posted on February 12, 2004 11:16:40 AM new
ah yes, more good news for the US economy, thank you Mr. Bush and gang....anyone out there that belongs to AOL,getting funny sound like voices these days from there offices?
OKLAHOMA CITY_About 100 workers who moderate AOL's message boards and screen for objectionable online content will be laid off by the end of March, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said.
The jobs of the Community Action Team will be moved to other America Online call centers, and possibly overseas, Graham said Wednesday.
The layoffs will leave AOL with about 1,000 people at its Oklahoma City call center.
"This is a planned part of our ongoing efforts to adjust AOL's member services organization to more closely align with our business goals and customer needs," Graham said.
Two AOL Community Action Team workers, who asked that their names not be used, told The Oklahoman that AOL has been moving nonsales jobs such as billing and technical support to lower-cost countries such as India, the Philippines and South Africa.
Oklahoma City workers previously had been told that because of the sensitive nature of their jobs, they were not at risk for transfer to international centers.
The workers expressed concern that international employees would not understand some of the American slang expressions or cultural references they are trained to screen for in AOL chat rooms.
"My job was to protect kids," said one worker. "They're sending our jobs overseas, where their rules are not the same. If they don't understand our culture, how can they keep the kids safe? I understand the corporate need to save money, but they're missing the moral point."
Graham said AOL provides extensive training to all of its customer service representatives.
"We stand by the ability of anyone in the member services organization who has gone through the same kind of training that everybody else goes through in order to deal with these specific and sometimes sensitive issues," he said.
Yes, India is fast becoming the call center capital of
the world. American companies are taking advantage of
India's large pool of educated and English-speaking
humans. And it's not because these Indians are willing
to work for peanuts. Even better, they're willing to
work for rupees.
For the cost of employing one overworked American, a
company can employ five overjoyed Indians.
Before answering calls from America, these employees
are required to not only speak with an American
accent, but also learn about American culture, perhaps
by watching several episodes of "Jerry Springer."
They're also expected to Americanize their names. If
they're Siddhartha or Suchitra at home, they become
Sid or Sue at work. In other words, they're just like
many Indians in America.
posted on February 12, 2004 11:19:20 AM newSuicide alert over Indian call centres
CALL centre staff working in India for British companies are committing suicide due to the levels of stress they suffer.
Low pay, long working hours and poor conditions have led to mounting pressure on employees, according to medical experts.
The inability of some staff on directory inquiry services to find numbers of well-known UK names and businesses also leads to rows with frustrated customers.
And with some call centres open 24 hours a day, many staff members work unsocial hours. Growing numbers are now calling in sick with stress, with some left so depressed they take their own life.
Delhi-based psychiatrist Dr Jitendra Nagal told trade journal Marketing Week that he counsels "at least two call centre employees every week" for stress.
He said: "This puts a question mark over the corporate social responsibility of the companies that operate these call centres."
Dozens of UK firms have joined the rush to move their call centres to the sub-continent to slash costs.
Last October, Abbey National said it was planning to move around 100 data processing jobs from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Bangalore in India to trim costs.
There are also concerns that hundreds of local Scottish Widows posts could eventually go, with the company planning to create up to 50 back-office processing jobs in India.
posted on February 12, 2004 12:52:06 PM new
I had to drop Olde and company for this reason. The people they had answering their phones had such horrible accents I could not understand them. I could no longer give them stock orders over the phone and have any confidence they would be executed correctly.
posted on February 12, 2004 03:21:08 PM new
If they do transfer those jobs out of the country, I agree, they wont understand all the sexual innuendo, etc.
A lot of Americans are very rude to them too out of frustration of their accents or just rude. (I don't know how they take that crap either.)
