John L wrote:
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.

At the end of my two years in Australia I was able to pass for Australian
for at least 5 or 10 minutes (can't anymore, but that was a long time ago).
Just a matter of training and experience.

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.

Sounds to me like the company in question didn't choose to invest enough in
adequate training or screening or whatever. It has nothing to do with
whether or not the call center was in India. I have had many interactions
with extremely knowledgeable Indian call center operators, and many bad ones
with US operators. All a matter of budget and priorities.

miguel
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Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu