Business English for Banks in Bangkok

Business English, English Training, Vocabulary Building

July 17, 2024

Banks can gain customers by upgrading employees’ English abilities.

The concept of “Business English for banks in Bangkok” might appeal to the many many expats in Thailand.

Most of us live in Bangkok. Most of us speak Thai very poorly. Almost all of us hold accounts with Thai banks.

One thing we probably all agree on is that the customer care one receives from banks in Bangkok is unquestionably better than back home.

Transferring money is easy and free, those transactions are completed in real time, and if something goes wrong you can get a human on the phone in a relatively short amount of time and the assistance you receive from them – and inside bank branches – is friendly and efficient.

But another thing we probably all agree on is that Thai banks could improve in one specific area.

“The Best English”

We love that we can have a conversation about Thai banks without using their names.

For example, if I said that I have a business bank account at the purple one, my salary gets deposited into the navy blue one, and my bills get paid online through the yellow one, everyone here would know what I mean.

Now, imagine if everyone said, “But the green one has the best English.”

If that were the case, the green one would get ALL the expats as customers!

They’d get the recently arrived expats, they’d get the long-term expats, they’d get the expat-owned companies, and they’d probably get the Thai-owned companies that employ expats (and want to make things easy for them).

This is simple behavioral economics: Consumers don’t necessarily always want the best, we want the thing that has the least chance of being terrible.

A Potential Differentiator for Banks

To be fair, most bank tellers and desk agents at Bangkok’s colorful bank branches speak English reasonably well. This is especially true at big malls in the high-traffic areas of the city and in the business districts like Sukhumvit, Silom/Sathorn, etc.

And, the navy blue one does something cool. When you “take a number,” not only can you choose between English and Thai language on the machine, but when they call your number the announcement comes over the PA in the language of your ticket.

But if we non-Thai-speaking expats (Westerners, Japanese, Chinese, whoever) consistently hear that the green bank has the best English speakers assisting you – and with all else being equal, which it pretty much is – then we’re going to choose the green bank whenever possible.

In other words, great English communication skills is a potential differentiator that could pay huge dividends for banks. After all, as of 2019, there were “at least 112,000 workers in Thailand who were classed as professional or skilled.”

That’s a lot of ฿ that needs to be held in a lot of accounts!

Tackling the “English Issue”

Banks have an opportunity to not only train their tellers and desk agents inside the branches (and provide even better customer service to expat customers). They have an opportunity to completely revamp the cultures of their companies.

We hear a lot about multiculturalism being a strength, but what about multilingualism?

There are a few things that a bank can do to tackle the “English issue in Thailand” head on.

The traditional thing is to provide Business English courses to employees.

Another possibility is to start an initiative at the top, with coaching for Executives and Management personnel so they can lead by example.

And a third way is new and innovative: A bank could take a huge step forward by staffing an “Onsite English Consultant” to provide holistic Business English training and communication optimization throughout the company.

The key feature of English courses, coaching, and consulting from ECSC Thailand is that instruction is focused on professional vocabulary and proper usage, not grammar. This is how bank employees improve in their roles, especially when dealing with expats.