Customer care reps from ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank or any bank don't default to Hindi
I understand Hindi. But if you're a customer care agent cold-calling a number registered in Karnataka, you do not get to open the conversation in Hindi and expect me to go along with it.
I will switch to Kannada or English and tell you I didn't understand what you said every single time.
The logic is simple: you don't know the customer's language preference until they tell you. So your safe defaults, in order, should be:
- The language of the state you're calling into
- English
Hindi is not a national language. It is not universally spoken. It is not the safe fallback for the entire country outside the Hindi belt.
If the customer prefers Hindi great, accommodate them but defaulting to Hindi when calling someone in Bengaluru, Chennai, or Hyderabad is lazy, presumptuous, and frankly disrespectful to the linguistic identity of that region.
This isn't about being anti-Hindi. It's about basic professional courtesy: know your audience, or at minimum, don't assume.