Now we've upset Indian call centres

That's an interesting article in The West of 18 March (page 3)... It seems that employees in Indian call centres -- calling and answering calls from people around the world -- have had enough of our abuse.

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Thinking Lateral
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The employees are quitting in droves, according to the report. Yes! It's working, at last! Are you sick and tired of being phoned by sellers? You can tell the signs of a call centre: the phone rings, you answer it, there is silence for ten or more seconds, then the sales spiel begins. Why that silence? It's because it is not a human who has dialled your number. There is a computer which spends all day phoning everyone in the phone book. If no-one answers, the computer phones the next number. If someone does answer, the computer finds a free call centre employee, transfers the call, puts your name up on the employees screen. That's the reason for the pause, the silence. Then, "Hello, am I speaking to XXXX? No, I'm not selling anything, I'm offering a great opportunity..." And so the lies begin. Have you ever been annoyed by a manager who is too important to dial a phone? The secretary says, "Hello, so-an-so would like to speak to you, hold on please..." Sorry, if that so-and-so is too busy, too self-important or too stupid to dial my number, I don't want to speak to them. If it's a computer that phones me -- I am even less interested in talking. Perhaps we should feel sorry for these call centre operators. According to the article, "Young women working in centres were told not to hang up when they were subjected to obscene talk." Today (Monday 20 March) The West reported on research about people who have to put up with customer abuse. If the employee is allowed to answer back, possibly to be rude to the customer, they suffer some stress. If they are not allowed to be rude -- if they are instructed to remain polite with any customer, no matter how abusive -- then the employee is really, really stressed... So, it's great to know that customer abuse is getting through to call centre employees. They are getting the correct message: We do not want to be called by people selling things that we did not request! But let's be kind. Don't shout abuse, don't swear (unless you really want to). Just quietly put down the phone. Don't hang up, just put down the phone. A speaker phone is ideal for this, you can let it listen to the radio for a while. And see how long it takes for the obnoxious salesperson to realise, that they are wasting their time, talking to no-one.

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Independent Thinking
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