hi! first of all i hope this post is suitable for this subreddit as i don’t live in korea or ever been there. i also want to clarify that i do not mean to offend koreans and/or their english abilities. english is not my native language as well but i am just genuinely confused as this is an issue occurring only in the korean department, other language departments in my company don’t stumble upon situations like these.
i work in korean tech support (through messages, not phone calls) for a very well-known company. the company itself is not based in korea but the app is commonly used by koreans and is currently one of the top 10 used sns in korea. sometimes customers initially reach out to us in english as they think that we do not provide support in korean, but in many cases as soon as they receive a response from us in korean they switch back. however, very often customers just keep messaging us in english until the end. i wouldn’t mind it that much but more often than not their english is…. completely incomprehensible and although i try really hard, i am unable to understand what exactly is their issue (ironically, those who do switch to korean on their own usually have advanced/almost perfect english). i have to outright beg the customer multiple times to finally explain the situation in korean so i can help them.
initially, i thought it’s because our first name is always visible when replying to the customer and i have a very obvious and long non-korean name. hence i just assumed that the customers think i actually don’t know korean and i’m using a translator. but what i noticed later on is that this happens to all of my native korean coworkers as well, who have the most generic 홍길동-ish names. i’m not close with them at all so i can’t really ask them about this but im guessing it doesn’t bother them as much as it bothers me since they’re korean. personally however, it slightly pains me as i spent years mastering the language and now getting employed as the only foreigner in my department just to have to force koreans everyday to not use broken english when talking to me.
honestly i just want to know if there’s any possible reason behind this. i get that some people might want to practice a foreign language in real life situations but when a customer is reaching out and pouring out their frustration at me because they have an issue they cannot resolve on their own, using a language that you don’t quite know is just making the situation harder for both parties. is there something that i’m missing here? is this some sort of cultural difference?
submitted by /u/dalbit913
[link] [comments]
