Bollywood film star death brings down outsourced customer service

The death of a Bollywood film star led to the breakdown of customer service at a number of UK firms that have outsourced their call centres to India.

The death of a local film star, Rajkumar, sparked "civil unrest" in Bangalore, leading to a number of service providers, including Infosys and Wipro, to shut down for the day.

News reports said that obsessive fans burned tires and overturned vehicles as they demanded that Rajkumar be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour. Rajkumar, star of over 200 films, died of a heart attack, aged 77.

UK ISP Be emailed its customers to warn them that call centre service would be affected by the riots. The email noted: "We have just been informed that there is a 24-hour government enforced curfew in Bangalore due to local civil unrest and, as a result, we are unable to handle any calls or tickets from there as of 5.30pm today. Unfortunately this unrest has affected not only our main call centre, but also our backup sites.

"We are doing everything we can to make alternative arrangements and will keep you updated on the situation. Please raise tickets in the member centre if you have anything you would like to discuss and we will get back to you as soon as possible."