Yesterday it was Fabindia… today the pointer came at ‘Zomato’. The food delivery platform has come under fire by the Tamil language speakers after a customer service associate stated that ‘Hindi’ is India’s national language while talking to a customer from Tamil Nadu itself.
The whole topic of the Hindi language is already a sensitive one, especially to those coming from regions were Hindi is not the main language. And they consider the constant imposition of the language as if it is the national language of the country to be disrespectful to their own language.
Frequently you would see Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and more such speakers talking about this on social media. Even the average person from these regions often reject Hindi as a compulsory language, which is entirely fair, to be honest.
This has once again raised that issue.
What Happened With Zomato?
On 18th October, Twitter user ‘Vikash’ posted out a tweet showing his recent chat with a Zomato customer support person. The post revealed that Vikash had tried to raise the issue of a missing item from his order.
During the conversation, the customer talked about getting a refund from the restaurant itself for this mistake. To this, the customer support associate said that they had tried to contact the restaurant but were unable to communicate properly due to language barrier.
When the customer stated that since this service was available in Tamil Nadu then appropriate people should have been hired for the customer support who can speak the local language. In response to this the Zomato associate said that “For your kind information, Hindi is our national language. So it is very common that everybody should know Hindi little bit.”
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This instantly angered the customer who posted about his on his social media and seeing it further angered many other Tamil speakers who once again saw this as a wrongful imposition of the Hindi language on them.
Pretty soon #RejectZomato started to trend on Twitter with thousands condemning the service for this behaviour.
Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato quickly tried to calm down the anger, but also angered some with his words.
Zomato on the other hand came out with a public apology in both English and Tamil language and also informed the customer that the company has “terminated the agent for their negligence towards our diverse culture”.
However, soon after Goyal posted how the employee had been reinstated and that this was not enough cause for termination.
He said that the chat support agents are “not experts on languages and regional sentiments” and that “This is easily something she can learn and do better.”
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: NDTV, The Hindu, The Indian Express
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: RejectZomato, RejectZomato twitter, zomato customer, zomato customer tamil nadu, zomato chat support tamil, Zomato, Twitter, Tamil Nadu, Tamil, Hindinational language, Zomato Controversy
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