#RejectZomato trends on Twitter after executive tells Tamil Nadu customer 'Hindi is national language'

Food delivery platform Zomato faced flak on social media after a customer care executive told a customer from Tamil Nadu that he should know Hindi since it is the country’s “national language.”

Three hashtags -- #Hindi_Theriyathu_Poda, #HindiIsNotNationalLanguage, and #RejectZomato – have been trending on Twitter since Monday evening.

After an uproar over the incident, Zomato released a statement in English and Tamil on Tuesday afternoon to apologise on behalf of the customer care agent, saying the company understands that food and language are "core to any local culture" and that they "take both of them seriously".

Netizens said that Zomato’s executive’s assertion was “wrong” and the company should respect the sentiments of the locals. The hashtag also received support from outside Tamil Nadu with people from southern states including Karnataka narrating incidents of customer care executives insisting them to speak in Hindi.

The issue also received political attention with DMK MP Kanimozhi tweeting that it should be made mandatory for companies to serve their customers in their local language. “A customer doesn’t necessarily need to know Hindi or English. #Hindi_Theriyathu_Poda,” she wrote on her verified Twitter page.

Vikash, who is from Tamil Nadu, took to Twitter on Monday evening to complain that he was denied a refund for a missing food item in his order for “not knowing Hindi” and shared screenshots of his conversation. The agent told Vikash that he was not able to get a refund from the restaurant “due to language barrier” to which the customer responded that Zomato should have hired people with knowledge of Tamil since it doing business in Tamil Nadu.

“For your kind information, Hindi is our national language. So it is very common that everybody should know Hindi a little bit,” the Zomato agent told Vikash, according to the screenshot of their conversation.

As the issue dominated the discussion on Twitter, Zomato issued a statement apologising for the incident. “We have terminated the agent for their negligence towards our diverse culture. The termination is in line with our protocols, and agent's behaviour was clearly against the principles of sensitivity that we train our agents for on a regular basis,” Zomato said.

“This customer care agent's statements do not represent our company's stance towards language and diversity,” the company said, adding that besides building a Tamil version of its app, Zomato has already localised marketing communication in Tamil for the state by signing up music director Aniruddh Ravichander."

“We are in the process of building a local Tamil call/support centre in Coimbatore. We understand food and language are core to any local culture and we take both of them seriously,” the company said.

After the statement said the agent was being sacked, Tamil Twitter was at it yet again seeking to know the need for firing someone rather than helping them understand. Hours later, Goyal took to Twitter to announce that the agent has been reinstated.

“An ignorant mistake by someone in a support centre of a food delivery company became a national issue. The level of tolerance and chill in our country needs to be way higher than it is nowadays. Who's to be blamed here?” he asked.

“And remember, our call centre agents are young people, who are at the start of their learning curves and careers. They are not experts on languages and regional sentiments. Nor am I, btw. Having said that, we should all tolerate each other's imperfections. And appreciate each other's language and regional sentiments,” he added.

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