Language Barrier or Selective Hearing

Scenario 1

Customer: I was at your store this morning and I have spoken with a representative for an hour and he gave me computation about pro–rated charges about my service and I can’t seem to understand it that’s why I’m calling now. I can’t understand why I have to pay this $48.52? If you can’t explain this to me then this is not good customer service.

(Note: Customer was given a computation manually on a piece of paper)

Scenario 2

Customer: Where are you located? I don’t want to speak to someone who doesn’t even know how to speak English!! Give me somebody else to speak with!!! I don’t want to speak to you!!!

Scenario 3

Customer: I was looking at my bill and I see a late fee charge of $5 and a check reversal of $36. Can you waive that one? I was not informed about it. I’m not gonna pay that! This is ridiculous!

Question:

If you are an agent, have you encountered this type of issues? Kukurutin ko yung pisngi mo kapag sumagot ka ng Hindi!!

Let us splice the above scenario and somehow empathize with the customer since after all empathy is feeling what the customer is feeling.

In Scenario 1, the customer is already face to face with a representative. That representative speaks the same language as she has with all the accent and inflection of words all the same. They may even belong to the same vicinity since it is impossible for a customer from Texas to travel to Washington just to have a bill explained but why is it the customer still doesn’t understand her bill?

Let’s take equal chances on this one. The misunderstanding could either come from the customer or the store representative. The possibility is that the store representative didn’t know how to compute or the computation was not presented in a coherent manner. The customer on the other hand may have weak grasp on mathematics thus she can’t comprehend or she has already established a baseline on her brain that the amount she will be paying was already fixated thus she wanted to arrive to that amount that she already has in mind.

An incompetent store representative? In the United States? With all the immigrant coming from different countries in the world some of them the brightest? With all the Human Development Index being met, still a store representative not the right person for the job? In this scenario, we need to eliminate the blame to the store representative. And if the store representative is not to be blamed then who is it? Then it would be the customer but the saying is “Customer is always right” so therefore somebody still needs to be blamed.

Aha! There’s a customer hotline, let me call that!!

In Scenario 2, the customer sense that your accent is different. She knows that outsourcing is the trend nowadays for multinational companies. Her address shows she is a resident of California. Every time she is visiting a hospital in California, from Emergency Room to X–ray to Laboratory, they are all Asians and they came from one country – Philippines. Having been dealing with them, when she dial the customer service hotline, another person from that fucking country will be answering her.

Filipinos are neutral by nature. But when the opinion is out of context, sumasagot yan! And in the United States where freedom of expression is a right including to those who are holder of H1B visa or immigrant visa, expect that hindi rin magpapatalo yan. It could be that that customer who are calling you has an argument with a Filipino and her opinion was defeated and in order to get even she will rant to you in return. This is where I am saying that for racist people, “Kahit dilaan mo ang puwet niyan, wala ka pa ring magagawang maganda sa kanya!!” On the other hand, there are Filipinos also na namamana yung katangahan nung surroundings nila.

Analyzing further, it’s as if it is your accent or your race who will resolve the issue. But was it really the accent or race which will solve the issue then let’s integrate Scenario 1 in this situation. They both have the same language and color of skin as that of the store representative and yet hindi pa rin sila nagkaintindihan!!!

Another barrier to active listening is when customer is providing too much information that needs to be stratified or rebutted with a clarifying question. Sometimes those clarifying question is being interpreted as lack of comprehension. The reason why customers are getting different response from different agents is because the main concern is not being identified correctly. There are customers who will give you a bunch of story and you go figure out what is the concern instead of giving it up front. Still another form of dependency.

In Scenario 3, customer was using the overuse word of “I was not informed about it” every time she is seeing something unusual about her bill. Whereas, in their check book, it clearly states that they made a partial payment only just for their service not to get interrupted and so there is late fee charge. Or in their wish to have their service reconnected, they will process a payment using a check that doesn’t have sufficient funds thereby creating a check reversal fee. And all of those charges are clearly stated on the terms and condition when they signed up to the service thus to say that “I was not informed about it,” the only thing I can say now is, “Were you not informed also when you get devirginized?”

What is the socio–political implication of the above scenarios?

In Scenario 1 and Scenario 2, you will notice that Americans has the propensity to be dependent to foreign workers. In the Middle East, they are exporting foreign workers to their country. For the Americans, they are importing the job through outsourcing. Both countries are dependent to foreign workers. In fact, in Scenario 2, the mere fact that customer says, “Give me somebody else to speak with” is already a sign of dependency. If I want to speak to somebody else, I will hang up the phone and dial again, I’m not going to deal with you. The customer is still depending on you to provide that another person whom they will speak with. Whenever I am getting this kind of call, I get flattered because that means I still have a job tomorrow for that kind of dependency.

In Scenario 3, customer created the demand for the job to be outsource. Sa Pilipinas ba uso yung nagpapa–waive ng charges? Puwede mo ba sabihin mo sa Meralco na i–waive yung Universal Charges sa bill mo kasi you were not informed about it?

With all these waiving of charges, companies are losing profit. Yes, it could be just $5 but multiplied by say 10,000 customers then that’s $50,000 already which they will recuperate in return from their outsource operation. The psychology of American customers is that, it’s as if, companies has the moral obligation to fix their life and they have a certain degree of entitlement for being a customer. But being a customer, you also use the service provided to you and that service doesn’t comes free, you have to pay for it.

The concept of “help” is another language barrier. Help is being extended to those who already exhausted everything they can in their end within the context of company policy and the issue is still irresolvable. Some customer would say, “So you can’t help me?” It’s as if “help” is defined as “Harry Potter with his wand pointed and saying, Wingardium Leviosa!!!”

American companies are paying millions of dollars to website developer and programmers so that customers will be able to do in their end what CSR’s can do so thereby eliminating the need to outsource jobs. All the best programmers and website developers are in the United States and yet customers are still calling CSR to do for them even the simplest task of “payment processing.” Some would alibi, “I want to do it the old school way” or others would say, “I don’t have a computer.” With most of the website nowadays has the “mobile version” it takes will and determination to help yourself. Some companies are pushing for self service options and yet customers are still calling CSR even if the site already says that they are not eligible for it and they are on denial and still want to get something.  

Most people in the world has the so called “American Dream.” Filipinos line up at American Embassy in the hope of getting a visa to be able to work in the US. But if you are a CSR and every day you are expose to this type of issues, somehow you also have an idea that their life is not a bed of roses wherein at the end of the day they are like us who has bills to pay.

Though we are not physically present to the same location as they are, somehow it also gives us an insight how their lifestyle is running and if you are not that sensitive to those issues, chances are, given the opportunity to immigrate there, you will soon personify the same person whom you are dealing with, only this time, you are already on the other line, having tremendous issues!!!

For American consumers and politicians, at face value, it may seem like we are stealing their job or companies just wanted to have a tremendous load of profit but come to think of it, with all the above scenario, it is just as simple as the law of supply and demand. For as long as the demand for “dependency” is high, expect those call centers to sprout like mushrooms anywhere in the country.