Marketing Monster

Here in Canada, like many other countries around the world, we are fortunate to have more than one official language: English and French. The majority of the French speaking population lives in Quebec. However, it is too simplistic to think that

1. everyone in Quebec speaks French as their first language
2. everyone in the rest of Canada speaks English as their first language
3. everyone in Canada speaks both languages  fluently (if at all)

Yesterday, I sent a customer support question to Air Miles, a Canadian loyalty/rewards program. As is the case with national companies in Canada, there are two mirrored sites: one in French, one in English. I visited the English site and sent my question in English. Here is the automated email I received acknowledging my request:

Bonjour,
Nous desirons seulement confirmer la reception de votre courriel. Votre question est dans nos systemes et un Specialiste du service a la clientele AIR MILESmd vous repondra personnellement d’ici 5-7 jours ouvrable.
A bientot,

Programme de recompense AIR MILES(md)

Hey, gee. Thanks.

The site likely detected that my IP address was in Quebec. The form didn’t ask my location or language, so the people who programmed and approved the Air Miles site must have thought it would be clever to respond to inquiries according to geographically-based language assumptions.

Although, I do speak some French and know enough to be able to read and understand the message, rather than being helpful, this type of response totally misses the mark.

The politics of language in Canada aside, what if I didn’t understand French at all? What if I was only in Quebec on business when I sent the email? Shouldn’t their web site programming be intelligent enough to know that I was sending the inquiry from the English site, and therefore it’s a safe bet to respond in English?

Same goes for the reverse. If my first language was French and I lived in Brandon, Manitoba, or in the officially bilingual province of New Brunswick, or anywhere else in Canada for that matter, and I sent my inquiry from the French site, shouldn’t I be served in that language?

Rather than feeling like Air Miles wants to help me, I know that they’re simply not paying attention to their customers.

It’s very simple. If you have a web site that is available in multiple languages, whatever they are - French, Spanish or Urdu - ensure that your infrastructure is designed to respond to people in the browsing language of your visitors. Ignoring such a fundamental component of communication will only serve to tell your customers that you are not listening to them. That may be the only part of the message that they will understand.

(And don’t even get me started on why it will take Air Miles 5 to 7 business days to respond to a simple query.)

UPDATE 10/07/09: I received a response to my inquiry. In English.

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