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Is this another case of "blame anyone but yourself"?
"'When you move jobs away from a country, there's going to be a lot of
pent-up frustration which gets let out on Indian workers,' he said.
As staff turnover is a major problem, with some companies battling an
annual departure rate of 60-70 per cent, organisations are taking
radical steps to help staff to deal with abuse. In recent months some
firms have decided to provide psychological support to their workers.
Sanjay Salooja's Delhi-based firm, Empower, has 20 trained counsellors
who tour the city's largest call centres, providing support to harassed
employees.
'Most employees are very young and don't have the skills to allow them
to cope with this kind of abuse,' he said. Workers are already feeling
the stress of having to work through the night and are under extreme
pressure to meet productivity targets. 'They are vulnerable anyway, and
an abusive call really knocks confidence. They don't want to take
another call for an hour or two, and their performance is impacted.'
The idea of consulting therapists remains taboo in much of Indian
society, but the stigma is waning. 'Our research shows that about 50
per cent of workers would like the chance to receive counselling,'
Deepal Raheja, one of the programme's psychiatrists, said.
The therapists try to help staff realise that the abuse is not personal
and to put things in perspective, he said. 'Somebody I counselled was
very upset after a British customer had asked for an address near
Trafalgar Square and he had to admit he didn't know where Trafalgar
Square was. His customer became very abusive, and the incident really
dented his self-esteem,' he said.
Some companies still specify staff must anglicise their names, adopting
forenames such as Mary and John, to try to stave off resentment."
Excerpted from The Observer.
Personal experience: my two tours with call service types included one
person I think was Indian who absolutely insisted I had to format my
hard drive to repair a CD-R drive that was out of order. Replacing the
CD burner fixed the problem. A week wasted because of incompetent
advice, with, now about 15 problem free months.
Another was similar, wanting me to completely strip a program and
re-install it according to his instructions, probably a day's work,
after two days getting that far. Instead, I did the XP program removal
and re-installed and have had 13 problem free months.
The accent made me think these people were Indian or Pakistani. I was
never abusive, but I let them know I was unhappy. I've got some hearing
loss, so an unfamiliar accent coming from someone who knows they are
laying a line of bullshit is not something I enjoy.
Is it possible that the abuse they DO get is not really the customer's
fault, but the fault of their own poor performance and training? Would
proper training in more general English idioms and some training in
removing the lilt help? Would some training in the tech material
they're trying to use be of help?
Ah, hell now. Get a shrink in to help them adjust to being cussed out
as incompetent so you can call the frustrated customer a racist.
Is this another case of "blame anyone but yourself"?
"'When you move jobs away from a country, there's going to be a lot of
pent-up frustration which gets let out on Indian workers,' he said.
As staff turnover is a major problem, with some companies battling an
annual departure rate of 60-70 per cent, organisations are taking
radical steps to help staff to deal with abuse. In recent months some
firms have decided to provide psychological support to their workers.
Sanjay Salooja's Delhi-based firm, Empower, has 20 trained counsellors
who tour the city's largest call centres, providing support to harassed
employees.
'Most employees are very young and don't have the skills to allow them
to cope with this kind of abuse,' he said. Workers are already feeling
the stress of having to work through the night and are under extreme
pressure to meet productivity targets. 'They are vulnerable anyway, and
an abusive call really knocks confidence. They don't want to take
another call for an hour or two, and their performance is impacted.'
The idea of consulting therapists remains taboo in much of Indian
society, but the stigma is waning. 'Our research shows that about 50
per cent of workers would like the chance to receive counselling,'
Deepal Raheja, one of the programme's psychiatrists, said.
The therapists try to help staff realise that the abuse is not personal
and to put things in perspective, he said. 'Somebody I counselled was
very upset after a British customer had asked for an address near
Trafalgar Square and he had to admit he didn't know where Trafalgar
Square was. His customer became very abusive, and the incident really
dented his self-esteem,' he said.
Some companies still specify staff must anglicise their names, adopting
forenames such as Mary and John, to try to stave off resentment."
Excerpted from The Observer.
Personal experience: my two tours with call service types included one
person I think was Indian who absolutely insisted I had to format my
hard drive to repair a CD-R drive that was out of order. Replacing the
CD burner fixed the problem. A week wasted because of incompetent
advice, with, now about 15 problem free months.
Another was similar, wanting me to completely strip a program and
re-install it according to his instructions, probably a day's work,
after two days getting that far. Instead, I did the XP program removal
and re-installed and have had 13 problem free months.
The accent made me think these people were Indian or Pakistani. I was
never abusive, but I let them know I was unhappy. I've got some hearing
loss, so an unfamiliar accent coming from someone who knows they are
laying a line of bullshit is not something I enjoy.
Is it possible that the abuse they DO get is not really the customer's
fault, but the fault of their own poor performance and training? Would
proper training in more general English idioms and some training in
removing the lilt help? Would some training in the tech material
they're trying to use be of help?
Ah, hell now. Get a shrink in to help them adjust to being cussed out
as incompetent so you can call the frustrated customer a racist.
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