Leo and I are of the opinion that international companies who seriously want to compete in the American marketplace should have employees who are competent in both writing and speaking English.
Case in point: Asian BJD companies. I can't even begin to tell you how many problems we had over the years with miscommunication. Sometimes I would have to ask the same question several times in several ways before I'd get an answer. Or I would order a doll to be done in a particular way, and it would show up completely opposite. Worse yet, I'd send an email and get no answer at all. Misunderstandings were commonplace. I realize English is not an easy language to learn, but one would think that having employees competent in it would result in more business for these companies overall. BJD companies are ultimately in business to make money.
What really cracks me up about poor English use is the names that the companies come up with for some of their dolls. "Ruru", which makes no sense here as a name, was actually meant to be "Lulu". Oops, Elfdoll's bad. Those darn Rs and Ls are just too similar in Korean. We warned Elfdoll that "Special K." would not be a great name for a doll, being both the name of a cereal and street drug. Oh, well. The most recent example of poor name choice is Dollmore's "Cold Heartbroken" Adam and Eve. They started out as "Cold Heartburn" Adam and Eve. I'm not sure the name change was an improvement. Somehow I doubt if either name really conveys what Dollmore meant them to.
The solution would be simply: why not run potential names by a competent English speaker and then actually listen to what they have to say? I'd volunteer for the job. Naming dolls something traditionally Korean is one thing; naming them after a cereal or street drug makes both the company and the doll harder to take seriously.
In our experience, Asian BJD companies are generally very arrogant. Comments we made about doll names, business practices, customer desires or things that might improve business went largely ignored. I'd be really surprised if this changed in the near future, but one can always hope. Seemingly it would be to their advantage, and ultimately ours.
Oh my gosh, I could not agree more. I have long wanted Ipplehouse’s Aaron but the very real possibility of a major problem with such an expensive purchase has always stopped me from ordering him. International orders can be such a hassle using a credit card, I dread to think about the problems that might occur with an international bank draft and a language barrier.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be on a business scale to deal with language barriers, and I agree also that it would be very "business savvy" of these overseas companies to have english speaking staff when dealing with the US and similar, though in retrospect we here in the US do not necessarily practice that same philosophy when marketing our US made products to overseas customers. On a side note I have ordered several times direct from Ipplehouse using Paypal for all payments and I have had only positive experiences with them! I would not use any other payment method however, due to many of the concerns expressed here.
I admit, sometimes the badly translated names are endearing, but it does make it harder to take the companies seriously, or to be confident that if any problems occur they will be handled quickly and efficiently.