Learning racial hierarchies: Communication skills training in transnational customer service work

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to focus on the communications skills training given to transnational call center workers in India whose jobs involve providing customer service to Western customers. Emotion work is a key component of customer service jobs, and this work is constructed as an important soft skill.

Design/methodology/approach

Between 2002 and 2009, 100 interviews were conducted with customer service workers, trainers and managers in India. Respondents provided detailed descriptions of their training curricula and some workers shared their complete set of training booklets. The analysis for this paper is based on a section of the curricula that focuses on communication skills used during training programs for Indian customer service agents.

Findings

Training curricula designed to enhance the communication skills of call center agents are vehicles through which workers learn to make sense of their place in social, economic and cross‐national hierarchies.

Research limitations/implications

The study of emotion work in relation to workplace learning occurs in the context of global economic regimes.

Originality/value

Training curricula on communication skills serves to help workers to cope with the expression of customer abuse. Rather, there is a need to develop regulations that protect workers from customer aggression.

Citation

Mirchandani, K. (2012), "Learning racial hierarchies: Communication skills training in transnational customer service work", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 338-350. https://doi.org/10.1108/13665621211239877