Anyone who wants to speak to Sparkasse Nürnberg’s customer service and dials the corresponding telephone number will of course be greeted in Frangian. One would think. And at least when not all employees are in conversation, this is also the case. But if no one is available, a woman’s voice speaking somewhat woodenly in High German takes over, introducing herself as Anna and first of all assuring you that you can speak to her “normally”. The best prerequisite for a quick problem solution. Actually.
However, depending on the caller’s tongue, the question quickly arises: What is normal? Because the wooden female voice, which belongs to a digital voice assistant, has what many Old Bavarians know only too well: problems with francs. Or, as the Sparkasse spokeswoman says in a newspaper report: “Difficulties if things get too Franconian.” Which is unfortunate because, according to current geographical knowledge, Nuremberg is located exactly there: in the middle of Franconia.
And that’s not all: Anna is supposed to recognize and take on more than 130 concerns “in natural language dialogue,” according to the bank’s website. If it doesn’t work, if it doesn’t work, it would mean the exclusion of Franconian from its natural linguistic space. Almighty!
In any case, some customers are confused by the fact that Anna doesn’t understand Franconia. For example, the man who recently started talking to her involuntarily after receiving a fraud warning via email. The female voice asked him several times about his date of birth, he reported uncomprehendingly Nuremberg News. “Anna misunderstood that several times. Then she wanted to know my account number. But she didn’t understand that either.” What the man didn’t understand, who immediately wrote an indignant letter to the bank’s board of directors.
Maybe he should have simply turned to Anna’s chatbot colleague Linda. If you ask her whether she speaks Franconian, you immediately get an understanding answer: “What exactly is it about?” Aha. It works.