Posted on 08/09/2006 11:24:20 AM PDT by Gengis Khan
LONDON: Indian call centre experts are now training British workers on how to manage message-handling services.
Britain's first Indian-owned call centre has been opened in Belfast, a total reversal of the trend of British firms opening call centres in the sub-continent to take the low cost advantage, according to a report in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.
ICICI OneSource, which has 8,000 staff in India, aims to create 1,000 jobs in Northern Ireland over the next two years.
The firm's British clients come mainly from the financial and telecommunications industries.
"This is not about moving work from India to the UK; it is about the growth and expansion of our business," Matthew Vallance, the European managing director of ICICI OneSource told the newspaper.
"People are very familiar with the Irish accent and we think it will work very well," he added.
Under the professional guidance of Indian experts, the first batch of 60 employees in Belfast began a seven-week training course from Tuesday.
Critics however say that the idea of Indians training the British call centre executives will not go well with those customers who have in the past complained of long waits and difficulty in understanding accents when dealing with companies relying on foreign call centres, according to the report.
Well maybe they will do the same thing for America and open some call centers in Mississippi--we'd all love to hear that southern accent. Belfast BTW could use the jobs but as far as the Belfast accent goes it's not exactly a sweet one---spent a bit of time there in the early 1980s.
Do you want to listen to an incomprehensible Indian version of English when you're trying to get tech support on your widget?
Or would you prefer an incomprehensible Irish brogue?
What's it going to be? Hmmmmmmmm...
One good thing this article says without actually saying it is what goes to India comes back out in a way that others can benefit from it. Speaks also for the open people that Indians are who actually don't care to horde all the world's wealth in their efforts to become rich. I would like this globalization phenomenon to benefit as many people as possible. Lets hope the Indians see that happen.
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