Language Barrier

The other day I had an old Japanese gentleman customer saying he cannot view his bill online. He has been at our website accordingly for several hours and he said the webpage is loading and loading.. and loading..  He has Windows 8 laptop connected to internet through WIFI. We were both struggling as he speaks little English. He agreed we do a screen sharing for me to know the cause of the trouble. 

OMG! I logged in to his computer and found out it was in Japanese language! I managed to explain we download Chrome as IE was causing the trouble. He struggled translating to me some of the dialog box on his computer from Japanese to English. True enough, after downloading Chrome, he was able to log in to our website and viewed his online bills.

He apologized for him not thinking straight as he had a bad day. I said not his fault but it was the browser, and that, he is smart as despite our language barrier he was able to guide me to resolve his trouble. I do hope I made him feel good by saying that, in addition to resolving the issue he called about.

We may have language barrier but the most important is we can communicate and be understood. If there is something I like in my job. Helping and sharing with customers what I knew. I may not see the happy expression on their faces. Yet the tone of the voice is enough to say I made a difference, even for just a brief moment in their lives.