Businesses are becoming more global in today’s fast-paced, digitally connected world. International customers frequently purchase our services and products.
Many businesses, however, are still not multilingually prepared or have the resources to support multiple languages. According to a recent poll, more than a third of contact centers can currently only handle calls in one language.
Any company seeking worldwide reach and ensuring a stable market share of its target clients should start making plans to provide customer service in their native languages. So, how do you go about doing this? Let’s take a look at the quick answer to why having a multilingual customer service center is crucial. Then we’ll become more specific.
What are the advantages of having a multilingual call center?
Customers who do not believe that their simple complaints and inquiries about your product or service can be addressed due to a language barrier are more likely to go elsewhere. Your company can improve client satisfaction levels by establishing a multilingual contact center.
Now that we’ve looked at the short answer to why it’s important to provide your multilingual customers with a forum where they can express their preferences, get answers to their questions, and, of course, learn more about your product or services, let’s look at how offering a multilingual contact service can benefit your company.
Let us look at some benefits of having a multilingual customer service center:
What happens when a company’s customer support center receives a call from a customer who speaks a foreign language? If they are unable to receive assistance in their native language, the corporation may lose a customer who would have contributed significantly to the company’s revenues.
Utilising multilingual customer care representatives can help your company develop by increasing client happiness. Your customer service has a significant impact on your company, and how your consumers feel about how your contact center assists them can determine whether they stay with you or switch to a rival.
If there is a language barrier, it could be the difference between success and failure.
So, what are the obvious advantages of providing multilingual customer service to your consumers and your company?
Take a peek at the list below:
Assists in breaking down barriers
If a consumer has a problem with your product or service and is already frustrated, it’s understandable that if the person they’re speaking with doesn’t appear to understand them due to a language barrier, their frustration levels will skyrocket. If they don’t obtain the answers they need or don’t feel heard, it’s understandable that they’ll go for help elsewhere.
The truth is that if your firm does not provide bilingual customer service personnel to meet the needs of its whole community, you will lose money.
Provides a customised service to the customer
Bilingual customer care employees make it easier for more consumers to communicate and ensure that their issues or queries are heard, understood, and resolved.
Loyalty and word-of-mouth advertisement
Your brand is formed by how people perceive your company. Consumers will inform their friends and family if they feel they will be easily understood, which includes having their inquiries and concerns adequately addressed. They’ll likely post about their experience on social media and become repeat consumers.
Customer acquisition
You may be missing out on sales based on market demographics or your geographic location. You may reach out to new clients and expand your client base by hiring bilingual service personnel. Consumers want to conduct business with companies that make them feel welcome and cared for.
Opportunities to expand into other markets
When it comes to breaking into a new market, communication is crucial.
Because of the language barrier, many US-based businesses find it difficult to establish commercial ties with consumers in other nations. This is also true for any company wishing to establish itself in one of the many neighbourhoods where language obstacles exist.
Retaining current customers
Customers want problems to be treated swiftly and competently.
Making repeated calls to resolve difficulties and seek easy product and service resolutions is one of their major complaints.
According to research, 70 percent of buying experiences are determined by how customers feel they are handled, and 89 percent of customers cease buying from a company because of poor customer service.
If your customer care agents have trouble understanding simple questions or issues, they may be jeopardising consumer pleasure and risk losing their business.
Many businesses are solely focused on their products or services, entirely ignoring the demands of current or potential new clients.
Bilingual agents assist you to acquire your consumers’ confidence, loyalty, and any prospective new business by opening lines of communication with them.
Now that we’ve seen some of the advantages of giving your consumers a place to talk about your product in their language, let’s look at some of the ways to do it.
How can I provide a multilingual customer service center?
Tools for Online Translation
Contact centers can use online translation tools as an add-on to standard translation sites to automatically translate forum posts, live chats, emails, website entries, and other types of textual content.
The add-on tools provide all of the general vocabulary and lingo associated with contact centers and their industries. Because they are industry-specific, the tools can be fairly precise. This will have the advantage of allowing advisors to complete their daily work in their native language, respond to written contacts in multiple languages using the tools, and, most importantly, eliminate the need to hire bilingual advisors or use other more costly methods of dealing with bilingual customers.
One disadvantage of employing this technology in a contact center is that it cannot be utilised to cover all channels, including those that involve voice, such as telephone calls. So, if firms want to successfully use this approach in the contact center, multilingual advisers will still be required.
Informal Language Assistance
This procedure entails providers enlisting the assistance of non-customer-service employees who are native speakers to give ad hoc support.
This is a popular method in contact centers if budget restrictions prevent them from providing a comprehensive multilingual assistance program. The cost of employing this approach is quite low, which is a huge benefit for contact centers that don’t have the resources to take on a full multilingual project.
However, relocating employees from other areas of your company, such as marketing or accounting, is not a viable or scalable strategy.
Contact Centers in-Country
This business model entails constructing contact centers in each country where your company does business so that clients may communicate with a native speaker.
Because you may hire so that clients interact with a native speaker of their language, the strategy can be quite beneficial in resolving language challenges. This can help establish confidence and empathy by making conversations more natural.
A smart recommendation is to hold calibration sessions with coaches from each global contact center every 6–8 weeks if you prefer to do so. This would ensure that the same level of service is provided regardless of the language spoken.
One disadvantage of this technique is that, while customer-centric, establishing in-country contact centers can be prohibitively expensive for smaller businesses and difficult to foresee.
Although telecommunications providers have recently made this option more cost-effective, establishing a contact center in a new country still demands a major investment and dedication from the firm.
OPI Over-the-Phone Interpretation
Because you don’t have to organise training for any additional advisors on new protocols or work on new systems, using OPI is beneficial to your cost constraints. Their job will simply be to translate the agent’s words.
This method entails a native-speaking advisor, a foreign-speaking customer, and an interpreter who will translate both parties’ conversations.
OPI can be a great solution for smaller volume contact centers and can often be a cost-saving solution, as the process works on a monthly payment or a cost-per-minute basis.
This is the most commonly used option in US contact centers today, but it has the disadvantage of not assisting customers who prefer to use the faster method of self-service or other digital channels.
BPO Outsourcing
Contacting the operations, duties, and all accountability to a third-party service provider is used in this method.
This service is typically used in many back-office functions such as finance, accounting, and human resources. Businesses can increase their financial flexibility by utilising the approach.
This method can be highly beneficial in achieving growth objectives because the fixed contract with the third party can avoid any potential or significant bottlenecks. After all, the third-party retains responsibility.
One of the most significant disadvantages of using this method is that it can jeopardise any quality assurance targets you hope to achieve while handing over a significant portion of your business to a third party.
Another disadvantage of using this technique is that it can be difficult to control processes such as call approach and style, as well as overall technique following your company culture.
Communication amongst departments
Rerouting calls to a country where the customer’s first language is the adviser’s or where a contact center has a specialist advisor for that language is part of global contact center networking.
This is a very effective strategy for not just dealing with multilingual consumers, but also for pushing out any spikes in call volume that your contact center may suffer.
This is a useful resource to have on hand in case your company’s growth accelerates.
Finally
We hope that this post has helped you understand why having a contact center that can assist multilingual consumers is critical to staying competitive.
If you have any questions about any of the subjects discussed, or how you can integrate all of your communication channels effortlessly, please contact us. Make contact with one of our experts who will be able to assist you.