Norska i svenska kundservice?

[Levo]

Hej!
I would like to ask Swedes a strange question.

As a customer how would you feel if someone contacted you in Norwegian from the company?

What if you put a question to a company in Swedish and they answer you in Norwegian when it is promised you don't have to speak English or a foreign language in order to communicate with them?

How often do you have such situations?

In Hungary we have quite a lot of so-called "Financial or Shared service centres" of many Western and Northern companies.
In some of them they expect "Scandinavian speakers" to jobs where the customers are solely Swedish. And they accept Norwegian language as well.
I have always wondered how do those services really work? Isn't it awkward for the customers?

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

How often do you have such situations?

Never, so far, so I do not know anything of this ...

[Johanna]

Norwegians in Sweden tend to learn Swedish very quickly, and it's by far more common for Norwegian companies to hire Swedes for customer service than vice-versa. But usually one of the requirements is that you're able to speak Norwegian, so...

But yes, it might be a bit awkward if it happens, but since Norwegian isn't really another language it's not that big of a deal and you definitely don't have to resort to English. Not to mention that after a few months on the job, the Norwegian speakers will probably speak Svorsk with Swedes, if they haven't picked up enough Swedish from customers and co-workers to switch completely that is.

I haven't been in that situation, or rather not where the employee spoke Norwegian, but I did have to deal with one speaking Danish once when trying to get a new Windows license for my parents. That was no fun at all, she had trouble understanding me, and even though I could understand her it was not exactly a walk in the park since she didn't seem to make much of an effort to speak extra clearly. If she had been Norwegian she would have understood me much better since Norwegians get quite a lot of exposure to Swedish, and our respective phonologies are very similar so that would have been less of a hindrance as well.

[Levo]

Interesting, thank you!

May I ask if the Windows licence renewal was supposed to be in Swedish?

[Johanna]

As far as I know yes, and the person I needed to speak to in the end was Swedish, the problem was getting the Danish lady to transfer me to the right department.