Alright let me start up with my story. Like many youths in India after passing the high school, I started looking for a job. To get any job of any kind in India you have go through a cut throat competition. Success is sweet but life becomes harder for those who fails to secure a job. I was one among the many failure. I tried again and again but every time I failed and with each failure I lost my confidence and at last I lost all hope. I had accepted my defeat in the rat race & silently I accepted the fact that I will never be able to get any job. I thought had I had my own business and had I have been given the same effort what I am giving now in job hunting I would have been a rich man by now.
Any ways somehow life moved on when suddenly one fine day I saw an advertisement in the news paper that there is a vacancy in a small international BPO (Call Centre) and all you need to know is to speak good English and the salary was quite good as per the Indian standard. BPO industry was pretty new in India at that time.
I was so amazed by the advertisement that without even thought of what the job is all about, I rushed for the interview. And to my surprise for the first time in life, I cleared the interview, I was amazed. I couldn’t believe myself. Finally there was an end to my drought. I realized that I got the job because I could speak good English .I was given a joining date after a week.
Alright so now when I have got a job so its time to party. That day I partied whole night with my friends. Next day I got up late in the morning. Life seems so good but I soon started wondering what exactly I would have to do in a call center. What work can I do by speaking good English? Anyways finally the long awaited day had come when I joined XYZ company (not the real name)
One my first day of my training there were many other people more or less of my age and no body had any idea what the training was going to be. Finally the suspense was broken. We came to know there will be 2 sets of training. The 1st set will be Voice & Accent training and the 2nd set will of telesales training. On our training we learned how to speak English in different accent like the way Americans and British and Aussies speaks. For me it was so difficult to adapt. When our Indian trainer used to speak in English I often failed to understand what he is saying as his English was so good. He was speaking like an American with same tone & intonations. I thought if I was not able to understand the American and British accent how the hell I am going to speak to them over the phone. Every time I speak in English my trainer used to shout at me saying stop speaking like an Indian try speaking like an American otherwise you would be sacked. I was scared. I tried hard to speak like Americans. It’s so hard. Speaking like Americans became a nightmare for me. Anyways after a week we were told that we would be moving to floor area in a few days to take live calls. We were also given some American name. My name was given as Charlie. I was told that from today everybody would call me with English name CHARLIE. I will greet the customer saying” This is Charlie speaking”. I was finding it difficult to accept some other name. I asked why I can’t use my real name with the customers. I was told Americans will find it difficult to pronounce Indian names. They will feel comfortable with English name. Anyways finally I moved to the floor to take live calls.
At first I was nervous, but then I quickly started adapting the job. Very soon I got a hang of the environment. I soon realized that its all about sales, nobody is bothered if I could speak good or bad English. We just had to sell the products & take customers credit card number and which I hate to do it as I myself has credit cards and I understand how it feels when someone ask your credit card number again & again but then if I wont ask the credit card number, I wouldn’t be able to make a sale. So I had to do it. More over there were also some hidden charges on the product which we were told not to tell this to the customers in the beginning but in the end. The formula is first impress the customer and then quickly tell the charges and take the payment details. But 1 day I came to know that the product which I was selling is fraud and found as scam in the US and I was surprised to see that people from USA used to visit us to train how to fool their own people. Its so strange. Any ways I finally left the job and joined another BPO. But in this organization my job was not to make calls but to receive calls and resolve customer's queries. I thought this will be noble job to help people.
My new organization ABC (not the real name) was dealing in mobile phones and was one of the top mobile service providers in UK. I went through almost similar training. Here our job was to resolve billing & technical issues of the customer. The training as well as the trainer (lady)was fantastic. However I noticed one thing which I didn’t observe earlier, Most of the people were quite reluctant about their jobs in this industry. It seems that everybody is here to spend a year or two and then they will leave. That was quite strange to me as I was wondering why people wanted to leave when everything here was so good. Moreover I have heard that the number of people leaving BPO jobs every year is highest comparing with any other industry. The attrition level has touched about 50% in year which means every 100 people you hire 50 people leave the company in a year. Anyways my training soon got over and I started getting along with the job. I got immense satisfaction in helping the customers.
I got satisfactory remarks from customers survey, but very soon I realized that the management is not bothered about if the customer is satisfied or not but they were more keen to the fact if the customer was filling up the survey and if that’s a satisfactory. I find it awkward to force the customer to fill the survey as I believe its customer's choice if he/she wants to fill up the survey .I find it morally wrong but then I had no other choice but then to request the customer again & again to fill up the survey as per instruction from the management. The customers who were happy with me started thinking that there is something fishy and they started doubting on my credibility because of me pushing them towards the survey. Besides this, our working hours were pathetic. Sometimes our shift started at 3 am in the night (known as graveyard shift), sometimes 7 in the morning and sometimes 10 in the night
The change in shift becomes so frequent that I didn’t know when I will be sleeping or eating. I lost track of the days. I didn’t know what date is today’s date. Often started forgetting many things. The graveyard shifts started taking a toll on my health. I now realize that why there is so much attrition in the BPO. Moreover its hard to get leaves and above all our manager used to call us even on week offs that’s ridiculous and you don’t get national holidays in your own country. At last I could not cope with the pressure and soon I left the job.
Now at this time i m really looking for a career change and want to make a move from BPO.
Finally my message to all the people who want to join the BPO league is this:-
Yes there is a good earning potential. In fact there is no effect of recession in BPO as people continuously leave and people continuously join in this industry. If you want to this job go ahead, but be ready cope up with the pressure but 1 thing I must say if you can survive in a BPO industry then you survive any where.
I have heard as per the new US policy these jobs may go back to the US. Any ways I am least bothered if the jobs gonna go back or if it stays back but I really wonder if it goes back will the people in the US be able to work under these pressure. I really wonder about the future of BPO 10 years from now.
Friends, this was my first blog ever. So i would appreciate if u can leave your comments or feedback on this blog.
Regards,
Ashish
