Just when you’d gotten used to coping with strong Hindi accents on technical support lines:
NEW DELHI: Struggling to diversify the delivery footprint to take advantage of low-cost centres, India’s BPO industry is currently losing 70 per cent of all incremental voice and call centre business to competitors like Philippines and countries in Eastern Europe, says a report.
“It is estimated that in the ongoing decade India might lose $ 30 billion in terms of foreign exchange earnings to Philippines, which has become the top destination for Indian investors,” Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said. Thus there is a need to reduce costs and make operations leaner across the BPO industry,” he added.
So now we’ll adjust to strong Filipino and Eastern European accents. I recall an incident, maybe a dozen years ago, in which after finding the accented English of the obviously Russian support person on the other end of the support line just too opaque I addressed him in Russian. The poor guy practically became hysterical.
