Take a lead from Norwich Union and bring all call centres back to the UK, says ZOE WILLIAMS. We’re too rude for polite Indians |
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Norwich Union has seen sense and decided to bring one of its call centres back from India, to some place in England.
So much has been written about the outsourcing of these call centre jobs, and no-one apart from me, so far as I can tell, has made the glaringly obvious point: no matter how annoying it is to talk to someone you can't understand, or who can't understand you, when you really do hit a wall of thoughtlessness, when you really are being treated scummily and kept on hold, at 90p a minute, when all you can do is scream with rage, it is not because of the call centre guy: the company created these conditions, and then dragooned in some poor Bombayan to tell you about them.
So, you start shouting at the Bombayan, |
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| The British are so rude that some Indian call centre employees are being treated for post-traumatic stress |
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who has been taught how to chuck in a reference to Manchester United, but not how to tell you where to stick it.
He murmurs humble comprehension; a Yorkshire call centre would have put the phone down on you by now. The gentle courtesy of the Indian call centre, naturally enough, inflames you more, since it is at such radical odds with the discourtesy of the company policy that made you so livid in the first place. This makes you shout more.
Then you read (as I honestly did) that the British are so rude on the phone that some of these call centre employees are being treated for post-traumatic stress. Now you feel terrible! You can't look the other way, you're one of those down-the-line abusers!
This is what large corporations do; they set the little people against one another, and get away Scot-free. That is why all call centres should be brought back to the UK. No matter how impenetrable their funny Northern accents are, you at least know they're going to give as good as they get.
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 30, 2007
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