Saturday, July 23, 2016

Corporate Discrimination Against English Speaking Customers

I had occasion to call a large corporate customer service center. My call was answered by an automated system that indicated that a representative would be with me shortly.  At regular intervals I was reinformed that a representative would be with me in a moment. Automated apologies that they had not been able to answer the call, but that a representative would be with me shortly.
After about 30 minutes of this repeated message I was disconnected by them.

I decided to call back and chose the Spanish option.  After about one minute a person got on the line and started speaking with me in Spanish. I answered in English and the conversation proceeded in English and the representative dealt with the issue I had originally call the company about in a very efficient manner.

Now, I ask, "why was I able to accomplish this by choosing the Spanish option, but not the English option?"  This is not the first time I have done this. The results have been consistent.  I get better service by dialing the Spanish option than the English option.

Why would a company be biased to provide better service to Spanish speaking customers than English speaking customers? I cannot think of one reason for this bias.  Perhaps some readers could opine on this matter.