02-11-2004, 02:15 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Apocalypse Nerd
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Over 1/2 of Fortune 500 Companies are Outsourcing -Have you been outsourced?
Quote:
Diverted to Delhi
Indiana or India? Do you know where your customer service calls are going?
By Suzy Brannon
 You call Delta about a flight reservation, America Express about your bill, or Dell for technical help with your home PC. The person you talk to sounds like the girl next door. She probably is a girl next door. It's just that her neighbors are in India.
With more than 200 of the Fortune 500 companies outsourcing their call centers to India, most of us have unknowingly talked with someone in the South Asian nation impersonating a local operator. And it's not just American companies that are using Indian call centers. English and Australian companies are catching on to the popular trend as well.
Political, economic, and cultural concerns and implications aside, outsourcing is now big business in India. With 30 percent of college graduates in India unable to find jobs, competition to get hired by a call center is fierce. Though Indian call center employees earn a fraction of the salary of their American counterparts, they pull in an annual $3,000 to $5,000 in a country where the per capita income is less than $500.
"Diverted to Delhi" looks at those on the other end of our calls. It follows a group of college graduates as they go through a three-week crash course at a private college to improve their English and presentation skills, which they hope will prepare them for demanding call center job interviews. The one-hour documentary, third in a series of "Nerd Nation" documentaries, also looks at a group who passed the rigorous interview process and is going through job training. These young Indians must change their names, modify their accents to be able to toggle between English dialects, and put aside their own cultural identities as they learn to speak and think like their international callers.
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http://www.techtv.com/nerdnation/sho...597649,00.html
Last edited by Astrocloud; 02-11-2004 at 02:19 PM..
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