File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0103, message 41


Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 20:41:10 -0800
From: Michael Pugliese <debsian-AT-pacbell.net>
Subject: AUT: Fw: [PEN-L:8971] Re: Globalising Call Centres



-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Bousquet <chicoexaminer-AT-yahoo.com>
To: pen-l-AT-galaxy.csuchico.edu <pen-l-AT-galaxy.csuchico.edu>
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 3:00 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8971] Re: Globalising Call Centres


>Quite a bit of what I call the "economic development
>scam" in Chico--petty bureaucrats latching on to
>hundreds of thousands of dollars from local
>governments by promising "new jobs" via corporate
>recruitment--is geared towards selling our low wage
>paradise to call centers.
>
>The most recent "success" was when United HealthCare
>closed their Long Beach and East bay call
>centers--union shops, both--and moved to Chico,
>offering up non-union jobs starting at $5.75. Of
>course, United HealthCare doesn't offer coverage in
>Chico--wages aren't high enough.
>
>Now, about a quarter million dollars more in public
>money is about to be dumped into a "business
>incubator" project, complete with "hi-speed
>telecommunication lines" and so forth, supposedly with
>the intent of seducing software firms. I got into the
>meat of the proposal, however, and discovered that the
>only new businesses slated to use the project were two
>call centers--one for a mobile windshield installation
>sales center. And yes, the "Incubator" is managed by a
>private firm that is well-connected to the local
>political elite.
>
>Even these, no doubt, will move offshores as soon as
>the companies figure out how to do it.
>
>
>--- Ken Hanly <khanly-AT-mb.sympatico.ca> wro
>
>te:
>> The Guardian March 9, 2001
>>
>> Delhi calling
>>
>> It may look like a UK number, but do you really know
>> where the
>> person on the other end of the line is? Luke Harding
>> visits a call
>> centre in India where the staff take crash courses
>> in Britishness
>>
>> It is 6.30pm and in a smart open plan office in
>> south Delhi, the air is
>> humming with a thousand telephone calls. Sitting in
>> a row of sound-
>> muffling cubicles, a group of pleasant-looking young
>> Indian graduates are
>> talking into their designer headsets. Some are
>> dressed in jeans; others in
>> bright salwar kameez. Their customers, however, are
>> rather a long way
>> away, in a place where it is still lunchtime and
>> probably cold.
>> They are in Sidcup, perhaps, or verdant East Cheam -
>> dotted across a
>> grey island nation that from here seems remote and
>> eccentric. The
>> customers have rung a number in the UK to check
>> their mobile telephone
>> bill, or to ask about a new product or service. They
>> are, for the most part,
>> spectacularly unaware that their inquiry has been
>> routed thousands of
>> miles away to an Indian call centre, which serves
>> rotis in its upstairs
>> canteen and has a good view from the roof terrace of
>> a giant lotus temple.
>> Not, of course, that there is much to give the game
>> away. The
>> subterfuge is truly magnificent. Callers are greeted
>> with a "good
>> afternoon" when it is already evening in India and
>> dark. Should the caller
>> lob in a reference to David Beckham or the Queen
>> Mother, Indian staff
>> are able to give a suitable off-the-cuff reply.
>> Nothing is left to chance.
>> This is Spectramind, one of India's newest and most
>> sophisticated call
>> centres: a place of soothing pastel colours,
>> tasteful lighting and expensive
>> green carpets. The entire four-storey building
>> exudes the smell of fresh
>> paint - and of colossal corporate self-confidence.
>> Here, recruits receive a
>> 20-hour crash course in British culture. They watch
>> videos of soap
>> operas, including The Bill, Emmerdale, Brookside,
>> Coronation Street and
>> EastEnders, to accustom them to regional accents.
>> They are told who
>> Robbie Williams is. They learn about Yorkshire
>> pudding. And they are
>> taught about Britain's unfailingly miserable
>> climate.
>> Each computer screen shows Greenwich Mean Time and
>> the
>> temperature in the UK, in case a staff member feels
>> the urge to reveal
>> that India is enjoying yet another day of blue skies
>> and sunny weather.
>> "We find showing new staff videos of Yes, Prime
>> Minister is particularly
>> effective," says Raman Roy, Spectramind's sleek,
>> pipe-smoking chief
>> executive. "They get a two-hour seminar on the royal
>> family. We
>> download the British tabloids every morning from the
>> web to see what our
>> customers are reading. We make our new staff watch
>> Premier League
>> football games on TV. And we also explain about the
>> weather, because
>> British people refer to the subject so frequently.
>> It is a science," he
>> adds,
>> proudly.
>> And so it is, so much so that Britain's 3,500 call
>> centres are justly
>> worried that their jobs will soon disappear entirely
>> - as more and
>> more firms relocate or "outsource" key elements of
>> their businesses
>> to India. This apprehension was confirmed by a
>> report published
>> last month. It said that the Indian call centres
>> were superior to their
>> British counterparts in every way. They were cheaper
>> - costing only
>> 35-40% as much. They had better technological
>> facilities. They had
>> smarter staff.
>> American Express and British Airways started the
>> trend eight years
>> ago, when they transferred their "captive" customer
>> service empires to
>> Delhi, and then Bombay. BA was attracted by India's
>> seemingly unlimited
>> pool of English-speaking graduates, 25% of whom fail
>> to find jobs. Indian
>> graduates required starting salaries of only o2,500,
>> as opposed to
>> o12,500. They were IT literate, and highly
>> motivated. The savings were
>> enormous.
>> Gradually, other British companies cottoned on. Last
>> year, Harrods
>> controversially shifted its store-card operation
>> from Leeds to Delhi. It has
>> been joined by Debenhams, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins,
>> Burton and,
>> fittingly, Monsoon. The insurers RSA and Axa Sun
>> Life have recently
>> moved elements of administration to Bangalore,
>> India's IT capital.
>> Not surprisingly, British unions are starting to
>> complain loudly. They
>> object, in particular, to the fact that some Indian
>> call centres encourage
>> their staff to change their names to sound more,
>> well, English. Thus
>> Siddhartha might become Sid, or Gitanjali could be
>> Hazel, not Gita. At
>> Spectramind staff keep their original names, Roy
>> explains: "It is not a
>> disadvantage to be called Ramakrishna these days."
>> (It was obviously
>> merely a happy coincidence that his sari-clad
>> secretary was called
>> Sarah.)
>> It is no secret within the industry that "agents"
>> are taught to minimise
>> their Indian accents, to speak more slowly, and to
>> watch the BBC news.
>> "We don't try and teach our staff to speak with
>> British accents. But after
>> talking to British people they do start to sound
>> like them," manager Mr
>> Viswanathan admits. Even after intense training,
>> though, some callers
>> from Britain are impossible to under stand, it
>> seems. "We borrow tapes
>> from the British Council in Delhi. But even after
>> listening to them there
>> are
>> about 20% of callers who don't make any sense at
>> all," says Padmini
>> Misra, vice-president (training).
>> That India has so many charming and intelligent
>> English speakers is
>> clearly one of the nicer legacies of colonialism -
>> so we can hardly
>> complain 50 years on that they are stealing our
>> jobs. Most of
>> Spectramind's new recruits have been educated at
>> English-orientated
>> schools. They spend Friday nights watching Goodness
>> Gracious Me and
>> repeats of Blackadder on Star TV, India's most
>> contemporary channel.
>> But watching Rowan Atkinson prance about in an
>> Elizabethan ruff is no
>> substitute for actually having visited the UK, which
>> most of them have not
>> done. This is where Misra's crash course comes in.
>> "We have training
>> modules on geography, history and the monarchy, and
>> on Britain's social
>> structure," she says. "We teach them about British
>> food - Yorkshire
>> puddings for one - which would not be familiar to a
>> young Indian fellow
>> here. We give them quizzes on Britain and allow them
>> to surf the net. And
>> we tell them about what high-street shops there
>> are."
>> Misra also sheds light on why the old sit-com Yes,
>> Prime Minister
>> goes down so well among the staff - it's because the
>> rococo bureaucracy
>> of Whitehall corresponds so closely with India's
>> own. Such are the
>> sensitivities involved, however, that most Indian
>> call firms refuse to
>> discuss their methods. They also strive to conceal
>> who their clients are -
>> or what, exactly, they do for them. "We have to
>> decline your request," the
>> US finance group GE Capital sniffs, when I ask to
>> have a look round its
>> huge call centre in Gurgaon, on the road between
>> Delhi
>=== message truncated ==>
>
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