I was thinking today as I was recently having a lot of funny issues with a company where it seemed like talking to their customer support would constantly lead to nowhere. Despite what you told them it seemed like they would only hear the words that they wanted to hear as opposed to everything in context. As a result it was like talking to a child or very bad robot.
It then dawned on me as to why this was the case. Since this was in an online environment I can’t exactly see or hear the agent. But what was evidently clear many times was how the person had a funny type of sentence structure. That’s when I realized the person I was talking too probably wasn’t even a native English speaker which made so much sense afterwards.
With that it make so much sense why they only respond by emphasizing only on specific words as is instead of the context of the whole message. For example, it’s like saying if someone said “That’s sick” in context to seeing a crazy athletic move that is a good thing. However this person would interpret it by then answering if the guy has a cold or something. That was essentially what it was like talking to the person.
It made me think how if you are trying to do business in a certain country or area then it’s best to invest in people for that specific area who speak the native tongue while understanding the culture. Otherwise you will have some very unhappy customers.