Recently on TV in Australia we were shown an Indian class being held
for would be call centre employees in India. The female Indian teacher
was trying to teach the class to say "gdday mate, how are you goin
mate" & other aussie terms, with an Australian accent. If like most
Americans you have tried to say this, you'll know how strange it
sounds even from another native English non Australian speaker. This
is more likely to crack the caller up with laughter & make then forget
why they called.

I have nothing against Indians per se (my best mate is one), but the
last offshore call centre employee I spoke to could not answer a
single question I asked, & had to put me on hold every time to refer
the question to head office of the bank in Australia. The call took 15
minutes & the Australian office still had to contact me to fully
answer my simple queries. This is part of the large company syndrome
(yes, banks & telcos included) where their time is considered
important & the amount of time the customer wastes is unimportant.

In theory the idea of offshore call centres is fine, in practice the
end user of the service, the customer, is the loser. Tell me that
makes good corporate sense.

John L.

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:03:25 GMT, Miguel Cruz wrote:

John L wrote:
If you support overseas call centres why do you call the Indians
idiots for playing Indian music, would it be better in your eyes if
they conned people into believing they were in Australia.

It would be better if they tried as hard as possible to make potentially
anxious callers feel comfortable.

miguel