The Hostile Customer and the Passive Agent - Cultural Interfaces in the Indian Outsourcing Industry
The hostile customer and the passive agent: Cultural Interfaces in the Indian Outsourcing Industry
Abstract Relying on qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this paper explores how transnational call centers in India evolve practices in an attempt to counter the occasional hostility by customers based in the United States. These range from techniques which prevent customers from recognizing that their call is being routed to India through the use of neutralized accents, ‘locational masking’ and familiarizing agents with American culture to Taylorist modes of ensuring ‘passivity’ in the agent in the face of a hostile customer. I argue that these practices form an inherent part of transnational call center work and subsequently lend to its uniqueness as a poster child of globalization in a brave new post industrial world.
“When we listened back to calls people had complained about often they were fine. Some people wanted the member of staff to fail because they were in India. I don’t know why that should be, but when customers start voting with their feet, you have to respond.”
—Adrian Web (Call Center Manager, BBC news, 2/14/2007) quoted in Wang (2009).
Introduction
Globalized work processes have fundamentally altered the ways in which labor markets are organized around the world (Mirchandani 2004). The global outsourcing industry also referred to as the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is arguably the poster child of globalization. It is a relatively new industry that has been growing at a very fast pace in the last few years around the world (Deery & Kinnie 2004). It includes a range of services, from back office operations such as airlines ticket and insurance claims processing and medical transcription services, to call centers that provide 24/7 customer support, back office services, telemarketing, for banks, credit card companies, computer companies and the like (Upadhya 2006). The biggest trend in this industry in recent
Abstract Relying on qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this paper explores how transnational call centers in India evolve practices in an attempt to counter the occasional hostility by customers based in the United States. These range from techniques which prevent customers from recognizing that their call is being routed to India through the use of neutralized accents, ‘locational masking’ and familiarizing agents with American culture to Taylorist modes of ensuring ‘passivity’ in the agent in the face of a hostile customer. I argue that these practices form an inherent part of transnational call center work and subsequently lend to its uniqueness as a poster child of globalization in a brave new post industrial world.
“When we listened back to calls people had complained about often they were fine. Some people wanted the member of staff to fail because they were in India. I don’t know why that should be, but when customers start voting with their feet, you have to respond.”
—Adrian Web (Call Center Manager, BBC news, 2/14/2007) quoted in Wang (2009).
Introduction
Globalized work processes have fundamentally altered the ways in which labor markets are organized around the world (Mirchandani 2004). The global outsourcing industry also referred to as the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is arguably the poster child of globalization. It is a relatively new industry that has been growing at a very fast pace in the last few years around the world (Deery & Kinnie 2004). It includes a range of services, from back office operations such as airlines ticket and insurance claims processing and medical transcription services, to call centers that provide 24/7 customer support, back office services, telemarketing, for banks, credit card companies, computer companies and the like (Upadhya 2006). The biggest trend in this industry in recent
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