I’m Irish, my husband is Italian, I have a Polish sister-in-law and two of my closest friends are English and American. I’ve worked in five different countries and holidayed in many more. My set-up is not unusual and increasingly we all need to know how to survive in a multi-cultural world.
This is much more than just speaking the language, it’s appreciating national differences, interpreting cultural nuance and, in the contact centre world, designing and delivering customer experiences that are appropriate for each nationality.
At gem we manage customer contacts with consumers from almost 30 countries and some of our experiences in designing multi-cultural customer experience include:
• Spanish consumers like to talk so make sure you plan for lots of time on the phone but Dutch consumers like “no nonsense, no frills” in their answers, get straight to the point;
• The Swedish language has no word for please and sometimes that means they can seem more blunt than they mean to be but they still like you to be empathetic about their problem
• The Dutch like you to be informal in your communications with them, the Germans formal
• The French like you to spend some time apologising for any inconvenience whereas Americans and Indians tend to want you to go directly to the point
However, above all, everyone (no matter what their nationality) w
ants to be treated like an individual. gem is an interesting place to work with almost 50% of our staff multi-lingual and over 95% of them native speakers. We thrive on diversity and delivering a multi-lingual, multi-cultural service which recognises and respects diversity.
Meanwhile, at home, my five year old daughter is demonstrating her own diversity and can say “Hola”, “Fantastico”, “Gracias”, “Me llamo Aisling” and “Vámonos”. She tells me she’s Spanish. Should I tell her that it takes more than speaking the language?
Ciao.