As food delivery platform Zomato faced backlash on social media over a customer service executive referring to Hindi as the national language, the company’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal called for a higher level of tolerance on Tuesday.

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“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?” he tweeted.

Goyal’s remark comes as a Zomato customer service executive asked a customer from Tamil Nadu to learn the "national language" Hindi to be able to converse. She was unable to clarify the customer’s query citing the language barrier.

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?

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) October 19, 2021

The user Vikash posted screenshots of the conversation and shortly after #RejectZomato began to trend on Twitter.

The customer said if Zomato is available in Tamil Nadu, it should have hired people who understand the local language. To this, the executive responded, "For your kind information, Hindi is our national language. So, it is very common that everybody should know Hindi little bit."

Reacting to the public outrage, Zomato apologised and said that the incident was unacceptable. The firm sacked the agent for negligence towards diverse culture.

Ordered food in zomato and an item was missed. 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. @zomatocare pic.twitter.com/gJ04DNKM7w

— Vikash (@Vikash67456607) October 18, 2021

“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," it said. Zomato added it was building a Tamil version of its mobile app and that it has already localised its marketing communication in the state.

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However, the company’s CEO later announced the reinstatement of the executive saying it was "an ignorant mistake" on the part of the employee. “This alone is not something she should have been fired for. This is easily something she can learn and do better about going forward,” Goyal tweeted.

He added that the company’s 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 and nor is he, Zomato CEO said in the Twitter thread.

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“Having said that, we should all tolerate each other's imperfections. And appreciate each other's language and regional sentiments. 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,” he added.

(Edited by : Kanishka Sarkar)