With repeated calls for better soft skills, a large part of which is English language training, in the Sri Lankan IT/BPO, the new face of, at the very least, the local call centre sector may be shifting as Dialog last week held the island-wide launch of a new offering - "Say it in English."
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| The Call Centre |
Launched first as a pilot programme in February 2011, the unique thing about this programme is that it makes use, or re-integrates the business community, 36 senior citizens (95% of total employees) who had their primary education in English as voice trnslators for this Sinhala-to-English or Tamil-to-English, with many of them recruited from old age homes, etc. In fact, the programme appears at least somewhat successful since, without any exposure thus far, it has managed to sign up 20,000 registered users.
This service is currenty available to Dialog customers only by dialling 550, and costs Rs. 5 per minute if a caller is not registered and Rs. 5 per week to register with call charges at Rs. 1 per minute for registered users. The Rajagiriya-based call centre is operated by ProActivation (Pvt) Ltd whose employees are paid Rs. 100 per hour, for a four hour shift. |
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