{"id":84,"date":"2005-10-04T09:56:49","date_gmt":"2005-10-04T13:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/10\/04\/rita-hot-line-answered-in-india\/"},"modified":"2005-10-04T09:56:49","modified_gmt":"2005-10-04T13:56:49","slug":"rita-hot-line-answered-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/10\/04\/rita-hot-line-answered-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Rita hot line answered in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

A Texas company is
\nspinning its off-shoring. Would they have done a better job from
\nLufkin? Are they “giving back” to Texas?  What does 2 hours of
\ntraining get you … from Gandhinagar or from Lufkin?<\/span>
\nBy Rupak Sanyal, ASSOCIATED PRESS,October 4, 2005\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

GANDHINAGAR,
\nIndia — Until recently, Madhavi Patel came to work each evening at a
\ncall center in western India, put on her headset and American accent
\nand spent the night taking calls from Americans about their credit
\ncards.  Then, Hurricane Rita hit.
    The call center, run by Effective Teleservices of Lufkin,
\nTexas, set up a hot line for victims of the hurricane, and Miss Patel
\nand more than 240 of her colleagues began long days and nights fielding
\nthousands of calls from frantic, scared people affected by the storm
\nhalf a world away.
\n
\n    The employees at the call center in Gandhinagar, the capital
\nof Gujarat state, are giving Texas residents information about relief
\noperations and where to get food, gasoline and shelter, said center
\ndirector Jim Iyoob, a former Texan.
\n
\n …
\n    One call came from a couple who drove about 60 miles with their
\nchildren to flee the oncoming hurricane but ran out of gasoline and
\nwere stuck for six hours.
\n    The hot line directed them to a gas station a
\nfew miles away, Mr. Iyoob said.  The couple later called back to
\nthank the call center operators, he said.
    …
\n    “We have taken up the responsibility to save people’s lives,
\nbut we are not here to see our names printed in newspapers,” she said.
\n
\n    Mr. Iyoob, a member of the company’s board,
\nsaid employees were given two hours of training before the hot line
\nopened.
\n
\n    “Once upon a time, years back, I used to live in Texas and
\nnever thought that being in Gujarat in India, I would be able to give
\nit something in return,” he said.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Texas company is spinning its off-shoring. Would they have done a better job from Lufkin? Are they “giving back” to Texas?  What does 2 hours of training get you … from Gandhinagar or from Lufkin? By Rupak Sanyal, ASSOCIATED PRESS,October 4, 2005 GANDHINAGAR, India — Until recently, Madhavi Patel came to work each evening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-katrina-and-america"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}