Cultural Intelligence and Capability of Handling Complaints

This document discusses the importance of cultural intelligence and capability in handling complaints in the workplace. It provides a summary and analysis of a video clip that demonstrates the role of cultural capability in creating a safe space. Recommendations are also provided for improving cultural capability in the workplace.

Cultural intelligence and
capability of handling
complaints
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Summary and observation...........................................................................................................................2
Analysis........................................................................................................................................................4
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................5
Summary and conclusion.............................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Background
Cultural capability is defined as the fundamental way of operating the workplace, the university,
as well as the community in an effective way. Cultural capability is a framework that is used for
measuring the effectiveness of people in building proper sustainability in terms of the business.
For maintaining cultural capability, it is necessary to follow some components such as valuing
culture, accountability and leadership, connection and engagement, respect, and cultural
responsiveness. Hence, the presence of these components along with cultural intelligence and
cultural self-awareness, can create safe work as well as social spaces.
Aim
The paper aims to provide a demonstration of the cultural capability aspect that should be useful
for creating safe space. In addition, it will also provide the effectiveness of cultural capabilities
in maintaining a culturally safe space. Furthermore, the paper will also provide some
recommendations that will help improve the safety of the space as per the situation.
Scope
The report will focus on the procedure of handling complaints in the workplace, and it will be
demonstrated briefly by watching the scenes of a video which is chosen for this context. Besides
this, another scope of this study is to understand the cultural capability aspects that should be
needed for defining the safe space of the workplace.
Summary and observation
Summary of the video clip
The video clip that has been selected for this study is a television show named Fawlty Towers,
which was created by John Cleese and Connie Booth (Wilson, 2018). The television show was
released on 19th September 1975, and it ended on 25th October 1979. The key characters that have
been presented in this video clip were John Cleese and Prunella Scales along with the several
characters named as Polly, Mr. Hartley, and Mr. Thurston and Mrs. Alice Richards. The
multimedia clip that has been chosen for this context is considered as an unsafe space as for
handling some different culture people it is essential to make such approaches which are briefly

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mentioned in the video clip. The reason for illustrating the clip as the unsafe space because for
handling complaint of the people. It is not a good approach to distract him or her from that
situation. The video clip was provided a workplace setting for a hotel whose receptionist uses
appropriate strategy for handling complaints of their consumers. The scene revealed that the
receptionist of the hotel named as Polly was managing the clients who visited their hotel.
With the help of her effective communication skills, she managed the several clients who visited
in their hotel (Andresen & Bergdolt, 2017). Among them, the scene revealed that a woman
named Mrs. Richards had created the chaos of giving her change. At that time, it was noticed that
the receptionist was handling the query of Mr. Thurston, who came before Mrs. Richards. It is
seen that the receptionist was communicated with the client who came before Mrs. Richard but
the louder voice of Mrs. Richard enables the receptionist Polly to give her change. After the
whole situation over, again, Mrs. Richard was creating chaos with the receptionist to listen to
her, but the receptionist uses her brain and tells the junior staff to communicate with Mrs.
Richard. The junior staff and Mrs. Richard was belonging to a different culture which shows that
they face problem in communicating with each other. Hence, it considers the way of handling the
complaints of any client, and this has been briefly discussed in this multimedia clip.
Observation
Scene description
time in sequence
Sign of empathy Body language Voice Tone
When Mrs. Richards
asked for change
The positive attitude
of receptionist solve
the problem of Mrs.
Richards
Disgust facial
expressions but
maintaining a
positive gesture with
customer
Medium voice tone of
receptionist while
louder voice tone of
the customer
When Mrs. Richards
communicate with the
receptionist while she
was talking with
The receptionist
becomes frustrated as
well as the consumer
too
Anger type of facial
expression was
present in both the
members
Louder voice tone of
both consumer and
receptionist

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another client
When Mrs. Richards
communicate with the
junior staff of the hotel
Positive behavior and
give full attention to
Mrs. Richards
Appropriate body
language of serving
the consumer by
maintaining the
proper gesture
Louder voice tone of
Mrs. Richard whereas
lower voice tone has
been presented by the
junior staff of the
hotel
Analysis
In the early part of the video clip, it is seen that the receptionist Polly maintained a high level of
cultural intelligence, and this has been proved when she adjusted her nature with the client of the
hotel by maintaining direct eye contact as well as using a calm voice tone while communicating
with them (Ang & Van Dyne, 2015). This procedure has proved that she is concern about the
consumers and behaves in such a manner that should be suitable for that situation. It is seen that
this attitude provide an instant effect on the consumers, and it help them to easily share their
view over the rooms that they should need for staying. From the scenario, it is revealed that the
receptionist of the hotel can handle the clients as well as their complaints, respectively.
Empathy- From this video clip, it is analyzed that the receptionist uses calm and quite a nature
while solving any query of their customer who visited their hotel (Binder, 2019). Hence, it
proves that the staff member of the hotel follows appropriate empathy to handle their clients.
Intercultural communication- The video clip reveals that the receptionist can easily
communicate with different culture people with ease and calmness. This scene shows her
intercultural communication aspect that should be important while interacting with people
belonging to other culture (Ang, Rockstuhl & Tan, 2015).
Awareness of body language- The multimedia clip reveals that the receptionist is aware of her
body language, and she changes it according to the requirement of the situation (Ott &
Michailova, 2018). It is noticed that when she communicates with the client such as Mr.
Thurston, she answer his query in a very calm manner but when she communicates with Mrs.
Richard her body language changes according to the situation. It is noticed that after interacting

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calmly with Mr. Thurston, she changes her body language and become arrogant with Mrs.
Richard. The reason for changing the body language is because Mrs. Richard has always being
interrupted while the receptionist is talking to another client of the hotel. This interruption of
Mrs. Richard makes the receptionist arrogant, and she does not maintain her calmness and
behave rudely.
Hence, all these features of the video clip defines the cultural intelligence as well as the ability of
the receptionist to adjust with the visitors coming from diverse culture. It is noticed that Polly
can adjust as well as change her body language according to the condition that the client feels
happy about their behavior while visiting the hotel (Van Dyne, Ang, & Koh, 2015). Hence, this
approach has demonstrated the cultural capability in the role of the receptionist that is useful in
grabbing the attention of their consumers that visited their hotel and willing to visit again and
again in the coming days. However, it is noticed that the junior staff who attend the arrogant
client Mrs. Richard had to possess a lack of cultural self-awareness aspect in his character. It is
seen that he belong from another cultural background, and due to this reason, he cannot easily
communicate with Mrs. Richard, and it forms his absence nature of cultural self-awareness
(Presbitero, 2016). Hence, only this scene reveals the lack of cultural awareness approach of the
whole video clip, and this should be improved by the hotel so that every staff members can easily
communicate with the clients who will visit their hotel in the coming days.
Recommendations
Based on the analysis of the video clip, some recommendations are provided that can change the
worker's cultural capabilities to make this place a safer space. The recommendations are as
follows:
 It is recommended that the management of the hotel should provide proper training to
the staff members so that they can improve their communication skills and easily
interact with the people belonging to other culture (Jyoti & Kour, 2015). By this way,
safe space can be provided by the hotel to their customer
 Another recommendation is that in the hotel more than one receptionist must be present
who can handle the query of other customers who visited in the hotel (Flaherty, 2015).
By following this approach, the clients cannot be offended as well as the reception
cannot do any arrogant and rude behavior with their clients

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Summary and conclusion
The paper concludes that a lack of cultural awareness has reduced the cultural capability of the
employees, which thus created an unsafe space for the people. The video clip demonstrated the
changing behavior of the receptionist regarding the handling of the complaints from clients. It is
seen that receptionist was able to manage the situation nicely, but it does not create a safe space
for the consumers, and this approach can offend to visit this place in future. Thus to handle the
situation properly, some recommendations are provided that can help the staff members to
increase their cultural capability aspects and transformed the hotel into a safe space for their
clients.

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References
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