Jyoti need notbecome Jenny

The point which I was always had against a job with a BPO was that you have to compromise on your nationality. But the good news is that this is changing or rather has already changed. Now that outsourcing is being accepted as a global phenomenon, call centres have decided to drop the aliases and accented English has given way to global English. Says Akhtar of Vision Unlimited, “Handling sdervices for clients from different voice cultures is tough. Everyone understands the need for global English. With time American as well as the British clients have accepted the fact that India can provide quality services, so they do not mind speaking to an Indian.”“Now everyone knows that they are speaking to an Indian. Companies abroad realise that it is more important that the message reaches across to a client rather than stress on developing an accent,” feels Sanjay Bhartiya, who has been involved with training people for BPOs for past four years.And just what is global English? Says, Sona a trainer at Hero Mindmine, “Global English is nothing more than neutralised and spoken English, with neither a put-on accent nor the influence of mother tongue or the inherent native accent. Nobody wants to hear a fake accent.” And what about the aliases Akhtar say, “ Largely the aliases are no longer being used. We have proven our mettle in the field of, say, IT so Kiran now need not become Jenny or Kenny for troubleshooting expertise in that area. In many outbound call centres aliases are being used because there is a 50 per cent possibility that an American would not like an Indian selling him something.” Sona says, “Different processes have different requirements. Using an alias is fine if the firm feels that the client will be more comfortable using a familiar name, other than that someone may have a problem pronouncing your name and it might become embarrassing for you as well as him.” Irndeep Kaur, as trainer at Mohali, says, “The emphasis is on decreasing MTI (Mother Tongue Influence) and training youngsters to use colloquial words or slang and commonly used words that would make the person on the end feel comfortable while communicating with a BPO executive. The stress is on correct pronunciation.” Akhtar and Sona agree. Sona says, “ We still use a lot of old-fashioned words, use ings, which may be correct in the Indian context, but the need is to teach them correct grammar, structuring a sentence. An acquired accent is revealed if the grammar is not wrong. The need is to teach them neutral, comfortable, easy to comprehend language.”