We Could Never Understand Why They Refuse To Understand

I received an email from my supervisor with an attachment saying:

Attachment: “consumer_complaint_generalattorney.pdf”

I went through the e-mail, and here’s how it goes:

The customer is a 65+ year old lady, has filed a complaint against the company, citing that she can’t seem to find adequate technical support for her new unit setup. She tried calling the support number, but every time she tried, she got connected to a person speaking a foreign language.

I work in a multinational corporation based in the US. I have been in the organisation for many years, gone through a few promotions, and currently I handle escalations, technical support, and official complaints for people with special needs and physical disabilities, in compliance with the ADA Act by the US Federal Government. So, one can say my current job role is a mandatory requirement for most service/product-based companies.

So today, I went through the e-mail thread and the legal files for more details before I call back the customer.

The customer is from one of the Southeastern States and filed a complaint against the company, which reached our legal team, and from which it reached me.

For a particular unit that she purchased, we can have a person from her part of the state, who will have a similar accent to her and who she can understand to assist her, but they aren’t technically trained to assist in troubleshooting/setup.

The technical team who troubleshoots for that particular unit (my L1 team) is sitting in an another country, my country, where the language of communication is mostly English and are fluent in it, but most wouldn’t even try to speak in an American accent, because in our country, they have this notion that the Yankee accent is kinda funny; we mostly tend to stick to a neutral tongue.

Anyhow, I took a few deep breaths and dialed the number, ready to give my opening script. I mumbled “Esse quam videri” and hoped for the best.

I heard three rings. Someone picked up the phone.

Me: “Hi, my name is [My Name] from [Company]. I am the one handling the legal complaint from the organisation, and I am one of the supervisors, specialized in attending to our customers with physical disabi—”

Before I could finish, I heard a sound.

Customer: “I can’t understand you.”

Then a click.

Silence.

I started thinking, was I speaking too fast? No, I wasn’t. 

Was my accent too foreign for her? Nah, can’t be. I have had really happy customers from parts of the US, even from Boston, who had a thicker accent, who could understand me. I even had a corn farmer from Alabama as a customer once who had one of the thickest southern accents, who told me I could be an American.

What exactly went wrong? I called her again.

I gave her the standard opening script, and I said really slowly, making sure she could comprehend each and every word:

Me: “I will be assisting you with the issue, and anytime you feel like you don’t understand me, you can stop me right there and ask me to repeat, I’ll be more than happy to—”

Customer: *Cutting me off.* “—Yeah, you can help me out, but are you American?”

Me: “No, I am not.”

Customer: “Well, then I am afraid I don’t understand you. Bye.”

Click. She hung up on me again.

I spent some time hanging around the water filter, made myself an espresso, and started typing the reply to the e-mail.

Me: “Hi, supervisor, [Customer] is either a racist or has a fetish towards American Accents. [Customer] has explicitly asked for a person of American descent. Please have someone call her ASAP.”

I deleted the first line of the email and sent it. All the best to me tomorrow.