Deepinder Goyal reinstates Zomato employee fired over ‘national language’ remark : Tech News

New Delhi: came under fire on Monday after a customer in Tamil Nadu posted screenshots of a chat with a customer service executive of the food delivery firm, who told him that his refund could not be processed because of a language barrier, and that everyone should know Hindi as it is the national language. The customer, who goes by Vikash on Twitter, said he had ordered food through Zomato but that an item was missing.

“Customer care says amount can’t be refunded as I didn’t know Hindi. Also takes lesson that being an Indian I should know Hindi. Tagged me a liar as he didn’t know Tamil. @zomato not the way you talk to a customer,” he said in the tweet.

The exchange quickly triggered a storm on Twitter and soon enough #Reject_Zomato was trending.

Following the backlash, Zomato apologised to Vikash and said that the incident was unacceptable. The company also issued a statement in Tamil and English, stressing that it stood for diversity. It said it had fired the employee in question.

“We have terminated the agent for their negligence towards our diverse culture. The termination is in line with our protocols and (the) agent’s behaviour was clearly against the principles of sensitivity that we train our agents for on a regular basis,” the statement read.

However, in a series of tweets, Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal said the company was reinstating the employee. He wrote: “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… 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.”

Zomato said in its statement that it was building a Tamil version of its app and that it had already localised its marketing communication in the state.

With inputs from PTI