IBM software will help workers at call centers improve English

[OhioChick]

Rajesh Mahapatra
Associated Press
Nov. 19, 2006 12:00 AM

NEW DELHI - Even as Indian call centers have thrived in the past decade, helping U.S. companies cut costs and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, they have faced a seemingly insurmountable problem: Most Indian employees speak heavily accented English.

Now IBM Corp.'s India Research Lab says it has a way to help operators fix the harsh consonants, local idioms and occasionally different grammar of Indian English, often a source of frustration of those who call in search of tech support and other information.

IBM, which operates large call center facilities here, has developed a Web-based training technology that can help improve language skills of operators.

Although the technology was initially developed for its call-center employees in India, it has broad applicability for individuals as well as in schools and businesses, said Ashish Verma, who led efforts to develop the tool at the India Research Lab in New Delhi.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1119outsourcing-accents1119.html

~snip~ Scores of Western firms routinely transfer back-office work to India, where wages are low and skilled workers are plentiful.

Over the next three years, it plans to invest $6 billion in India, making it a hub for its outsourcing business. It plans to hire more employees for all of its businesses, including Daksh eServices, an Indian call-center company that employs more than 25,000 people and was acquired by IBM in 2004.

[Deja Q]

1. Cutting costs and creating jobs

But not in America...

I'd rather learn to do things on my own if this trend continues.


(which is sad, I already do... but many don't and I betcha they still won't.)

[Mountainman]

2. Don't know what to say. When I get a call from India and the person can't pronounce my name and

says, "Hi this is Nancy," I say, no it isn't and don't call me anymore. You want to do something about outsourcing? Don't talk to people from call centers.


In order to save some time, I'll post what someone else might say. Don't get mad at the people from call centers, get mad at the company that hires them.

There is no good answer to this I think.

[Deja Q]

3. *DING* *DING* *DING* we have a winner!

I'm not mad at the people in the call centers.

I'm mad at American consumers who bitch and groan over the high prices their local private person (aka Small to Medium Business, or SMB for short) offers compared to the low prices the big chains offer.

The 80 year old woman who whines about the high price her ex-stylist used to ask for because Greateth Clipxd (name changed) has the same service for much less. (though a large chain can do what sole proprietors cannot: Starve out the competition. :dunce: )

America is eating its own. Colloqueally speaking, the big fish will merely give up hot dogs and popcorn and eat curry and moo goo gai pan - is globalization about nation building or abandoning the US? What's left for the SMBs in America, who are the hot dogs and popcorn?

And the government needs to do something to make SMBs in America profitable.

Since we want globalization, slash the cost of living to match the wages everybody wants. Then we're globalized and nobody can complain. Right now it's a gigantic imbalance and America's SMBs are hurting the most.

What am I missing? I certainly don't understand.

Edit: Grammar & spelling