Chennai Oct 19 PTI Restaurant aggregator and food delivery company Zomato on Tuesday apologised to a person who alleged that he was denied refund by its customer care agent for not knowing Hindi and announced terminating the services of the employee concernedA tweet from a user who goes by the handle Vikash67456607 triggered a major Twitter backlash with the hashtag RejectZomato trending on top at the microblogging siteIn response Zomato apologised to Vikash and also issued a statement both in Tamil and English stressing that the company stood for diversityEarlier Vikash tweeted he had ordered food on Zomato and complained that an item was missingCustomer care says amount cant be refunded as I didnt know Hindi Also takes lesson that being an Indian I should know Hindi Tagged me a liar as he didnt know Tamil zomato not the way you talk to a customer he tweeted and tagged the company while sharing screenshots of his purported chat with the former customer care agent in questionThe Zomato agent also allegedly told Vikash that Hindi was the countrys national languageIn its statement in the two languages which started off with the traditional Tamil salutation Vanakkam Tamil Nadu Zomato said the company was sorry for the behaviour of its former employeeWe have terminated the agent for their negligence towards our diverse culture The termination is in line with our protocols and the agents behaviour was clearly against the principles of sensitivity that we train our agents for on a regular basis the statement uploaded on Zomatos Twitter handle saidIt said the sacked employees statements do not represent our companys stance towards language and diversity Zomato further said it was building a Tamil version of its mobile app and that it had already localised its marketing communication in the local language in the stateIt also pointed to roping in well-known Tamil musician Anirudh Ravichander as its local brand ambassadorThe company was in the process of building a local Tamil callsupport centre in Coimbatore in the stateWe understand food and language are core to any local culture and we take both of them seriously it added PTI SA ROH ROH

Chennai Oct 19 PTI Restaurant aggregator and food delivery company Zomato on Tuesday apologised to a person who alleged that he was denied refund by its customer care agent for not knowing Hindi and announced terminating the services of the employee concerned A tweet from a user who goes by the handle Vikash67456607 triggered a major Twitter backlash with the hashtag RejectZomato trending on top at the microblogging site In response Zomato apologised to Vikash and also issued a statement both in Tamil and English stressing that the company stood for diversity However company founder Deepinder Goyal later announced reinstating the sacked agent saying it was an ignorant mistake on the part of the employee Earlier Vikash tweeted he had ordered food on Zomato and complained that an item was missing Customer care says amount cant be refunded as I didnt know Hindi Also takes lesson that being an Indian I should know Hindi Tagged me a liar as he didnt know Tamil zomato not the way you talk to a customer he tweeted and tagged the company while sharing screenshots of his purported chat with the former customer care agent in question The Zomato agent also allegedly told Vikash that Hindi was the countrys national language In its statement in the two languages which started off with the traditional Tamil salutation Vanakkam Tamil Nadu Zomato said the company was sorry for the behaviour of its former employee We have terminated the agent for their negligence towards our diverse culture The termination is in line with our protocols and the agents behaviour was clearly against the principles of sensitivity that we train our agents for on a regular basis the statement uploaded on Zomatos Twitter handle said It said the sacked employees statements do not represent our companys stance towards language and diversity Zomato further said it was building a Tamil version of its mobile app and that it had already localised its marketing communication in the local language in the state It also pointed to roping in well-known Tamil musician Anirudh Ravichander as its local brand ambassador The company was in the process of building a local Tamil callsupport centre in Coimbatore in the state We understand food and language are core to any local culture and we take both of them seriously it added Meanwhile Goyal sought to defend the agent saying most people at the call centre were young people at the start of their learning curves In a series of tweets he said 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 Whos to be blamed here We should all tolerate each others imperfections and appreciate each others language and regional sentiments he said Tamil Nadu we love you Just as much as we love the rest of the country Not more not less We are all the same as much as we are different Goyal said 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 On that note we are reinstating the agent this alone is not something she should have been fired for This is easily something she can learn and do better about going forward he added In an apparent reference to the controversy DMK leader and the partys Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi said the customer care of some companies operate only in select languages It should be made mandatory for companies to serve their customers in their local language A customer doesnt necessarily need to know Hindi or English HindiTheriyathuPoda I dont know Hindi she tweeted PTI SA SS SS