Mt. Gox recently fell due to a large loss of shares. It owes a number of funds to clients and others, which the company promises to pay. The bad news, however, is to the clients who utilized their call center. Rather than choosing local centers for their International base, Mt. Gox went with a Japanese call center. This caused headaches for most of the clients.

Lost in Translation

Though call centers may be cheaper than their American counterparts, this is often because employees are not native English speakers. When Mt. Gox chose to base their call center there, it did not consider their clientele base. A mere one percent of its clients speak Japanese. That leaves 99 percent who cannot make a conversation with these workers. Not only were the agents not native in English, but did not speak any at all.

Too Few Workers

With most of the representatives unable to speak English, the majority of Mt. Gox relied on 10 workers. Only a few of these could converse with the 99 percent of the clients. It led to long wait times, a lot of hang-ups and fewer resolutions. Rather than getting back on their feet, Mt. Gox has created more problems for themselves.

Mt. Gox could save itself a headache by choosing local call centers. The representatives readily available would be English speaking. Clients could be directly related to, rather than put on hold for too long.  When you are picking your call center, it isn’t about saving a few dollars. It is thinking about your customer and their needs, which at a minimum would be a shared language. Don’t make the same mistake Mt. Gox did; create happy clients by staying local.