Chinese Service

Speaking English and Delivering

Ordering service in Chinese hotels, especially by telephone, can be a challenge. Not only are accents a problem, especially when a Frenchman orders in English from a Chinese operator, but the best hotels are often brand new and most of their personnel in training.

The vocabulary of the newest staff is often limited to a short list of code words that are supposed to help them guess what you want. A number of years ago, for example, finding the “facilities” in a restaurant was like solving a (Chinese) puzzle. You could try any possible descriptive -- “bathroom, toilet, men’s room, W.C.” -- but you would get nowhere until you finally discovered the code word: “washroom”.

Things have not improved everywhere. In a Chongqing “five-star-if-not-more” hotel, this week, I decided to make ordering breakfast easy, picking code words from the breakfast menu: “A continental breakfast, orange juice, coffee and milk, please”. “May I repeat your order?” “Yes”. “Unintelligible”… Twenty minutes later, a chicken club sandwich with French fries was delivered to my room. I decided to have breakfast in the cafeteria.

In contrast, I was amazed by the efficiency and pro-activeness of the staff at the three-month-old Intercontinental Hotel in Shenzhen. The phone had only one button for “instant service”; an operator who spoke reasonable English answered and then dispatched the tasks among the staff. Ordering breakfast, there were small pauses as an operator-in-training looked for the code words on her list and, if she hesitated, I could hear the correct answers whispered by a supervisor.

Admiring of both the efforts and results, the next morning I asked to speak to a supervisor. Malaysian, she spoke fluent English, but no Chinese. She wasn’t sure of the total number of employees, but told me that only 300 of the 549 rooms in the hotel had been opened so far.

Few among the staff were locals, and most of them were hired out of college from cities throughout China. So, they often had taken some English courses but really spoke none. All they had to learn about five-star hotel service and English code words was taught in an intensive three-month training program. However, many of the supervisors were foreign (largely Asian) and English-speaking. Altogether, I thought the result impressive, and similar to the early days of the Four Seasons hotel in Shanghai when all the staff knew how to say was: “Welcome to our hotel”: today, the hotel is English-speaking throughout and, last time, I could even speak some French.

There is a paradox in a nation that, on the one hand, is increasingly proud and nationalistic but, on the other hand, does not exhibit any ill-placed pride in speaking only Chinese.

It reminded me of a private, export-oriented company I know where all the executives are fluent in English and often speak it among themselves. Efficiency and results still rule in China and are helping make the country a formidable competitor.

Anyway, even with only a few words, they know how to send a message…

François Sicart, back in Chengdu
April 6, 2007