…How employee accent affects the customer’s experience
The Gateway to Africa (I hope we still are) must be prepared to receive a variety of nationalities and ethnicities. Each of these visitors will come into the country with their own behaviours, eccentricities, attitudes, etc. Some of the behaviours of those who visit the shores of this country might seem strange to us, just as some of the things we do here might also be very alien to our visitors. As a matter of fact, it is those differences in the way we do things and see things—the cultural differences—that makes this world such a beautiful place. The constant interactions we have with others from places outside of our domain are meant to make us more understanding of others.
It is a truth that as we open our doors to others, one area that is at the fore front of our interactions with the rest of the world will be the business arena. The marketplace has now become markedly multicultural. Every single minute of every single day, foreign visitors are dealing with businesses in this country. Whether via face-to-face interactions, over the phone or by online channels, the Ghanaian business community is at the receiving end of many business interactions between individuals of different cultures.
Sometimes, just as would be expected, some of these dealings do not go well and one party walks away disappointed or even worse, angry. Sometimes, the challenge is with the language barrier. Sometimes, the problem is with the different approaches of different cultures to business in general. One group might have a relaxed approach to doing business while another group goes about business with a matter of fact approach. All these might make doing business across cultures quite challenging. But that does not mean, business does not go on every single day between Ghanaians and their foreign counterparts.
However, quite recently a couple of studies have come out with claims that there is a very little issue which we do not give much thought to but could really be affecting the experience of those who come from other places to deal with us. According these studies, when locals interact with foreigners, something seemingly insignificant plays a more major role than we might have thought. That is the accent! Yes, the specific way by which we pronounce words is said to be much more important than we thought.
The truth is that accents have always been important. Accents are so important that when it comes to ethnic categorisation, it has been said that people will use accents rather the physical appearance of the individual. However, the influence of accent on the customer’s experience is something that is relatively new.
The results of a remarkable study published in April 2023 edition of the Journal of Service Research threw more light on the matter. According to the said study, the accent of the customer-handling employee affects the actions of customers and thereby the experience these customers have. Titled, “The Influence of Employee Accent on Customer Participation in Services,” the study came out with five key findings. A closer look at those findings should help business managers and owners to make informed decisions about those they allow to interface with their customers.
It was asserted by the researchers that customers frequently infer the ethnic background of employees from the accent of those employees and from there, these accents elicit cultural stereotypes in the minds of the customers. Depending on the stereotype that the customer has in the mind, the customer can decide to contribute more or less to the service experience. The truth is that customer service and the subsequent experience of the customer has a lot to do with what the customer does as much as what the employee does.
Customers are not just recipients of service. Customers, very much, play their part, by contributing effort, information and knowledge. Without a customer’s contribution, there is only so much that a customer service employee can do. Therefore by voluntarily contributing more or holding back, the customer’s experience is affected in one way or the other. In other words, something as unique as an individual’s accent might make or mar a customer’s experience.
According to the study, when the employee has an unfavourable foreign (compared to a local) accent, customers contribute less to the service encounter voluntarily. There are many examples in this country of Ghanaian customers who have held back from continuing to go ahead with a purchase when they detect the seller’s accent to be from some other West African countries.
Another very important finding of the study was that the negative effects of unfavourable accents on the voluntary participation of customers are stronger than the positive effects of favourable ones. In other words, when customers hear an accent that they believe comes from a group of people that are not held in very high esteem, the customer’s reactions would be way stronger than what the customer will do when the accent is favourable.
It was however discovered by the researchers that sometimes, the impact of unfavourable accents are lowered when the employee possesses favourable qualities such as attractiveness and dynamism. Customers will overlook the accent, or even admire the accent, of a very attractive employee.
It is interesting that the study found that when employees have accents that customers find unfavourable, those customers might even refuse to participate in tasks that are essential for the completion of that service. In other words, the accents of those serving customers might put the customers off so much that some customers might not want to go ahead with the experience at all. An employee’s accent could thereby kill a deal altogether.
A final finding of the study was that when customers have a high need for interaction, they tend to overlook some of the effects of the employee’s accent. A customer who has no other choice than to deal with a customer-handling employee will see beyond the accent and do what must be done. In this direction, it was found that businesses can neutralise the effects of unfavourable accents by giving customers greater control of the service delivery process through self-service options. If customers can book online without having to talk to somebody, the effects of unfavourable accents will be non-existent.
With all these talk about accents, the question that is relevant to us in this country and therefore naturally arises is, how do foreigners evaluate the Ghanaian accent? What stereotypes arise in the minds of foreigners when they hear Ghanaians speak? Are they favourable or unfavourable? These are the issues that we, as a people, must take seriously. One would have expected that these are issues which would have been handled by the right governmental agency. Getting information such as how foreign customers perceive the Ghanaian accent should not be too difficult. But do we have that information readily available? I very much doubt that.
The closest I came to finding out how our accent is received by foreigners was a story I came across on the Net. It had to do with a Ghanaian immigrant who spoke about his struggles in the US because the Americans struggled to understand him. As a matter of fact, the story stated that it took a pronunciation teacher to help the chap tweak a few of his pronunciations before things got better. I found that pretty interesting.
True, it might be an isolated case but experience tells us that it is most probably not. The way we pronounce some words in the English language are totally different from the way most Westerners do. This means that just as in the States, many Westerners who we interact with in this country might also be struggling to understand us.
But since our accents take years to develop, what are businesses expected to do when it comes to those who interface with foreign customers? We are well aware of the fact that even when foreigners learn a new language perfectly, they still tend to speak the language with an accent. Does that mean, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about the influence of accents?
Would the idea of pronunciation training be too far-fetched? For businesses or organisations, especially those who tend to deal with foreign customers, would it be out of place to get some training in the way customer-facing employees speak? Should not businesses that operate in the hospitality and tourism sectors be very concerned? These are questions that must be answered.
It is a truth that as a nation that is truly interested in pushing a tourism agenda, we must take this discussion seriously. Administrators and HR managers of businesses that interface between the nation and its visitors must consider those dealing with foreign customers when designing service delivery systems which would serve others from different cultures.
If the ongoing discussion is anything to go by, then it is possible that many businesses are missing out of good money, just because of the accent of the one dealing with foreign customers. Because in the end, whichever way one looks at it, the accent matters.
