READING

Call centres worldwideA few days ago, I had a problem with my mobile phone, so I called the customer services centre of what I thought was a local company. The person who answered was friendly and helpful, but she had an unusual accent, so I decided to do a little research to discover exactly where my call had been taken. It took me a couple of days to find out, but when I did I was astonished. I live in a small town in northern Spain but my call was answered six thousand kilometres away in Santiago, the capital of Chile. So, what's going on? Well, many western companies are gradually moving their telephone enquiries and telesales operations to other, less-developed countries around the world. Whereas, once, all call centre workers sat in boring industrial parks on the outskirts of small towns in your country, now they're just as likely to be sitting in a centre situated in a major city halfway round the world.There are a number of reasons for this, of course. It's all part of the globalization of communications. The internet has made international calls inexpensive, so it doesn't matter where companies have their call centres. As a result, they are moving them to places where they can provide the most reliable service at the lowest price. The lower salaries and cheaper running costs involved in managing a call centre in a developing country are very attractive to large companies. Not only that, but the shortage of jobs in many developing countries means that call centres are able to recruit very highly-qualified people, which is simply not the case in Europe.Language is an important factor, too. Developing countries where Spanish or English is spoken as a first language are very much in demand as a source of call centre workers. As a result, call centres are big business in India. Many Indian people speak English as a first language, so companies in the United States and the United Kingdom are particularly keen to relocate their phone operations to India.In fact, call centres are becoming so important in India that many courses are starting up which offer special training for new workers. These are offered not just by the call centres themselves but by private institutes which have opened specifically to cater for the industry, filling a gap in the market left by more traditional educational institutions such as universities, which simply do not offer the sort of training required. Potential call centre workers can now do courses in skills you wouldn't expect to find on traditional courses, such as how to develop a British accent or how to make small talk with Americans.'As many of our workers have never been to the west, it is important that they learn cultural information to help them talk to people,' says call centre manager Govinda Singh. 'For example, we teach them that English people are always talking about the weather. In some Indian call centres, we even have weather charts on the wall showing the weather in different parts of Europe. After all, on a cold winter's day the last thing someone in England wants to hear is that it's very hot in India!'There is a serious reason for trying to make callers think they are ringing somebody in their own country, and that's because people are often worried about phoning call centres overseas. In the UK, for example, many people feel that if call centres are relocated to India by British companies then jobs in Britain will be lost. Moreover, while they don't feel that the service will be any worse, they are concerned that people in India may not understand their problems. 1. SYNONYMS. Find synomyms in the text for the following words p.1 very surprised about something astonishedp.2 the amount of money spent on electricity, water, rent, etc to run a business running costsp.3 move to another place relocatep.4 provide people with everything they want or need cater forp.4 informal conversation about things that are not important small talk 2. Read the text. Write a word from the text to complete the definitions. 1. Outskirts is a plural noun describing the areas of a town or city that are furthest away from the centre. (noun, paragraph 1)2. Shortage is a noun used to describe a lack of something that you need or want. (noun, paragraph 2)3. Recruited means to get somebody to work in a company or join an organization. (verb, paragraph 2)4. A gap in the market is an opportunity to produce or sell something that is not yet available but people would like to have. (noun phrase, paragraph 4)5. Concerned means worried about something. (adjective, paragraph 6) 3. Read the text again. Match theparagraph summaries with the paragraph numbers. 1. There is a need to teach Indian call centre workers new communication skills, so many courses are now offered. Paragraph 4 2. Now that it's so cheap to make international calls, western companies are relocating to the developing world to take advantage of the lower costs of running a call centre business there. Paragraph 2 3. Indian call centre workers need to learn about British and American culture. Paragraph 5 4. To the surprise of the writer, western companies are opening lots of call centres in the developing world. Paragraph 1 5. Developing countries where a major world language is spoken are popular with western companies. Paragraph 3 6. Many British people are unhappy with the idea of having call centres in India. Paragraph 6 When you are on the webpage, click on "START TEST" 4. SPELLING TEST 5. a) Write the result of your SPELLING TEST. b) Copy the words you misspelt. when you are on the website, click on "START TEST" 6. SYNONYMS TEST 7. a) Write the result of your SYNONYMS TEST. b) Write the synonyms you didn't know. 8. CLOZE TEST 9. Write the result of the CLOZE TEST