” Please hold for English” – I love it- about time- Thanks Moen.!!!!!!!
No more press one for English.
Good tech support too.
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It's about time.
>>>It's about time.I dunno. If were Moen Corp., I would be carefully weighing the preferences of a single nation versus the other five billion people on earth. Not that the markets are mutually exclusive. Scott.
If were Moen Corp., I would be carefully weighing the preferences of a single nation versus the other five billion people on earth.
Guess it depends on where you're selling the lion's share of your products.
jt8
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. -- Carl Sandburg
Or where you potentially may sell your products.......I think we're going to see increasing inter-dependence of many markets in the future.Scott.
Edited 9/19/2009 10:51 am by Scott
When situations like this come up I always regret I don't speak more languages. Travelling with European friends makes me realize how much I miss out on as they are able to effortlessly immerse themselves in other interesting cultures while I watch from the outside.
Yup, I agree. It's easy to think that all us English speaking people have an advantage in life, and I suppose we do in some ways. But then I remember the word "complacency".Scott.
My bank's ATM gives me the choice of either English or Spanish, so the last time I chose Spanish, though I've never studied that language. No problem getting my money. I did take French while living in Alabama, but a southern French probably doesn't count -- Comment allez vous, y'all? Anyway, the experience tells me that if I can get through Spanish at the ATM, everybody else should be able to get through English at the same site.
Edited 9/19/2009 10:07 pm ET by BARMIL
Edited 9/19/2009 10:10 pm ET by BARMIL
But BARMIL, you've been thru the ATM routine many times already in English. So you know what's coming and how to respond. You could probably get your money even if the text was jibberish.
Not true with English-only for the first-time ATM user, especially if they don't speak English. (And sometimes even tough if they do!)
Jim x 3
Well, yeah, but I did have to indicate a preference for dollars or pesos.
You must have heard the old joke. What do you call a person that speaks three languages... Trilingual
What do you call a person that speaks two languages... bilingual
What do you call a person that speaks one language...American.
Hold onto your hats boys, ther are a bunch of emerging countries that are going to surpass the good ole U S of A (unfortunately)
Brazil is 100% energy independent while just recently finding a huge oil field off their shores. and they were a military dictatorship up till 1983.
We have a lot of soul searching to do and get our manufacturing base back instead of shufling exotic derivatives around without creating any value.
I am part of a global team of product managers with customers from major corps (HP, IBM, GE, GM, AMEX, Citibank) based all around the world. Our team is based in the UK, Russia, Italy, India, Australia, Canada, and Latin America. When we say Americans are "1 country focused", you need to take into account that that is mostly due to geography.
I live in NJ. If I drive 5 hours, which country am I still in? Yep, you guessed it, the U.S. If you lived in Europe, you could pass thru 5 countries. Europeans have a geographical advantage that allows them to experience other cultures and languages and at the end of the day, they are just as singularly cultural minded as "Americans" are.
Regarding countries like Brazil, while they may be energy independant, there are hundreds of reasons why they won't even come close to being the economic powerhouse like the U.S. any time soon. Energy independance is but a gem in a giant pit of dark coal. We've been trying to help our customers do business in Latin America and the capabilities just aren't there yet...heck, the phone company is only quoting a 60% accuracy rate on their listed phone numbers. Imagine dealing with that during your normal day.
And I know someone working on the problem of Americans "trusting" (not trusting actually) S American merchants enought to give them cc numbers over the phone or online.
you are dialing a phone number in the US - they should answer in English.
Honestly it's the "Please hold" part that annoys me more.
Edited 9/20/2009 2:38 pm ET by fingersandtoes
Were they speaking American, England, or the Australian variety?
jt8
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-- Carl Sandburg
I talked over three faucet installations- and they seemed like Mericans
Moen has great customer service. Vic
I was bitching to a Sears parts and service center employee about their phone system. He suggested I choose Spanish, as most likely the person will be within the U.S. and speak english!
Mike
Most likely the person would be in America and speak English -- now THAT is rich. And worth remembering.
Yes, if the number is a US phone number, it rankles me that I am asked to press 1 for English. In China, they don't ask you to press 1 for Mandarin, trust me (lived there for 10 years). In Mexico, and sure they don't ask you to press 1 for Spanish (anyone out there have any experience with that...? )
If they want to ask you to press some digit for any other language, that makes sense. HOWEVER, to ask ME to express a preference for English inside my own country, when I called a US-based phone number, is just plain wrong.
When I lived in China, I learned Mandarin. If you live here, you need to learn English.
(Not to mention that almost every community has FREE (yes, free -- your tax dollars ar work) English classes, for ANYONE (legal or illegal, they'll teach all comers) of any background/first language.
English is one darn tough language to learn, it's true. But there are tougher ones.
If someone WANTS to learn English it is not impossilble.
((( on a separate note: As for the rest of us, we could learn to be more patiend and admiring of those who do attempt to learn our language, when they stumble and get things mixed up. Americans tend to be arrogant and impatient with language learners)))
I walked out of Lowes, once, when looking for a de-humidifier. All the boxes pointing out were Spanish. No one botherd putting the English side facing out.
I don't shop at Lowe's anymore. For anything.
H
Junkman,
I have sometimes initiated 2 simultaneous phone calls to the same place. Then I select English with 1 and Spanish with the other.
Generally the wait time is the same, but sometimes the Spanish is faster to get to a real person. And the Spanish speaker always also speaks English (and has never refused to help in English). The English wait time is never shorter. And for some government sites where they just hang up on you if there are too many callers already in queue, you can sometimes get thru in Spanish even when they hang up on the English side.
Don't tell anyone.
Jim x 3
si.
"Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi
No, I didn't vote for him; but he IS my president. I pray for the his safety, and the safety of his family every day. And I pray that he makes wise decisions.