Food delivery company Zomato on Tuesday apologized to a person who alleged that the company’s customer care agent refused to refund the money to him for not knowing the Hindi language. Along with this, the company also announced the removal of the employee concerned. The tweet from a Twitter handle named Vikas created a lot of controversy, leading to #RejectZomato trending on the micro-blogging site.
In response, Zomato apologized to Vikas and issued a statement in both Tamil and English languages, saying the company believes in diversity. However, the company’s founder Deepender Goyal later announced the reinstatement of the sacked employee, saying it was an “unintentional mistake” on the part of the employee.
Earlier, Vikas had tweeted that he had ordered food from Zomato and complained that an item was not delivered. She tweeted, tagging the company, “Customer care said money can’t be refunded as I don’t know Hindi. Got a lesson that as an Indian I should know Hindi. He called me a liar because he Didn’t know Tamil. Zomato, you can’t talk to a customer in this manner.” He also shared screenshots of his alleged conversation with the former customer care agent.
It is alleged that the agent of Zomato told Vikas that Hindi is the national language of the country.
Zomato Cleanup
In a statement issued in two languages, Tamil and English, beginning with “Vadakkam” Tamil Nadu, Zomato said the company “regrets” the behavior of its former employee.
The statement issued on Zomato’s Twitter handle read, “We have fired the agent for our disregard for our diverse culture. The termination is in accordance with our protocol and the agent’s behavior was clearly against the principles of sensitivity. For which we also train our agents regularly.
It said the fired employee’s statement “does not reflect our company’s position on language and diversity.” Zomato said that it is developing the Tamil version of its mobile app and has already started its marketing communication in the local language.
It also hinted at making famous Tamil musician Anirudh Ravichandran as its local brand ambassador. The company is setting up a local Tamil call center at Coimbatore in the state.
“We believe that food and language are an integral part of any local culture and we take both very seriously,” Zomato said.
laid back employee
Meanwhile, Goyal defended the agent, saying that most of the people in the call center are young people, who are “at an early stage of their learning curve.”
In a series of tweets, he said, “An inadvertent mistake by someone at the food delivery company’s support center has become a national issue. The level of tolerance and calmness in our country needs to be much higher than today. Who is held responsible here? Let us all tolerate each other’s mistakes and appreciate each other’s language and regional sentiments.”
Goyal said, “…and remember, our call center agents are young people, who are in their early stages of learning curve and career. They are not experts in languages and regional sentiments and neither am I. We call agents Re-hiring – they shouldn’t be fired just for this. They can easily learn it and do better going forward.”
Referring to the controversy, Kanimozhi, a DMK leader and the party’s Lok Sabha MP, said the customer care of some companies works only in select languages. “It should be mandatory for companies to serve their customers in their local languages. A customer doesn’t need to know Hindi or English. I don’t know Hindi,” she tweeted.
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