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BPO Curry Rating: 2/10

Even though Accenture fails on most of the fronts, the Cafeteria in Accenture deserves to win an award, so BPO Curry team decided to award Accenture for providing the Tastiest Food in the BPO Industry.

Accenture (located in Vikhroli) is one of the major call centers in Mumbai with a dearth of decent English speaking crowd. Probably it is it’s location in central Mumbai that keeps away the majority of English speaking graduates residing in the western suburbs, north Mumbai and south Mumbai. Accenture Mumbai’s biggest process is a voice based Technical Support for a Broadband Internet Service provider in USA that also happens to be one of the major telecom companies in USA. Along with that, they also have a UK based voice as well as back office process, which isn’t that big.

Entry Criteria: If you speak English, even broken English, which may be grammatically incorrect, you still stand a good chance of grabbing a job at Accenture. Accenture is extremely lenient in its recruitment procedure. They do ensure that the people they recruit do not have a regional accent (exceptions are always there). It is not that Accenture does not have fluent English speakers. We interviewed one of the most fluent English speakers, who has worked with Accenture for nearly 2 months and she left the job as she was not satisfied with the company. Aastha (name changed) is a 26 year old girl with an excellent command over the English language and a diction that may even put many voice and accent trainers to shame.

BPO Curry: Thank you for your time, Aastha. Tell us something about the interview procedure for Accenture.

Aastha : Getting a job in Accenture is not that easy as it is made out to be. I gave my interview at a consultancy in Andheri west. It was an in-house interview. The first round was the ‘Free Speech Round’. There were 5 of us in the interview room. My friend and I cleared the free speech round after speaking on a topic of our own. There was a lady from North Eastern part of India and she was rejected due to her regional accent. The remaining two guys had a major grammar issue. After being short listed, the next round was a telephonic interview with the Operations Manager. The manager sounded as if he was asleep after doing a hectic night shift and was least interested in carrying on with a sensible conversation. The only question posed by him was “Do you know something about junk emails and ISP?”

The consultant helped me clear this round as I was briefed in advance about the possible questions normally posed by an Ops Manager. The answers to the assessment paper or the question paper provided to us by Accenture in the consultancy was provided by the consultant. So you can imagine how easy it is to fool someone. Can't say fooling, because Accenture surely was aware as to what it was getting into by letting the consultants conduct the written assessment. Once I cleared the telephonic interview, I had to wait for the HR to arrive at the consultancy for the final round of interview. She was there in an hour or so and I had a one-on-one interview with her. She asked general questions like “Tell me something about yourself”, “Why Accenture?”, “Why did you leave your previous company?”, “Your Salary expectation” etc. Once it was over, I was rolled out an offer.

The salary they offered me was the maximum they could at that time The take home salary was Rupees 14,700 (since I had 2 years experience), there was a joining bonus of 40,000 Rupees and a Retention Bonus of around 40,000 Rupees. The 20,000 Rupees out of 40,000 is received on completion of 3^rd month (You get around 17-18K after tax deduction + the monthly salary of 14700 rupees in the third month’s salary). The remaining 20,000 Rupees is provided in installments. You get approximately Rupees 6,666 in the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th month. The 7^th month, you get a salary of Rs 14,700 only and the eight month you get the 20,000 Retention bonus (based on your performance, you have to meet expectation), the remaining 20,000 Rupees of the retention bonus is provided after completion of 1 year.

BPO Curry: Wow! That was a good piece of information. I am sure many people would now be induced towards joining Accenture.

Aastha: I wish them luck in that case! I couldn’t stay in Accenture for a longer time, because I didn’t find anything good in the organization apart from food and Voice and Accent Training.

BPO Curry: We will come to the good part later. Were you satisfied with your first two month’s salary?

Aastha: I want to warn everyone out here. I was cheated by Accenture. When I received the offer letter, the HR told me that I would receive Rupees 14,700 for the first two months; however, it was not true. I received just over 11,000 Rupees as my salary, as Accenture deducted around 2500 bucks for food coupons which I never requested. They have a system where we need to register before a specific date to ensure that around 2000-2500 Rupees is not deducted from our salary. Since I joined on 27^th, Accenture assumed that everyone wanted to avail of Sodexo food coupons to escape heavy tax deduction. This was utter crap, what they called a major deduction didn’t amount for more than 150 Rupees. Everyone in my batch wanted 2500 Rupees to be a part of their in-hand salary, but we all were cheated by Accenture as we only got to know about this during our induction which was around 20 days after our date of joining. We all changed the option on their online system and chose to receive 2500 as part of our salary in the next month.

BPO Curry: That is really bad. We can understand what you all must have been through. Thank you for cautioning our readers against this bad policy.

Aastha: Not a problem. It is better that we all discuss the salary policy before joining any company, specially the ones located in the Central suburbs of Mumbai. (Laughing…..)

BPO Curry: Tell us something about your first day in Accenture.

Aastha: It may be surprising, but we didn’t have our induction on the first day. The official Induction happened only after the completion of 3 weeks of voice and accent training. The first day comprised of form filling, UTI bank formalities, document submission and Batch Allocation.

BPO Curry: Brief us on the Batch Allocation, please.

Aastha: The Batch allocation is very simple. Everyone residing in the western Mumbai was put in one batch and the ones residing in Central and Eastern Mumbai in a different batch. I got a great batch with many fluent English speakers.

BPO Curry: So how was voice and accent training in Accenture?

Aastha: I was lucky to get an awesome trainer called Vinita from CommuniK (A Vendor trainer who was not employed with Accenture directly). She was a beutiful fair Sindhi lady with a natural American Accent and a damn good vocabulary. There was one irritating chap called “Aseem” who was managing the assessment and he had a fake or a put-on American Accent. Vinita’s accent was wonderful. The Voice and Accent training was for 3 weeks which was extended due to training cancellation during Mumbai Blasts on 11^th July and heavy rains a week before that. Therefore, my voice and accent training lasted for 4 weeks. The training went on for 8 hours each day with weekly offs on Saturday and Sunday. During training, the batch of 20 something was divided into 4 teams and the entire training revolved around team activities. Vinita had lots of game in her basket of ‘Fun training’. Every day we used to listen to various American accents, songs, speeches and complete grammar exercises. We used to watch one American movie a day or 2-3 episodes of Friends each day. We had several presentations in team on American Culture, voice and Accent and Free Speech. The trainer provided us with 25 topics on which we had to prepare a speech of 90 seconds. We gave our mid assessment after 10 days and were given extensive feedback by our fantastic trainer.

The final assessment was taken by Aseem and it we were given some weird topics to speak on. Those topics were not listed in the 25 topics given to us by our trainer. 2 of my batch mates failed to clear the assessment conducted by Aseem. After the assessment, we were required to give client assessment over the telephone. The training co-ordinator was present in the room and we were required to record our voice on the Client’s IVR. Each one of us had to speak on 2 random topics chosen by the IVR and reading a few sentences that were process specific. Out of the 18 trainees who cleared the assessment conducted by Aseem only managed to clear the assessment conducted by the client. The remaining trainees were asked to give the assessment again. I was one of the lucky ones who cleared the client assessment on the very first attempt. The process training started after 3 days of boring induction where half of the attendees were asleep. The Managers who spoke were grammatically disgusting and their accent and pronounciation sucked big time. I started feeling uneasy when I saw people some agents promoted to SME (Subject Matter Expert) after spending 2-3 years in the company. In fact, with Accenture, growth chances are very bleak. You need to spend around 2 years to even think of applying for an IJP. In companies like BIM Daksh, you are eligible after 3-6 months. Many a times, good performers are hand picked in the first two months itself. Accenture sucks big time if you are looking out for growth.

BPO Curry: Aastha, thank you so much for the information. We really appreciate you giving us an insight on the training and growth in Accenture. It was quite an eye opener.

Aastha: My pleasure (….takes a deep breath)

BPO Curry: Tell us something about the Cafeteria and the Food in Accenture.

Aastha: I was just waiting for you to throw this question. I just loved the food in Accenture. Accenture has a huge Cafeteria on the ground floor in the call center area. It is huge and has 4-5 different caterers. Good News: Manohar caterers do not have a counter in Accenture. The Egg-Biryani available in the dinner is very popular. You get snacks and fast food at a cheap rate. A plate of Poha would cost you around 5-8 Rupees. Almost every food item is available in the Accenture Cafeteria. You name it and they have it, be it pastry, ice-creams, burgers, moghlai food or anything under the sun. Accenture deserves an award for providing the tastiest food in the BPO industry.

BPO Curry: That was elaborately tasty (…we started feeling hungry). Now let us come to perhaps the most controversial part – The Accenture Transport.

Aastha: Thank you so much for bringing this up. I have so much to say on this issue. The transport provided by Accenture is Pathetic. Let me give you an idea as to how efficient it is. The first day of voice and accent training was supposed to commence at 12:30 AM. We were told that we would get a call at 11 PM and the Cab would come to pick us up by 11 PM. I waited till 11:15, however nobody called me up. I was frustrated as well as worried. I tried calling up the Accenture transport helpdesk but their number was busy as usual. I kept on waiting and it was 12:45 AM now. I reside at Kemps Corner, Grant Road west, and it takes 1 hour to reach Vikhroli (Accenture) by cab. Out of frustration, I went to sleep at 12:45 AM thinking that they forgot to put my name in the transport list. Being a girl, I couldn’t travel alone till Vikhroli late night. I slept for an hour and my sister woke me up after an hour as the driver rang up my residence number at 1:45 AM. I took the cab at 1:55 AM and reached office at 3 AM. I thought that it was the first day fiasco and I didn’t blame Accenture for the pick up mess. However, it happened every day. The pick up was always delayed and adding fuel to the fire was the delayed drop. After the end of our shift, we used to literally fight with the transport department to provide us cabs. We always used to get a cab post 1 hour of our shift ending. This was ridiculous. We all made sure that we reach office on time, but Accenture didn’t ensure that we reach home on time. They were totally indifferent to our issues and concerns.

BPO Curry: That must have been such a pain, especially when the company is located in a remote part of Mumbai.

Aastha: It was indeed difficult.

BPO Curry: So how was the process training?

Aastha: Disgusting, pathetic, loathsome and sick! The trainer’s name was Sachin Parab. He was not at all sincere in his work. He didn’t teach us anything relevant. The process training modules were web-based where we were required to listen to a recorded training module on the computer and learn the process ourselves without any practical. The trainer was always our of the classroom busy chit chatting with other trainer or any girl from the training or HR team. Out of 8 hours of process training, our batch was on a break for 5 hours. The trainer was a lazy Marathi fellow whose communication skills were miserable and was least interesting in imparting any knowledge he had. After 3 weeks of process training, we didn’t learn anything and 3 of us decided to put down our papers as the training provided to us were less than satisfactory and we were not at all confident in taking calls. Accenture has just 1 day of mentoring unlike in other companies where OJT (On Job Training) lasts for even more than a month. Thanks to some really bad trainers like Sachin Parab, Accenture would keep losing good employees.

BPO Curry: You are not the only one to be dissatisfied with the training. We spoke with other ex-employees of Accenture as well who primarily left because of bad training. Even the joining and retention bonus couldn’t help Accenture retain those great employees.

Aastha: Absolutely, only those who can’t get any better job stick with a company like Accenture.

BPO Curry: Please elaborate on the exit formalities and how long did it take for you to receive the full and final settlement?

Aastha: This is very important. I want all the readers to pay attention to what I say. Accenture is the worst company when it comes to receiving your full and final settlement. In fact I made a wrong decision of leaving on 25^th. I should have waited for 5 more days and absconded after taking the salary. At least I could have saved myself from the Agony of receiving the final settlement after nearly 2 months.

Accenture promised me that it would take not more than 15 days to receive the final settlement amount. For two consecutive months, I had to send several reminder emails to the stupid HR lady named Dhanashree Sivalaben. She never used to attend any calls thereby leaving me with only one option – Emailing her. Even after several emails and calls, I didn’t get my final settlement amount. Note: This is ridiculous, but you must have internet access to check your email account daily for a stupid email from Chennai asking you to confirm your resignation. If you fail to reply them, they would not process the final settlement. One of my friends resided in Nagpur and was an outstation candidate who resigned along with me. She had not access to the internet and she relied on me to reply to their stupid email. There was one more guy from Mumbai who resigned with me. That guy sent an email to CNN IBN News channel complaining about Accenture. Only then did their HR department came into action and expedited our settlement procedure. It was an agony. Accenture was a nightmare.

BPO Curry: That is really disgusting. We hate it when our salary is even delayed by a day. You must have been really patient to wait for more than 2 months to get what was deservingly yours.

Aastha: It was a sad episode of my life. I am glad it got over soon.

BPO Curry: Tell us something we do not know about Accenture.

Aastha: Accenture is very particular about the dress code. They think that a human mind can only perform better if a person wears formal clothes. This is ridiculous. I do not subscribe to this rule of making formal wear compulsory during weekdays. I find casual or semi formal clothes more comfortable and I perform my best when I feel comfortable. It is the attitude that you carry to work that matters and not what you wear outside.

The washrooms in Accenture were not clean. They look like Sarkari Shauchalaya (Public Toilet) with bad floor and a terrible smell all over.

Every company insists on displaying ID cards carrying the company name. Accenture is stupid in this case. We get two cards, one is an Access card and the other one the ID card. We are not allowed to display the ID card; we are only allowed to display the access card without the company name on it.

The operation managers, the HR team, the process trainers kind of make you feel that the official language in the company is Marathi. Even though they have banners displaying English is compulsory on the floor, majority of the agents prefer to speak in Marathi or Hindi (not with the customers).

The crowd in Accenture is sub-standard. Many of the agents on the floor can barely construct a grammatically correct sentence; still they are there on the floor taking calls.

BPO Curry: Aastha, thank you so much for your time. I am sure your interview would prove to be very useful for people who are thinking of joining Accenture.