RKS Throwback CANADIAN Documentary: “Bombay Calling”: Up Close and Personal with Those You’d Prefer to Hang Up On

The 2006 National Film Board of Canada documentary, “Bombay Calling” takes you up close and personal with callers operating in a Mumbai call centre you really would prefer not to converse with and perhaps have hung up on in the past.

Indian call centres selling legitimate products and services proliferated for some time in the early 2000’s selling services and products to populations in the developed world. I recall receiving many Indian call centre calls attempting to close a sale often with heavily accented salespeople on horrifically poor telephone lines trying to sell me Bell Canada services. Even the names of the callers were westernized. It was far cheaper to outsource to India than to use domestic labour forces.

Call display coupled with widespread aversion to answering calls from a number you don’t recognize, the call centre selling practice has morphed into scam calls threatening your ruin if you don’t fork over dough. A popular scam call in Canada is purportedly from The Canada Revenue Agency threatening dire consequences unless you immediately pay amounts owing for taxes.

Call centres also currently exist for product and services support and in addition to India on the line it could be the Philippines, El Salvador or Mexico.

The Mumbai call centre featured in the documentary was targeting British Telecom customers attempting to woo them to switch to a competitor. Highly educated university graduates lured by generous salaries work in organized teams with managers and quality control staff to sell. Culture training and accent training are part of the curriculum. Team building exercises, prizes, competitions amongst employees and threats are used to “motivate”. We watch employees at the call centre saying the call centre rocks but after work for drinks it is the call centre sucks!

Instead of that voice on the phone one watches the actual people behind the voices, what their background is, their aspirations and fears and a glimpse at the modernization of India. A humanizing experience.

Perhaps in 2006, when the documentary was filmed, call centres were selling legitimate products and services and one might classify then as annoying but of late they are viewed with distrust as peddlers of scams a far more menacing product line than telecommunications products.

This 70-minute documentary is by Ben Addelman and Sami Mallal.

RKS Throwback CANADIAN Documentary Rating 89/100.