Speaking in tongues

ANNETTE LEROUGE grew up in Denmark. Her family moved to Ireland when she was 13. Today she hasn't a trace of a Danish accent and there isn't a hint of an

Irish brogue either. She speaks with a soft American mid western accent. Having spent three years in Omaha, Nebraska, she could easily pass for someone who had lived all her life in the United States.

"I pick up accents very easily she says, laughing at how unusual that is. At the last count, Annette Lerouge spoke five languages besides her mother tongue French, German, Norwegian, Swedish and of course, English.

Being fluent in a number of European languages is a crucial part of her job as sales supervisor at Radisson Hospitality Worldwide, an international hotel reservation company based in Dublin. The office in Dublin is the company's European centre and the staff handle in coming calls and make reservations for people at hotels all around the world. Each employee handles between 650 and 700 calls per day. Larouge is responsible for 10 people.

"My job has to do with their training," she explains. "I have to make them aware of new promotions and, if we have new features in our system, I have to make sure that they know about those. I do their quality analyses."

A variety of people from IS different European countries call the office each day to make hotel reservations. In the US, a telesales employee is expected to make three direct sales pitches to a caller before the end of the exchange. "Here that would be perceived as pushy and off putting," says Lerouge. "Each country has its own different culture. You have to adapt to those people and know how best to sell to them."

German callers tend to be conservative and more serious, says Lerouge. She finds that employees have to be able to suit their accent and their tone to that of the caller. "The way you phrase things can make a difference to making a sale... You need to be human, if you didn't I don't think I would enjoy it. Outbound telemarketing might be different.

"People respond to different sales techniques. The Irish are a little bit timid or shy. They are not as hard selling as they are in the Mid West, the heartland of America where they have had toll free lines for the past to years. They are very hard hitting there."

At school Lerouge loved languages. Annette and her sister lived with their parents in Tallow, Co Waterford, for two years and they went to the Presentation convent in Lismore. "The nuns were great," she recalls. After this they moved to Carbury, Co Kildare, and Lerouge went to school in Edenderry, Co Offaly.

After her Leaving Cert, which she sat at St Mary's Secondary School in Edenderry, she decided to spend a year in France as an au pair. When she came back she went to Letterkenny RTC to study for a National Certificate in Business Studies. She studied German as part of this course and went to Germany during the summer each year to work and improve her German. After two years she left Letterkenny with a strong Donegal accent.

Rather than carry on and do a National Diploma in Business Studies, Lerouge decided to apply for a job as a telemarket sales person with Radisson Hospitality World wide the fifth largest privately owned company in the US.

She was successful and her career in telemarketing began. She worked at the headquarters of Radisson in Nebraska from March 1992 until November 1995. "It's a different culture and mentality there," she says. "Originally I was more interested in marketing as PR but I enjoy my job very much. There's great potential.

Last March the company opened its first European base in Dublin. Lerourge who already spoke a smattering of Norweigan and Sweedish was sent on a crash course to improve her fluency in these languages. She arrived in November and her work in Dublin began.

"You have to listen," she says about her work. "You can hear by the tone of their voice if they are happy or not."