Right, some of the things I’m going to write here may be highly controversial, but I will do it anyway as that’s the way I feel.
The year was 2005, and the month was February. I had finished school three months earlier and was finally getting bored of the free time I had. Then finally, One of my best friends from New Zealand, Reuben, decided he would visit me in India for the first time. I was ecstatic and wanted things to be perfect for the month he would stay here.
I had planned everything out in my head, running it over and over again, until the details were perfect. However, you will find that in life random events have a tendency to spoil everything.
At this point the path of my life was destined to meet with “the call center, ” the existence of which had no effect in my life until then. This would be the beginning of a series of interviews that I give for call centres.
You may ask, why should I be running around after call center’s when my friend would be here, why should I be torturing myself with a job. Well, this was part of my perfect plan for when he arrived, I needed money to have drinks and go exploring the wonder that is India, Rs 20, 000 should be sufficient.
As part of my plan I had decided I would pay Reuben back some of the money he spent on me by joining a call center for a month or two. This is where the plan bombed because I never got employed, but in the process, I learnt a lot about call centres in India.
Things that need improvement:
The Indian call centers have got a lot of flack for trying to copy accents. I know that the employee’s undergo training for a week or two so that they can speak like foreigners. C’mon, who are you kidding?
Do they actually think they can teach someone an accent in a week. An accent is something you acquire, not something you learn like physics and maths.
You may think that they make the employees change their accent so that the American’s/British can understand them. I live abroad and many of my friends I studied with in school have also gone abroad for studies. I can tell you foreigners have no problem in understanding Indian accents.
The English people speak in Delhi is understandable. The only reason I can think of call centre’s wanting to change accents is to deceive the call receiver, making him think he got the call from America itself.
This is an insult to their intelligence. Now everybody knows call centers have been shifted to India, and its easy enough to recognise the accent.
No wonder people blame them of trying to be American. Maybe if you stopped trying unsuccessfully copy an accent, you wouldn’t get abused so much.
From personal experience, I know what it feels like. I have a foreign accent, I was in India one time. This friend I met was talking in an unusual way, trying to copy my accent. The thing is, I can’t say stop it, because it’s rude. Nonetheless, I felt bad. I think she was trying to impress me or something.
I felt like saying, “do you think I’m a complete idiot?”
This must be the way people feel in the west, when they receive calls from India.
I think that the Indian call centers need to evolve, before they lose their edge. Yes, Indians speak much better English than the Chinese, and some other Asians but they need to realise copying accents is not the way to go.
As for people who do not pass their interviews in Indian call centers, I’d say go to one of those English teaching institutions. Practising speaking can improve it.
As for me, I didn’t get employed because they didn’t believe I would stay long, which I wouldn’t. They usually don’t hire people straight out of school.