89: Cross-cultural Support with Simone Secci

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello, welcome to episode 89 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is cross-cultural support. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Simone Secchi. Simone, it's lovely to have you back. The topic for this week is cross-cultural support. And I would love to spend the next five or six minutes talking to you about how we help customers from all parts of the globe.

Simone Secci: 0:48

Thank you. Uh it's nice to be back. The easiest response to that is that we help them by speaking their language, right? But also that can mean different things. For example, the media industry reference to translation of a language into another, for example, with subtitles, they call it adaptation. And so adaptation means, you know, also adapting all the cultural reference from a language to another, which is a very different process. And I think that when we, you know, when we support customers, we have to do a little bit of that prep work and adapting customers from different countries, of course, to get into that mindset of thinking what their context is. And in especially if we're talking to them in in a sort of like a lingua franca, like a a language that we both speak, but uh but we're not native in that language. You know, so in my in my case it will be, for example, you know, English is my second language. And if I'm talking to a Swedish person in English, for us, it's both like a conductor, but it's not our culture. And and so what is the implication there, right?

Charlotte Ward: 1:57

I think that's a really interesting word that you used right at the start of this, that it's it's an adaptation. And the actual language translation slash adaptation, you're absolutely right, is only part of this, isn't it? We can attempt the multilingual aspect of support directly, but there is so much more adaptation we need to do beyond finding that common language. There's also a lot of cultural adaptation, and linguistically, we're talking about some sense of like idiom and things like that, but we are also, yeah, we are also, and I think you're absolutely right, talking about understanding the customer context, which is really a huge part of this, isn't it?

Simone Secci: 2:39

Yeah, for sure. And um, I think my uh segond experience in support from the I went from support in person when I was working in tourism, uh dealing with people from all different places in the world, and logos. And so you have the stark contrast between people that that live in a city and they expect you to under to know it like the the back of you know the farm of your end or and people from like from other places that uh just you know are looking for directions and understanding how to to get where they want to get. Uh all and you get a sense of another aspect of this, the expectation, right? And so this is another interesting subject about what we were talking about before. What is the expectations of of uh of service in different cultures?

Charlotte Ward: 3:28

Do you think those expectations are mostly derived from the customer context, or are they nationality driven, or is there uh or are there layers of complexity there?

Simone Secci: 3:39

There's several layers of complexity, and and so when I transition from the um in-person support to the to the written support, then it becomes a little bit more complex. You don't have the same clues that you have when you have somebody in front of you. And so you have to learn to read through through between the lines and to get uh elements from the context that you get from an email within an help desk and some, you know, and you and you start to look for clues like the to understand what that person is from, you look for all these clues. And then if you have a little bit of an understanding of different languages without knowing them, you know that some languages have a formal way to address people. And so there is uh a level of that that comes into place when people what what are people expecting from an interaction that derives from all this layering of uh uh interactions that they had in their life and their culture, and then they come to you and they bring in this baggage with them, this this uh, you know, uh cultural uh upbringing.

Charlotte Ward: 4:55

I think you're right though. I think we're quite lucky in support that customers approach us first, and those initial communications can give us a lot of clues as to how we should communicate with that customer on a very individual level.

Simone Secci: 5:10

Yes, absolutely. It's very similar to when you're when you're learning a language and you're you're mimicking what the the other person that you're having a conversation with is is doing or saying because you you're not familiar with that language, so you're trying to imitate that other person. And I think it's a very good exercise to try to mimic and imitate the tone and and the emotion and and um you know the point of view of that customer. And also brings you into a blaze of empathy from a cultural perspective, a linguistic perspective, you approach empathy that way, you know, because you're you're looking at the what the context is, what the expectation is based on what the you what you know about the culture. We've put together what the elements that we that we have and a little bit of our experience, right?

Charlotte Ward: 6:01

We do, and I I I think you're right that it's actually I hadn't really drawn that parallel before, but that responding to customers from different walks of life, different cultures, different languages, is really a huge act of empathy. It and I think that's the biggest thing. It's it's a big effort in understanding, um, and and understanding what you can extract from any communication. And and actually, actually, I think we have to try and step away from the stereotypes that we've grown up with, right? And I think we have to make that a very individual act of understanding. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash eighty nine for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.