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Re: India is the un-China, says Time
de usenet 06/21/2006 09:24
In article <wYqdnUHzr67hFgTZRVny1Q@bt.com>,
"Maynard Man" <mighty@hammers.co.uk> posted:
>
> www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj) posted:
>
> > In article <1150828732.007804.218190@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>,
> > "mbl*" <mbplee@gmail.com> posted:
>
> >> Let us look at just the "Telephone Answering Service". No one took into
> >> consideration whether a bright young Indian telephone operator would
> >> easily understand a broad Yorkshireman or a Scotsman who has never
> >> travelled out of Glasgow all his life with their heavy regional accent.
> >> Or vice versa, whether, these men could understand the accent of a
> >> young Indian who spoke like everyone else from their village? Or
> >> whether the Indian operator understood English colloqialisms or diction
> >> not normally used in India? The use of diction, varies with regions,
> >> and pronounciations also vary a great deal. Then there is the
> >> geography, and the references to local shops, that are by-words in
> >> England but never heard of in India. Like, the "chippy", or "Boots",
> >> or"visionexpress", or "MnS", or "Natwest", or "bt", or "2 quids
> >> worth", or "surgery", or "will it be a Chinese or Indian?"and so many
> >> phrases in common use here that makes no sense over there. So naturally
> >> there is complete frustration, and that leads to mistrust and
> >> suspicions. Would you dare make a bank transfer when you are not sure
> >> if you were properly understood?
> >>
> >> So The sponsor company management did not understand what was the real
> >> spoken English usuage in India, and the Indian manager assumed that
> >> there would be no problems, that could not be surmounted. This has led
> >> to a completely fiasco of that outsourced Telephone Answering Service.
> >> That is just one example of lack of understand of one another.
> >
> > You have to realize something: a lot of companies simply don't
> > want voice contact with their customers. For them the accent
> > difference works wonders. Jai Maharaj
>
> The use of outsourced Telephone Srvice and call ceantres in India is
> actually a problem. The accent, not the use of the English language, is very
> difficult to understand. The accent difference is without doubt a
> hinderence, and some companies are experiencing a loss of customers due to
> this. They also have a different type of character which affects the
> communication between the two way conversation. Some companies, Dell for
> instance, offer a premium service where instead of getting a robot in India
> reading from a que card you get straight through to someone in your own
> country who you can discuss the problem with properly.
> Basically, India is the cheap option...
I wonder how many customers are actually being "lost" due
to the differences in accent. But as far as inexpensive
options are concerned, saving money is as much a corporate
priority as it is a personal one. One also has to strike a
balance between customer satisfaction through better products
and customer satisfaction through better customer support. The
former is really the key to the latter.
Jai Maharaj
http://tinyurl.com/a5ljc
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti