Background
MedMobile is a medical supply business located in Los Angeles employing 62 full time and 11 part time workers. The company specializes in equipment designed to improve patient mobility ( walkers, motorized cart, wheelchairs, mechanized beds, and chairs) Average yearly sales are in the area of $1.5 million.
The primary client base fo the company is insurance companies that pay for rehabilitation after worker accidents or injuries. Medical professionals who conduct the patients medical case file reviews and recommend treatment programs are in regular contact with the account representative for MedMobile.
Your Role
As an account representative with MedMobile, you have been with the company for about 18 months. Your main job is to help clients determine and obtain to correct equipment needed to assist their patients. To do this, you spend hours on the phone daily and often know clients by voice. You have become extremely frustrated in the past month, almost to the point of anger. A new claims adjuster works for one of your primary account companies, TrueCare INSURANCE company. His name is Abeyola Pepukayi, and he had been with TrueCare for 8 weeks. He has been an adjuster for a little over a year.
You just got off the phone after a lengthy conversation with Abeyola and you are agitated. You know that Abeyola immigrated from somewhere in Africa about 12 years ago. For over half an hour, you tired unsuccessfully to explain why you felt the equipment he is ordering was not the best for the patients injury, as he described it to you.
Because this is not the first time such an encounter has taken place, you are now in your supervisors office venting. While discussing the situation with your boss, you note the following about Abeyola:
He does not listen. No matter what you say, he asks totally irrelevant question about other equipment.
He usually has no idea what you are talking about.
He is rude and iterrupts, often making statements such as “one moment please. Hat makes no sense”
You have spent hours discussing equipment design and function because he does not know anything about it.
He spends endless amounts of time getting off track and trying to discuss other issues or topics.
After your conversation, your boss called a friend at TruCare to see what he knew of the situation. The friend, David Helmstedter, supervises Abeyola. Apparently, AByola has been venting to David about you. From what David has been told:
You are rude and abrubt and not very friendly. Abeyola has tried to establish a relationship, but you have ignored his efforts.
Abeyola is trying hard to learn the terminology and equipment, but you are unwilling to help.
You speak rapidly using a lot of technical language that you do not explain.
1. What seems to be happening here? Does Abeyola have any legitimate complaints? If so, what are they?
2. What steps or process can you use to clarify understanding?
3. What cultural differences might be involved in this scenario?
