Indian BPOs, accent training isn't enough

I'm an outsourcing industry wife. For about a decade in India I have heard several conversations about the many things that go into making a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm tick. While all the technical stuff was wasted on me much like Latin, I followed with interest stories about accent training for Indian kids barely out of their teens so they could masquerade as Americans or Canadians over the phone. It was pretty phenomenal what India had pulled off in a fairly short period of time. In less than two decades our country was serving as back office and troubleshooter for a lot of the Western world.

But now that we're on the other side of the globe I'm seeing things with different eyes. Or, to be more precise, hearing things with different ears.

This afternoon the phone rang and some young man with an extremely peculiar accent asked to speak to my husband and then began a fairly long and clearly rehearsed greeting/small talk routine. I asked where he was calling from and what the call was about. He launched into a long speech that was hard to follow. The twangs and lilts of the American/Canadian speech pattern were all misplaced.

Anyway, I politely pointed out that he hadn't answered either of my questions. So he went through the whole thing again, emphasizing a few words here and there for effect. I still had no answers. Finally I lost my patience and told him my husband wasn't available and he should try calling tomorrow. The caller asked when he'd be back home today. I told him not before 6.00 p.m. He went into an involuntary "so that would be.....okay", which was a dead giveaway. It was so very obvious that he was calculating what the local time would be when it was 6.00 p.m. in Toronto. Again I asked where he was calling from, I confess entirely for my amusement this time. He said, "Toronto, the same place you are." Yeah, right buddy.

Now here's what the Indian BPO industry should take note of. First, the accent training is not cutting it. People in this hemisphere realise pretty quickly that they're not speaking to a local. Besides, I found it very hard to understand what the caller was saying. I have no such problems of comprehension when conversing with Canadians or Americans. The caller's accent was unnatural, forced and really quite annoying. So, is it unnecessary? Or do you need to do a better job on accent training?

Second, people in this part of the world value their time. Legitimate callers with real business open a telephone conversation with pleasantries and then immediately get to the point. There's nothing vague about the call. It is polite, crisp and as short as possible. These callers know they will lose customer/potential customer goodwill by wasting the other person's time. So please, train these kids to get to the point a lot sooner in the conversation. Especially if the call is being made to fish for business. And equip them with the information they need to give straight answers.

If the Indian BPO industry wants to stay ahead of the game, it should perhaps consider these suggestions from this insider/outsider.

Lardy-da

I'd heard of them, but never seen them in the flesh. When I spotted them first I suppose I stared a bit. Even though my brain kept telling me to look away and stop being rude, I couldn't immediately avert my gaze. I noticed that they jiggled when they moved. The only form of vegetable they ate was deep fried and quite often dunked in a viscous cheese dip before being shoved into the mouth. They consumed unimaginable amounts of meat. And when they walked, it was always with a gigantic tumbler of some form of aerated beverage firmly clasped in a forelimb. They came in all colours, but the racial differences were neutralised by the body mass.

I am speaking of the gigantic blobs of lard that had come to Niagara Falls, Ontario, from south of the Canadian border. I got a chance to observe them last weekend. The Canadian part of the Falls is apparently considered more of a tourist haven than its counterpart in New York state, which is why most weekends Americans drive north of the border and inundate the town.

No matter how much you hear about the obese American, nothing really prepares you for the first sighting. It's hard to explain. Every visitor to the U.S. has told me that the vastness of its people matches that of the nation. Even though you now see a lot of obese Indians back home, especially in the big cities, they aren't yet in the same league as the true-blue large American. And Canadians often discuss the growing incidence obesity among their people. But at least in Toronto and surrounding areas, people are by and large fit and healthy in appearance.

I'm a big Jay Leno fan and try to catch his show whenever possible. Practically every evening he'd have a "now how fat are we getting as a nation...." segment. I'd laugh at the jokes but think to myself, surely he's exaggerating. Now I realise that he is most certainly not. These people are HUGE. They probably haven't seen their own feet or genitals in many years!

I understand now why the restaurant we ate dinner at on our first night at Niagara had "deep fried cheesecake" on its dessert menu. I checked with the waitress if that was correct. Yes, she said. It is really deep fried. And comes wrapped in a tortilla. But of course. Surely a simple cheesecake - made with cream cheese, butter, flour, sugar, eggs and cracker crumbs - isn't decadent enough for these people? I was dying to see a serving of this monstrous dessert but was too chicken to order it. Maybe next time.

Hygiene vs Conservation

I'm all for personal hygiene. My kids might tell you I am fanatical about it. They'd be exaggerating. Like all moms, I insist they wash their hands periodically, brush their teeth twice a day, do a thorough job when bathing and hound them a little about being clean after using the washroom for a do-do.

If there was a scale to measure hygiene fanaticism - with 0 being a complete slop covered in layers of germ-infested slime and 10 being an unnaturally sanitised being in danger of scrubbing away skin and flesh in the quest for personal cleanliness - I think my score would be somewhere in the middle.

Germophobes who'd rank top on that scale amuse me a little. You can spot them from the way they wash their hands in public restrooms (if at all they use those). There is a normal hand-washing that most people do, and then there's the germophobe hand-washing which lasts a lot longer. I don't think surgeons going into the operation theatre do quite as thorough a job.

Anyway, I came across one of those at a restroom at Niagara on the Lake on Sunday. She made quite a production of cleaning her hands. Then she used the middle digits of her clenched fingers to yank some towels out of the dispenser. The elbows, feet and knees were then very creatively employed to dispose of the used paper towel, open the door and leave the washroom without contaminating her freshly washed hands by touching any surface whatsoever.

When she'd left I noticed the tap she had used was still gushing. That's when I got angry. She was so obsessed with hygiene that she didn't care she was wasting so much water! If I hadn't been in the restroom to turn that tap off, heaven knows how long it would have been left running. Hygiene is essential, but is it okay to seek it at the cost of such a precious resource?

Then there's the other extreme - conservation over hygiene. Singer Sheryl Crow has been the butt of quite a few jokes for suggesting that we all use just one square of toilet paper per bathroom visit. One stand-up comedian said he had immediately added her to the list of celebrities he'd never shake hands with. I agree. That's a tad too much, don't you think?

Hindi-Chini, more alike than we think

We've moved into a predominantly Chinese neighbourhood on the eastern fringes of Toronto. You'll see a few brown or white faces on our street, but most residents are Chinese. And the more I observe them the more it strikes me that the middle class Chinese person is so very similar to the middle class Indian.

This morning I was watering the lawn in our backyard. Now ours is a corner lot and the street side hasn't been fenced, which means we have little privacy in the outdoors. So while I was in the garden, one of our Chinese neighbours from across the street walked up to say hello for the first time. "So you bought this house?" he asked. No, I said, we're tenants. His eyebrows went up a bit. "Very good tenants," he said, pointing at the hose pipe and then rotating his finger to cover the general spread of the lawn. Because we have a corner plot, we have one of the largest patches of grass in the area.

So similarity number one - if you're a tenant, you aren't really expected to take an interest in the appearance and upkeep of the property.

"How much you pay?" came the next question. I was a little taken aback. I haven't heard that one hurled at me quite so casually for a few months now. And I have never been comfortable with questions of this nature - how much rent do you pay; how much did you buy the house for; how much do you earn etc. I was instantly transported back home. Anyway, I mumbled a ballpark number which seemed to impress him.

So similarity number two - you can be asked the most intrusive and personal questions in the most casual manner. And you're expected to answer, pal.

It wasn't over yet. "For whole house?" he asked. I nodded. "You sublet?" he pressed on. Now I have heard this is fairly common practice among Asians in this part of the world. One couple or family rents a home and then two or three other families move in as well, splitting the rent. The property, naturally, goes to seed pretty quickly. Despite being aware of this, the question threw me a bit. And I was a little offended. But I managed to shake my head to convey that that wasn't going to happen.

Similarity number three - (and we faced this more in Mumbai than in Delhi) just four people living in a big house is considered a waste of space and money. I remember when we bought our four-bedroom apartment in Thane, many asked us if our parents would be moving in. When we said no I could see their brains trying to comprehend why these strange people need such a big home for a small family.

A couple of weeks ago a white lady from across the street asked me if we were home in the afternoon. We'd been out at the time she was speaking of. I asked why. She said she had seen three of four Chinese men walk right up to our kitchen and living room windows. press their noses to the glass and peer in. I had forgotten to close the blinds. "You definitely need a fence," my white neighbour said. I agree. The fence will hopefully be up within the next fortnight and we'll get a shield against prying eyes.

Similarity number four among the Hindi and Chini - curiosity about how others live will often get the better of you. My parents back home once had visitors going into the bedrooms and opening up closets!