Bord Gáis first to go multilingual as 15% of customers are foreigners

BORD Gáis has become the first company in Ireland or Britain to launch a multilingual automated response system which it said is aimed at its changing profile of customers.

The 24-hour customer telephone service will operate in English, Irish, Polish, Russian and Mandarin Chinese.

Bord Gáis said it chose Russian as one of the languages as it will suit many eastern Europeans, many of whom speak the language fluently.