Bridging The Overseas Tech Language Gap

Bridging The Overseas Tech Language Gap William M. Nett

In an attempt to bridge the language gap that has caused companies like Dell to pull their corporate help desks back from India to the US, Indian technologies are making changes in their training. No, it's not teaching them their customer's org charts, and it's not teaching them the latest technology buzz words... get this, its teaching them American English dialects and slang!

Indian tech support companies are teaching their future tech supporters accents like southern drawls, and New York slang. In addition to the dialect studies, names are also being replaced with 'American-sounding' names. So now Praveen is being called Mike and he's got a New York attitude with a Texan accent, and California humor, "Ya wanna whack that there window, git yer Winderz CD and open the driver folder dude."

This is actually pretty intelligent on India's part, you won't know who you're talking to when you call a help desk... or more importantly where you are calling. If this works, then kudos to them for bridging the gap, I just hope they can comprehend well enough their new slang and accents to provide a real service to their customers. One has to wonder also, what impact this will have on Indian culture?

[William M.