Sonia Kampshoff: Hello and welcome to working with Languages with me, Sonia Kampshoff. Together with my guests, we will explore what languages they speak and where they learn them. The background and their career path, and they will also share their favorite word in a language they speak.
Today’s episode is very special for me. We’re going to talk to Claire Lutton from HomeExchange. She is the team lead of the member support team for the US.
Hello, Claire.
Claire Lutton: Hello, Sonia. How are you?
Sonia Kampshoff: I’m great. It’s lovely to have you here. I’m very happy to have you as a representative of HomeExchange here.
I’ve been a member for three years now and I absolutely love it. So it’s, it feels very special to be talking to you today.
Claire Lutton: Good. Good. Good.
Sonia Kampshoff: So as usual, I would like to start with a fun question. What is your favorite word in a language that you speak?
Claire Lutton: So, I am originally from France. I’ve been living in the US for over 20 years now. But one of the, my favorite word is this little furry animal called the squirrel. Just because it’s a word that in English, a lot of French people have a hard time saying. Because we can’t say it correctly, the scroll, scroll, scroll. And also because in French, the word is écureuil, which is a very difficult for a lot of English speaking people to also say is, which is écureuil. And a lot of people can’t, just can’t say it. So that’s why it’s one of my favorite words.
Sonia Kampshoff: Difficult for both languages. That’s very nice. Very nice. So you are originally from France you said?
Claire Lutton: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Sonia Kampshoff: Can you tell us when did you start learning English, and how did your languages develop?
Claire Lutton: So I started learning in learning English in school when I was 10 or 11, and then I wanted to become an English teacher in France. That was my goal. But then during the summer, I, I got a summer job at Disneyland, Paris, and during that summer job I met my ex-husband who lives here in Los Angeles, and he brought me back to the US.
So that’s, that’s how I learned more and more English by living here and, but I still have my French accent and I think I’ll keep it forever, unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t know, but I guess I’ll still have it.
Sonia Kampshoff: So yeah, I think we never fully lose the accent that we have from our native languages. So that’s, yes, but a French accent is beautiful.
Claire Lutton: Yes. I have two kids though, but they’re fully, they’re fully bilingual. They have no accent in either language, I think it’s because they both they learned English and French at the same time. We would go to France when they were little every year, and they would spend time with the grandparents and the cousins, and that’s why they keep, they have their perfect language.
Sonia Kampshoff: So you speak French at home with them and then they go to a normal school in the US but they spend the summers in France. That’s lovely.
Claire Lutton: Yes. Yeah. I spend the summer in France and that really helps and, and every year it’s a tradition that we’ve been keeping and it’s good for the grandparents and so absolutely. But they switch over and at home we do not speak, we do not speak English as soon as. They speak English to me. I’m like, well, what?
Sonia Kampshoff: So yeah, you stop understanding.
Claire Lutton: Yes, exactly.
Sonia Kampshoff: That’s great. So when you moved to the US did you move immediately to California or did you go somewhere else first?
Claire Lutton: I went directly to Los Angeles, California. Yes. And I’ve been living here ever since. Yes. So you have been working for HomeExchange, I believe for five and a half years. That’s correct. Yes. Since, right before, right before COVID, yeah. Beginning of January, 2020. So that’s when I started. And before that, did you, did you also work and did you use your languages or, yeah, I always worked in with companies that required me to speak both languages.
I worked for Disney before where I was, yeah, I was in in in customer service as well. And we would deal a lot with Canada. That’s why it was required to speak French. And then, then I worked for Lego. And I was doing the moderation for their forum and their websites, their forum. And also there was a lot of the French there too.
So it was required that I speak, I speak French, so that’s great. All my, most of my career I’ve worked at a job where it was required to speak French, so yes. And now you are at HomeExchange.
Sonia Kampshoff: How are you finding it? I heard you, you did a lot of exchanges as well.
Claire Lutton: Yes, I did. I did over a hundred exchanges myself. I, I travel a lot and I enjoy doing exchanges. I also do what we call hospitality exchanges, which is because I have a, an extra bedroom in my house. So I hold, I host members in, in my home and it’s, it’s very interesting because it’s always people from, a lot of people from Europe. So I meet different nationalities and generally I invite them to stay for dinner and we have dinner together and it’s always a great experience.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yeah, I find it fascinating because HomeExchange really you exchange either the full home or part of the home. So like you said, a room and you can have reciprocal exchanges where, for example, I come to you and you come to my house, but you also have non-reciprocal exchanges where I go to somewhere else and then someone else, again, a third person comes into my house and it’s a such a wonderful way of traveling, I find, because you.
It’s an alternative to a hotel. Uh, and it makes it so personal. And it also, in my experience, I find that everybody is very respectful of the houses that they go and stay in. And I also, when I go into a house, it’s also, I’m also very respectful and there’s a lot of communication, if anything happens or if I have a question or I remember at some point in a house it rained and I collected the leaves in the garden and..
It’s, it’s a different way of traveling, which I think is very positive and very, um, very personal because you’re going to someone else’s house and it’s very personal.
Claire Lutton: It’s a personal experience. It’s true. That’s what it is. And it allows you to go to places that maybe you would never have. I’ve been able to go, like, I went, I did a reciprocal exchange on the Martinique Island, which is in the Caribbean for about three weeks.
And I didn’t think that they had a beautiful house with, with a view of the Caribbean sea, and I didn’t think they would wanna stay in, in my suburban house of Los Angeles, but they did. And because Los Angeles has a lot of appeal and, and it was a wonderful exchange and we stayed friends. That’s, I have a, another person that I stayed friends with and that lives in Denver and we, we sometimes go on vacation together. So it’s a wonderful experience.
Sonia Kampshoff: So how is it working at HomeExchange? What does your work involve? What do you do on a daily basis?
Claire Lutton: So basically what we do with the member support, so anytime a member has a question about an upcoming exchange or if they have a question about the site, how it works, or if we also deal with some cancellations in case an exchange gets cancelled.
So they come to us if in exchange is cancelled, we find a replacement in over 90% of the time so we can find a replacement if we actually, I think, believe the number is 94%. And if we can’t find a replacement exchange, we offer some guarantees. We’ll give you some credit to go to a hotel.
So this is what we deal with on a daily basis is we have members from different, different languages, different nationalities, different countries that contact us with different questions or issues with their upcoming exchange. So really, no, it does not happen a lot. And when people cancel, it’s really just because they get sick or they’ve, there’s damage in their house or something like that.
Yeah. So there’s a real reason. Like you said, it’s a, people are very respectful on HomeExchange. It’s more like the, it’s really like the golden rule to do as unto others because you are also hosting in your house. You are also, you’re doing the same as they’re doing. You are always, a host is always a guest. When a guest is always a host, there’s a sense of respect. HomeExchange is a French company.
Sonia Kampshoff: There’s probably a lot of French people who use it, but are there any other, how many nationalities are there? How many countries do you have guests in?
We have a hundred and we, we host in, we have members in 155 countries. We have about a quarter million members now. And so we are in different, uh, 155 countries. And yes, most, we have a lot of people in in, in France. And the number two is is Spain. Number three is the US and number four, I believe is Canada. Okay, so a lot of languages. ’cause we also have a lot of members in Italy and Germany, so yeah, a lot of different languages.
As for the support team, we have seven different languages that our team speak, which is French, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German and Croatian. Since we have a team of member support who are in Croatia.
Sonia Kampshoff: Do you have any, any stories, any anecdotes that you can share with us about people who did exchanges and had a good time?
Claire Lutton: I can, like, I, I use my, I like to use my story of the Caribbean and also my story was, was Denver. My, it’s, it was a good story because if my, it started not really where I had to go to Denver because my daughter was in the hospital. She got in an accident. So I was looking for an exchange that was close to the hospital and because that’s also the beauty of it.
It’s not. Only for, for vacation. People also use it for when they need the emergency. Mm-hmm. They go to, or they have to go to a family emergency, or like for me, unfortunately the hospital. But, but then I hosted, this person hosted me ’cause she felt so sorry for me and so she hosted me in her, in her apartment.
And then we started talking and we became close friends and we went on, actually went on a vacation together last year where she got a, she got a her own HomeExchange. I got my own HomeExchange, but we would meet every day at the beach. That, yeah. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonia Kampshoff: That is a great story. I never thought about it. I always thought, you go on a trip and you go traveling, but actually in this case, you had a need. Your daughter was in hospital. And I’m guessing it was very short notice and still it worked out. It worked in your favor and you also made friends.
Claire Lutton: Yes. Yes.
Sonia Kampshoff: I hope your daughter is fine now
Claire Lutton: Yeah, she’s recovered.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yes, and it’s a great example of how this HomeExchange platform is really helping people and supporting us even in difficult times.
Claire Lutton: Yes, exactly. I think if I had to set a request for a short, another short term, a short term rental company that’s on the website, that would’ve been a lot more difficult. But here people feel that you have a really, a real human interaction with people. Changes a lot. It’s. Yeah.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yes, absolutely. I also, last year I went to Amsterdam for a long weekend. I stayed in a, in an absolutely beautiful apartment, and I was so happy also with the communication and everything that in the end I left them a bottle of wine as a thank you. And I think it just shows, you know, it’s a different way of traveling and I like that very much.
Claire Lutton: You make friends and yeah, friends, and you learn to live like a local for, especially for Americans who for example, love their air conditioning. When they go to Europe, then they’re not gonna stay in, uh, in the hotel. They’re staying in the, in somebody’s home. And it’s, it’s, it’s different. They have to learn that. Yes, we don’t have, a lot of Europeans do not have dryers. They do not have air conditioning everywhere. They don’t have, they all don’t have the fridge with the ice. It’s all those things and they actually love it because yes, it’s different. You learn to live like a local.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yeah. Now that I think of it, I’m sure there are filters on the website where you can say whether your house has an air conditioner. Yes. Air conditioning or. The fridge with the eyes and so on. Yeah, that’s it, I can understand that now. Yes. I also think at some point I was considering going for a few days somewhere and working from there.
So one of my thinking was like, can I find a home where they have a big screen where I can plug my laptop in and just work from there? And I think all of these information are really useful and it just shows that you can go somewhere and be in a different environment and also enjoy the new place but work from there as well. So again, a different kind of traveling.
Claire Lutton: We have a lot of members that are, that are that, that work from home. Now, ever since COVID, a lot of people, a lot more people are working from home and that just wanna change in scenery. They want to walk by a lake or, and so they just, they just. Do a swap with, with another member that you know that lives in another city.
I did a reciprocal also with a member that lives in Seattle and I wanted to, he wanted to see the sun of Southern California and I wanted to discover Seattle and all national parks, and we did a swap for a week.
Sonia Kampshoff: Great. That’s great. So have you ever had a case where someone contacted support in a language that you don’t speak or don’t support?
Claire Lutton: Yes, because, so we have also, so we have all of our support is done by, by email. Yes. But we do have a, an SOS in case you have an an SOS support. So basically if you are, if you have an emergency during an exchange, like let’s say it starts flooding in the house and you don’t know what to do, or there’s no more, there’s no, there’s no more power. Something, something major happened during your exchange. You can send us an email at, at sos@homeexchange.com, and then we will reply to you generally within the hour when we have a maximum of two hours.
But generally we reply within an hour. So we have a team that are, we have teams that are working 24/7. And so we always have people, that’s why we have, we work in different time zones so that we can have coverage 24/7. Mm-hmm.
And so we always have people working and, but the thing is, if a Spanish member contacts us at three o’clock in the morning, and at the time we don’t have anybody that speaks Spanish. So our, we have a tool that, that we use that automatically translate their requests. So we always use the software that, that translates automatically the request.
But if it’s in a language that’s not supported by the translation, let’s say they, they contact us in Finnish and the software does not translate, finish, for example, then we will use Google Translate too to check their, what they’re saying and we reply it, we’ll reply that to them using the tool in their language.
Sonia Kampshoff: That’s great. Yeah. And is it a tool that you, how long have you been using this tool?
Claire Lutton: We’ve been using this tool since, since I, I believe, for about seven or eight years, but it has improved. It didn’t have the translation integrated in the tool before. Now it does have the, the translation. So we do not have to use Google Translate for all languages. We can just use it directly, click a button, and it says translate, and it translate to text automatically. So it’s, it’s really helpful. It’s, it, I, I will say that it’s not the same as having a native answer the question of course.
’cause there’s always in the translation tools, it’s never a hundred percent. It’s really good, but it’s, and it’s has improved a lot over the years but I would say that it’s not a hundred percent as good as having a native answer, but it, it’s a good solution when in the middle of the night there’s not a speaker of that language in particular.
Sonia Kampshoff: Very interesting. Yes, exactly. Yes. Are there any other ways that you use technology to support your work?
Claire Lutton: So we have, we have, we now have a, a chatbot so that the chatbot answers in every language. And so when you first go to our website, if you have a question, it will get answered by the chatbot. And what’s great is we love to give personal answers to our members.
So if the member says, um, I need to speak to a user. I need to speak to an agent. It will be automatically transferred to one of us, and we will reply per, we will personalise our, our answer. But, but the, our new chatbot is doing a great job in all the great, in all the languages. It’s, it’s a great integration. We’ve had it for about a year, two, almost a year and a half, two, two years now, and it’s been working great for us. That’s great.
Sonia Kampshoff: Do you think there’s anything else that you might adopt as a company? Do you see a need for something else in terms of technology and languages at this point?
Claire Lutton: The HomeExchange AI chatbot has been working great. It’s all about tTweaking and giving the chatbot more information so that it can reply to even more and more questions and situations. But at this point, I think it’s, it’s it just using this tool and teaching it more. And I think that would, that’s great.
Sonia Kampshoff: So can you tell us at HomeExchange, how many nationalities do you employ of the global team that you have? How many nationalities do you have?
Claire Lutton: We have 10 nationalities. We have, we have some team members are located in France, in Spain, in Croatia, in the US and in Italy. But in, in all of those places we have a total of 10 different nationalities and, but mostly we are working in French and English. Yeah. The languages we work the most with. Yes.
Sonia Kampshoff: And I think you are in, you have guests in 155 countries globally, which is really amazing.
Claire Lutton: Yes.
Sonia Kampshoff: What’s the most remote country that you have guests in?
Sonia Kampshoff: I would say maybe the, the islands a lot of, we have members in the French Polynesia, like little remote islands in the Pacific.
Sonia Kampshoff: Nice.
Claire Lutton: We also have some, we have members in, in, in the south of Africa, South Africa, on the Ivory Coast in Africa. We have some members in Japan, in Korea, but I would say probably the most remote is those little islands. Yeah. Some in the Caribbean and some in Polynesia. They’re very remote.
Sonia Kampshoff: Interesting. So this is really all I wanted to talk about. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Claire I, I would like to say that if the, your listeners haven’t tried HomeExchange, then they really should. They will probably will change the way they travel for sure.
Sonia Kampshoff: Yes, I agree. I love it. Okay, great. I’ll put a link to the website in the show notes, but in the meantime, thank you very much for your time and thank you for the lovely conversation.
Calire Thank you. Anytime. Thank you very much Sona.
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