The Indian call centre has assumed an almost mythical status that transcends its actual place in global commerce. It represents all that is good – and bad – about the rise of contact centres in modern day business.
So when popular Hong Kong-based writer Chetan Bhagat set his novel inside a New Delhi call centre it caught the attention of publishers from around the world.
The story concerns the lives of six agents who take inbound calls for a US appliance company. They work when India is asleep and America is awake, have fake names – for example Shyam is Sam at work – and are trained to speak in American accents on the phone.
Bhagat has done his homework and there is plenty of information about the actual working conditions that contact centre professionals in NZ will find interesting. Having seen a documentary film about Indian agents last year it rang true (no pun intended!).
As for the plot, all six agents have compelling stories, but the resolution at the end of the novel (and I won’t give it away and spoil it) wasn’t convincing. However the personal – and professional – relationships, and the issues that are raised, such as the racial conflict between Indian agents and American customers, seemed all too real.
In the end, who can resist a book with the following line?
“Mr Shyam, you are turning into a mousepad, people are rolling over you every day."
Mouthpiece has two copies of One Night at the Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat valued at $26.99 each to give away, courtesy of Random House.
Email me – sarah@tuanz.org.nz – if you’d like to go into the draw to win a free copy. Competition runs for week.