Global Dreams, Local Nightmares

One fine morning in Phoenix, a small town in Arizona, US,

Sarah Parker, a 25-year old associate with an architect firm was leaving for

office in an ecstatic mood, the reason being her date that evening with the firm's

debonair vice president. To celebrate the romantic occasion Parker decided to

pick up some expensive gift. "That reminds me of checking my overdraft with

the bank," Parker muttered as she zoomed out of her driveway. On the next

traffic intersection, she called up American Express from her mobile: unknown to

her, the call landed up with Sandra who is sitting in a Gurgaon call center,

where the time is two in the morning.

Now, cut to Shikha Bhatia of Defence Colony in New Delhi. The

petite 23-year old instructional designer with an e-learning company, she too

has a date in the evening with the marketing manager of her organization. Like

Parker, she too decides on buying a gift for her date. As a result: she called

up HDFC Bank to check on the funds available on her credit card. Her call too

landed up in a Gurgaon call center: this time with Radha, but at a more earthly

hour of 9 am.

Besides, reinforcing that romance has the same language

across continents, the two episodes are similar on other counts too. Apart from

the fact that the call centers where Sandra and Radha work are hardly half a

kilometer apart in Sector 14 Gurgaon, it's a co-incidence that Sandra's real

name is also Radha, but that Parker would never know.

It might be the case of two Radhas both sitting in Gurgaon,

but there would be little similarity in Parker's and Bhatia's experiences

with them in the next few minutes. And therein lies the tragedy of the fledgling

Indian domestic BPO market.

Sandra nee Radha was politeness personified with Parker and

answered all her queries with utmost concern; result: though Parker obtained a

smaller overdraft than she originally thought of, she was still in a happy mood

when she purchased her gift and finally ended up having a great evening. On the

other hand, Radha sounded disinterested and curt with Bhatia. "We can't

do anything now. Our systems are down and you have to call later," she kept

on saying. Finally, when an exasperated Bhatia was about to cut off she rattled

off a long line of thank-you like a robot. Result: Bhatia started the day

irritably and ended up completely spoiling her evening.

The Horror Tales



Except the names, that have been changed to protect identities, there is

nothing imaginary about the above episodes. It is in fact this contrasting

picture that is the reason why the domestic BPO industry still does not invoke

the respect it should have otherwise deserved, though at Rs 2,640 crore in

2004-05, it makes up 11% of the entire Indian BPO industry. In comparison to the

immensely sexed up BPO export market; the domestic counterpart is not only a

poor cousin, but more like an untouchable pariah: pathetic quality of customer

service, unskilled agents lacking in basic knowledge and courtesy, uncouth

behavior, low wages; the woes of the domestic BPO industry seem endless.

With call centers now becoming pervasive even in the domestic

scenario, almost every Indian citizen surely has a litany of such woes to

narrate. Compiling all horror tales would almost make this report an anthology:

couple of experiences with this correspondent in the last one month would

probably suffice, since every one of you must have a similar tale. And mind you,

these experiences are not with any Tom or Dick company, but they involve ICICI

Bank, India's number two bank and SpiceJet, the new economy airlines that

claims to revolutionalize the Indian skies.

This correspondent was flying from Delhi to Mumbai on a 10:40

pm SpiceJet flight when an SMS arrived at 4 am informing that the flight has

been delayed to midnight. This was followed by a phone call at 9 pm informing

that the flight has been delayed to 2 am. However, on arrival at the airport at

1 am, I found that the flight had taken off at the scheduled time. There was a

whole group of irate passengers stranded at the Delhi airport, all of whom had

received the same message.

 

Only when the SpiceJet ground staff were threatened with

civil actions for willful harassment, it was found that the Ahmedabad call

center had made the call to all passengers without checking their port of origin-the

flight was scheduled to land there at 2 am. Though SpiceJet accommodated us at

the first morning flight, this sort of call center gaffe with any airline in the

Western world would have definitely merited a horde of lawsuits.

In another instance, this correspondent in Mumbai called up

ICICI Bank at least hundred times in two weeks asking for a credit card bill

statement-despite repeated promises that it would be sent both by snail mail

as well as e-mail, till date nothing has arrived. Problem is every time you

call, it is directed to a different agent to whom you have to narrate the entire

history again-a sound strategy to fend off customers, since after some time

anybody would get irritated.

Though these are not any sort of personal indictments against

SpiceJet and ICICI Bank, it is certain that if Indian call centers servicing the

Western world had behaved similarly, not only would they have invited lawsuits,

they would have definitely lost these clients. The disparity in the quality of

services that a domestic customer gets vis-à-vis an American is stark. It is

ironical that a country that prides itself as the back office to the world has

such poor customer services to offer its own people. The culture of taking

customers for granted somehow continues even today, though India has opened up

its markets to unlimited competition in almost every sector.