're thinking. He looks a rural village elder-type from the mountains come into town.

Right. I've never seen Sikh turbans with any draped cloth. In addition, there's not much of a mustache on the Bush pic...Sikhs aren't supposed to trim their hair...period.



^^^ The quintessential 'Punjab' style turban we all saw in Annie...Most elder men seem to wrap this way.



^^^ Most youngsters have this sort of bobbed style wrap going on.

I've seen numerous variations as well, but those are the most prevalent.
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post #17 of 21
4/26/03 at 3:55am
Sheesh,
I never knew we had so many satorial detectives on the case....

If you really must know, the turban was invented in ancient " Turbania" by some Hot-Rod Camel dudes, who grooved to the beat of a different drum.....
For a long time know one really knowz wot deez dudes really look like until dis guy came along...

There are 3 types of people in the world.

Those who count.

&

Those who can't.
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There are 3 types of people in the world.

Those who count.

&

Those who can't.
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post #18 of 21
4/26/03 at 4:16am
Quote:
Originally posted by aquafire
Sheesh,
I never knew we had so many satorial detectives on the case....

If you really must know, the turban was invented in ancient " Turbania" by some Hot-Rod Camel dudes, who grooved to the beat of a different drum.....
For a long time know one really knowz wot deez dudes really look like until dis guy came along...


Interesting fact.

The word 'tulip' is actually derived from the Arabic (or the Farsi) word for 'turban'. An emissary from one of the western European courts of the 16th / 17th Century, I think he was French (can't remember) went to visit Turkey and saw a lovely flower stuck in a turban. As was the fashion.

"What's that?" he asked.

"That's a tulipa" (or whatever the word is) he was told.

He bought shitloads and took them home.

"Those are lovely!" everyone said. "What are they?"

"They're 'turbans' ", he said, and the name stuck.

This is true.
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post #19 of 21
4/26/03 at 6:55am
The word 'tulip' is actually derived from the Arabic (or the Farsi) word for 'turban'. An emissary from one of the western European courts of the 16th / 17th Century, I think he was French (can't remember) went to visit Turkey and saw a lovely flower stuck in a turban. As was the fashion.

"What's that?" he asked.

"That's a tulipa" (or whatever the word is) he was told.

He bought shitloads and took them home.

"Those are lovely!" everyone said. "What are they?"

"They're 'turbans' ", he said, and the name stuck.

This is true. [/B][/QUOTE]
Thanx hassan ......a Really nice story
You remind me of the story that the veil..where some say that it was introduced to the middle east via the crusaders & that wearing the veil predates the Islamic acceptance of such...
But I've since found out that the veil was used way back in the times of the Romans & even earlier with other cultures including the ancient Jews, & other semitic peoples.
It would really be interesting to see how far back both the veil & the turban actually go in recorded history?
I wonder if it goes back to Ur & the Chaldeans, or even into unwritten history ?
There are 3 types of people in the world.

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&

Those who can't.
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There are 3 types of people in the world.

Those who count.

&

Those who can't.
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post #20 of 21
4/26/03 at 7:28am
There's some interesting stuff about ancient Grecian dress and India too. Which I wish I could remember. Togas and saris.
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post #21 of 21
4/27/03 at 2:57am
Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
There's some interesting stuff about ancient Grecian dress and India too. Which I wish I could remember. Togas and saris.

One of the stupidities of the modern age, is the one that assumes people in the past, who didn't have cars or aircraft, just didn't get around or see what other places were up to.
I am sure that many would be shocked to know the extent of global travel that existed even 10 or 20,000 BC or even earlier.


As an artist I am deeply moved when I gaze upon the ruins of ancient culture long since forgotten..It is as if i can hear & see the people at work & at play.
It makes me reflect upon the fact that we're not that much differnet to our ancestors.
There are 3 types of people in the world.

Those who count.

&

Those who can't.
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There are 3 types of people in the world.

Those who count.

&

Those who can't.
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