Zomato terminates and reinstates employee on social media response

Hyderabad: The negative hashtag running on Twitter after a customer flagged indecent behaviour on the part of an executive which later called out as imposition of Hindi, forced food delivery company Zomato to release an official public apology to the customer.

In a statement in English and Tamil, Zomato said that considering the damage the executive did to the company's diverse culture, the company terminated the executive in question. The tweet underlined that the termination was in line with Zomato's protocols.

Zomato termed the mistake 'for negligence towards our diverse culture'. It said the behaviour was not up to the training Zomato does give to its employees nor it represents the company's stance towards language and diversity.

Zomato also said that it is building a Tamil version of the app, have localised marketing communications in Tamil and are in the process of building a "local Tamil call/support centre in Coimbatore."

A customer named Vysakh tweeted the screenshot of the conversations he held with Zomato, in which the desperate executive who had felt language barrier in communicating with the customer could be read urging the customer to try to know 'the national language Hindi'.

This triggered a heated debate on social media where many people questioned Hindi's prominence with hashtags '#Reject_Zomato' and '#StopHindiImposition'.

DMK MP Kanimozhi also tweeted against the Zomato executive's argument that everyone 'should know little Hindi.'

"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 doesn't necessarily need to know Hindi or English. #Hindi_Theriyathu_Poda," she tweeted.

Zomato's statement terminating the executive was also questioned on social media. Many social media users said the employee should not face a termination but an admonition. Many also urged the company to reinstate the employee.

Shortly after, Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal tweeted that the employee is being reinstated and that this alone cannot be a reason for the employee's termination. "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? 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 tweeted.