Chennai Call Center Executives to be trained by British Institute
The Sunderland Supersight Academy, A British Academy, is all set to train individuals and employees from call centers. The training will be for a total period of 4 months. The training will basically comprise of "neutralization" of accent, and " cultural sensitization" to their customers. If the need arises, some students could also be sent to Britain, to learn more about their firms' customers, officials of the institute said. Mr. Mark Nicholas, general manager of the academy, announced its launch on Thursday, saying that, "After the industries like shipping and manufacturing, it is now the turn of the services sector to plateau in Britain. I don't see Britain averse to outsourcing".
This academy is being set up by Foresight group, a conglomerate, with varied interests in areas like shipping, oil exploration and leisure, with Sunderland college, which is the fifth largest college in the U.K. Around 1,500 resource people are expected to be produced every year. Foresight's Indian subsidiary will be known by the name of Supersight.
Supersight's executive director said, that, "By the year 2010, a mind boggling, one million professionals will be needed to cater to the outsourcing that is going to flood the sub continent".
"When a country provides around 60-70 percent reduction in costs to companies, it is but natural to outsource your operations there. So in this regard India does have a strong case. India is a country with tremendous potential for BPO, as companies get cheap and skilled, english speaking manpower at almost half the cost," he added. "Though the only glitch now seems to be the localized accents, which is not a very tough ask to change, since the urban populace is well exposed to American and U.K. kind of English through English movie channels and sitcoms. This problem could well be solved with some training", said Nanban. Although it is a known fact that India boasts of a rich and literate pool of talent, one thing that needs to be checked out is, whether this arrangement will suit the end customer", he pointed out.
The half a dozen specialty teachers of the academy from both, Britain and India, will impart to the students, training in skill sets, such as, listening skills, customer care know-how, telemarketing capabilities, call handling and stress management techniques. Apart from this the teachers will also visit each other's countries, on a regular basis.
"In our course module, we haven't gone for any particular accent, say, an American accent or an UK accent, but we have focused on a "neutral accent module", Nicholas told IANS. He also said that, "It is difficult to pick up a foreign accent, even after months of training, and is almost impossible to do so in a matter of 4 months, and hence the course structure".
In this way, the academy hopes to solve the challenges that the Indian call centers are facing today, i.e. trying to copy American accents and finding it difficult to be understood by the customer. This he hoped will help to, "fill in the gaps in the Indian customer care industry AND MAKING IT MORE COMPETITIVE in the process".
