{"id":479,"date":"2005-10-05T21:32:56","date_gmt":"2005-10-06T01:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scaredpoet.com\/wordpress\/?p=479"},"modified":"2005-10-06T21:10:54","modified_gmt":"2005-10-07T01:10:54","slug":"dont-like-calling-customer-service-because-they-cant-speak-english-well-youre-just-a-bigot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/?p=479","title":{"rendered":"People in need of tech support = bigots!"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, have you<\/em> ever complained about your latest experience calling customer service, only to be transferred to an operator overseas, who can barely speak English and perhaps understand it even less? If so, British Telecom<\/a> has knews for you: you’re a racist.<\/p>\n

That’s right, a racist. A “bigot,” to be exact<\/a>:
\n<\/p>\n

\n“International boundaries do not determine whether customer service is good or bad,” [BT’s chief procurement officer Meryl Bushell] said. “Our level of customer service is at least as good and sometimes better than in the UK.”<\/p>\n

Bushell said she was shocked by some of the “bigots” she encountered when listening in on some customer calls to BT’s Indian call centres.<\/p>\n

She said: “There are some bigots who are very rude. There are times I have been ashamed to be British.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t doubt that some of the native English speakers who find themselves talking to someone with a thick foreign accent will automatically endeavor to treat that person a bit, well, rude. And sometimes, I’d be willing to admit that for some people, race may very well be a factor. But, as poor Ms. Bushell defends the millions of dollars her company has saved hiring cheap labor to do their customer service, she should perhaps see past the dollar signs and see that in many cases, Indian call centers have<\/em> earned their reputation. Perhaps international boundaries don’t determine customer service levels, but oft-insurmountable language<\/strong> boundaries do. So do cultural boundaries, especially when colloquialisms and slang that an American or brit might understand as second nature might pose significant communication problems for someone of a different cultural slant… something that no amount of American television culture studies<\/a> will solve. And let’s also not forget the perils<\/a> of allowing<\/a> overseas workers<\/a> who are paid substantially lower wages (starting pay: $2400\/yr)<\/a> than their first-world counterparts access to a wealth of personal financial information.<\/p>\n

In reality, there are probably fewer bigots calling India, than realists<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British Telecom says those who complain about Indiain call centers over things like language barriers are just “bigots.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}