Visually challenged make their mark in telemarketing

For Muthu, calls made over the phone to customers are not routine calls but clarion calls made to the visual world to recognise their worth.

Being visually challenged has not stopped these confident, young telemarketing executives working for Third Wave, a franchise of Tata Teleservices, from dreaming. It egged them on to give it their best shot.

"I want to be the best telemarketing executive in the country," says Muthu.

Out of the 18 telemarketing executives working for third wave, 10 are visually challenged and are faring "much better than the normal persons", P B Thimmaya, who heads the franchise.

It is a no mean achievement for the National Association of Blind (NAB), Karnataka branch, that out of the over 180 visually challenged men and women imparted computer training by it, nearly 150 are working in the industry including 50 in call centres as telemarketing executives.

"If they (visually challenged) have to give out their best, they need to be absorbed into the mainstream, feel the heat of competition and technological advancement in a corporate world," Thimmaya said.

However, to make muthu, shakir and others like them, to come into their own has "not been easy", says M Srinivas, chief employment officer, NAB.

"Tremendous patience, dedicated effort and perseverance is required to train these persons as they have their mood swings and are extremely sensitive," Srinivas said.

A professional approach in getting the right candidates for the right jobs by providing pre-employment training, grooming candidates to face the interview, providing moral support to the candidates with a regular follow up once they get the job, is very essential, he said.

Through its computer training centre, NAB in collaboration with NIIT, has trained these visually challenged persons in computer skills with the help of jaws (job access with speech).

Call centres were not very forthcoming in providing jobs to the visually challenged persons.

"However, our chance meeting with Thimmaya proved to be a boon and he readily agreed to provide hands on experience to these people at the call centre," Gordon Faife CEO, NAB, said.