Globalization has led to the expansion of business outsourcing, where English has become the global business language. India dominates the English speaking markets since the British colonial rule has left its deep imprints on India. However, the way English is spoken in India differs from the way it is spoken at other places. Thus, voice and accent training have become an integral part of the training in voice-based BPOs. Voice and accent training entail the teaching of proper articulation of segmental sounds, i.e., consonants, vowels and diphthongs, while keeping in mind, the mother tongue influence. Stress, rhythm and intonation are three important suprasegmental elements used in English. Training in these suprasegmental features is also imparted in order to render better comprehensibility to the speech of call center employees. This article discusses various issues to be considered, while providing accent training to employees working in Indian BPOs. The vowel shift in American English, semantic differences between British and American English, as well as the rate of speech are few areas which are also delved upon.

Customer service is no longer confined within the geographical boundaries of a particular country. Globalization has led to the expansion of business outsourcing. BPO as an industry has emerged as a phenomenon in recent times. BPOs provide a new paradigm for support, using world-class technology, people and service solutions. The success of a BPO lies in its ability to deliver world-class support through people, process and technology. The required human resource has to be of appropriate quality in order to support customer needs. The availability of adequate quality workforce is a major determinant in the choice of call center locations (Richardson and Marshall, 1999). So, an important aspect in the consideration of the workforce is to have a pool of employees well versed in the dialects and languages of the nations that they would serve (Read, 2001). There are plenty of opportunities for those developing countries that have large available pools of manpower who can speak the languages of the international markets. Colonial rule has played a major role in developing the linguistic abilities of certain countries. These countries are sheathed and armored in English, French and the Spanish language to capture the global markets. Figure 1 indicates the importance of English in determining the countries importing US jobs.

India dominates the English speaking markets as the British rule has left its imprint of Queen's English on the teeming population of India, giving rise to different forms of English such as `Butler English', `Babu English', etc. We cannot ignore the sociolinguistic profile of Indian English. There are different varieties of English in India based on region, ethnic group and proficiency. As a result, we have Gujarati English, Marathi English, Punjabi English, Anglo-Indian English, Babu English and Butler English of which, Indian English cutting across regions and ethnic groups is the standard (Kachru, 1983).

Soft Skills Journal, Globalization, business outsourcing, global business language, voice-based BPOs, comprehensibility, Indian BPOs, American English, Customer service, geographical boundaries, human resource, employees, global markets, English speaking markets, sociolinguistic profile, Indian English, Gujarati English, Marathi English, Punjabi English, Anglo-Indian English, Babu English, Butler English