Gyeonggi Province Call Center embraces multiculturalism!
(Published May 29, 2012)

From May of this year, services in five foreign language including Chinese are being provided for the convenience of foreigners residing in the province.

◇ Gyeonggi Province Call Center homepage announces its six foreign language services. ⓒ 120 Gyeonggi Province Call Center

Now, foreigners living in Gyeonggi Province can easily and conveniently resolve various problems they encounter in their everyday lives.

In early May, the Gyeonggi Province 120 Call Center (hereafter referred to as the Gyeonggi Call Center) expanded its foreign language services to facilitate the convenience and acclimatization of foreigners living in the province. Along with the existing Korean and English language services, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Mongolian services are now available, raising the total number of languages provided by the center to six.
◇ Representatives of the foreign language services at the call center. Signs for English, Chinese and other languages can be seen. ⓒ Reporter Yun Seon-hun

When people first arrive as immigrants in another country, it is common for them to experience difficulties in their daily lives. Up until now, foreigners living in Gyeonggi Province often faced a wall of problems as they attempted to establish themselves in Korea, mainly due to the fact that there were no proper channels by which to obtain the information made available for them. Although Gyeonggi Province established a call center back in 2007 to address the various concerns and questions that residents raised about the province’s policies, to receive complaints, and to provide beneficial information, these services were not available to foreigners communicating in languages other than English. Essentially, if they could not communicate in English, foreign residents were unable to benefit from the variety of services provided by the call center.

◇ Foreign language service representatives at the call center. The sign for the Mongolian representative is visible. ⓒ Reporter Yun Seon-hun

Among all the autonomous regions in Korea, Gyeonggi Province has the highest proportion of foreign residents. According to the foreign resident census conducted by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security on May 1, 2009, Ansan City had the largest foreign community, with 41,785 residents, i.e., six percent of the city’s total population. Other cities, including Suwon (30,139), Hwaseong (24,914), and Seongnam (22,604), also showed a high number of foreign residents. Moreover, the foreign community in Pocheon came to 6.4% of the population, the highest proportion in Gyeonggi Province. Of the thirty-two cities and districts in Korea with more than 10,000 resident foreigners, twelve were located in Gyeonggi Province. However, this only took into consideration foreigners with resident registration numbers or foreign registration numbers, but if foreigners without such official documentation were also considered, the numbers would be much larger. On top of this, as the number of multicultural families and foreign laborers continues to increase, the foreign resident population is expected to swell.

In order to keep up with such trends, the Gyeonggi Call Center has selected the four most popular foreign languages, in addition to Korean and English, and has begun to provide services in these languages. Furthermore, on top of the existing telephone and homepage consultations, the call center added a twitter account (@ggsmart120) and SNS consultation service via Facebook in six different languages, and residents can post smart phone application messages and receive answers to their questions. From June of this year, besides the existing text message service, an MMS two-way text message system will be introduced.

◇ Phone system used by consultants. ⓒ Reporter Yun Seon-hun

However, the only unsatisfactory part of the system is that the number of foreigners using the call center services is still very low. Gyeonggi Call Center Director Yu Won-yeong said, “In the case of English, we get about one call per day on average, while for the other languages the call rate is even lower. We intend to actively promote the Gyeonggi Call Center in order to let foreign residents know all about the different services we provide.”

The following is an interview with Yu Won-yeong, the call center’s director.

Q: What was the reason behind expanding the foreign language services to six different languages?
A: Gyeonggi Province is the autonomous region with the highest number of foreign residents in the country. Here, the number of foreign laborers and multicultural families is on the rise. In Ansan and Suwon especially, where there is a concentration of factories, there are many multicultural families who generally require closer attention and more assistance than other foreign residents. We needed a way to address the hardships they face while living in Korea and decided to expand the service languages accordingly.

Q: How was the expansion of these services pursued?
A: We paid special attention to the consultants we hired. Since the consultants have to communicate effectively with native speakers, we were careful to select consultants who can understand them well. For recommendations, we consulted and sought advice from the Seoul Dasan Call Center, which had already started to provide foreign language services. Based on that, we didn’t just select them to fill the positions, but selected those who were originally from a particular foreign country or who had travelled to the foreign countries before. We kept in mind the unique situation wherein higher management is unable to get involved if a problem occurred, and were especially careful in our selection. In the case of China and Vietnam, we hired consultants who originate from those countries but who had lived in Korea for many years. For Japan and Mongolia, we selected Koreans who frequently visited these countries. The reason why we selected native Chinese and Vietnamese speakers as our consultants is that we felt that they would best be able to communicate with other native speakers. In addition to this, the recruitment process for each language bracket varied. One unfortunate thing is that there were fewer foreign applicants compared to Korean applicants. 

Q: What kind of issues and complaints are raised by foreign residents and what is the most frequently asked question?
A: Most calls involve requests for living information rather than complaints. For example, some callers want to know how to use bank ATMs or find out about the procedures related to entry and departure formalities. In the case of multicultural families, they would like information on school enrollment. One time, a Japanese mother didn’t know how to enroll her child in an elementary school and gave us a call. Though she had visited the school in person, no one at the school spoke Japanese, so she could not get any useful information. Thankfully, through the call center consultation, she was able to obtain proper and useful information and enroll her child at the elementary school. Besides this, we get many calls from foreign laborers about workplace issues and industrial accident compensation issues. Once, a Mongolian laborer called regarding his severance pay. His company had told him that only half of the promised severance pay could be paid and the laborer wanted us to call the Ministry of Employment and Labor to find out whether this infringed the labor laws. To resolve this call, we made a direct call to the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the advice given by the Ministry was relayed to the laborer in Mongolian.

Q: What effects do you hope to see with the expansion of the foreign language services?
A: First, I think that foreigners now have a place where they can find information, which makes the call center easier for them to use. Additionally, since they can get information about many different things quickly and conveniently, foreign residents will have an easier time getting accustomed to living in Korea.

Q: The actual use of the foreign language services is still quite low. What are your plans for promoting it?
A: First, we will be distributing promotional videos and other promotional materials on the Gyeonggi Call Center through various media channels, including online. Furthermore, we plan to visit various institutions that have dealings with foreign residents, explain our services to them in person, and distribute pamphlets so that our call center and the services we provide will become more widely known among the foreigners living in the province.
◇ A consultant busy taking a call. ⓒ Reporter Yun Seon-hun

Since its inception back in 2007, the Gyeonggi Call Center has established itself as a center for providing information to and dealing with complaints from the residents of Gyeonggi Province on the basis of continuous development and improvement. With the recent expansion of its foreign language services, the center is expected to provide beneficial services to foreign residents who had been previously neglected.
◇ Announcement board inside the Gyeonggi Call Center for sharing pictures and stories about the consultants’ leisure activities. ⓒ Reporter Yun Seon-hun / eddiejones@naver.com

ⓒ G-News Plus News / Gyeonggi Province University Student Press Corps / Yun Seon-hun

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