According to a PwC study, 86% of all the customers globally are willing to spend more for a product or service that comes along with excellent customer service. When it comes to multilingual call center service and support, empathy and a calming communication attitude are critical components in delivering a positive user experience (UX). The best way to combine these factors well is to be able to communicate in the customers’ preferred language, which builds trust and loyalty.
There are around 40,000 languages, with approximately 6,000 to 9,000 actively used today. Of these thousands, 23 languages are spoken by 4.1 billion people worldwide. Each of these languages has at least 50 million speakers!
With the majority of the global population speaking in multiple languages, it is more important now than ever to value linguistic diversity. To make the transition from local to global, your business must take the necessary steps to meet the customer service requirements for the global audience, especially targeting the non-English-speaking masses.
Before you dive into offering multilingual call center services, it’s time to perfect it. Let’s take a detailed look at a few tips that you can keep in mind.
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Know Your Target Audience and their Language Requirements
If you have opted to go the multilingual path, you will have to take the difficult option of which languages to assist in. This calls you to know and research about your target audience, which is more difficult than you think. For example, hiring a French call center for the France region could not be the end of the task for you. There might be immigrants who are more comfortable in other languages than French.
So, this calls for a detailed insight into your target location and audience.
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Know Your Traffic
Start by reviewing your current customer data. If your business is on the web platform (like e-commerce), keep track of the locations where you receive the most traffic. Next, assess your emails, inquiry call logs, and any other channels that might store your customer information.
Spend some time knowing and researching the content consumption habits of your target audience in those locations once you have checked a list of regions. For example, some of your target audience might be very comfortable speaking English or another language as a second language, not everyone.
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Choose Support Languages Based on Demand
Checking where the volume of demand lowers drastically in your target list is a great way to determine which languages you should prioritize. For example, if the demand gap between Spanish and English is 10%, but the gap between Italian and Spanish is 30%, you know you have to focus more on English and Spanish.
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Turnaround Time is Important
Once you have a good understanding and knowledge of where your current and future customers and potential targets are located, check if offering prompt and timely service is possible. The problem with expanding your business internationally is that you will frequently deal with various time zones and will not always have enough resources to manage them.
If you want to use interactive channels, like email, live chat, or phone assistance, make sure you have enough time to respond to customers, depending on your service model. Remember that, unlike localizing a product, customer service is a continuous activity. Therefore, even if you automate your process mostly, you must maintain quickness and accuracy at all times.
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Localize Your Support and Marketing Operations
If your product or service is only available in one language, you won’t be able to provide help in various languages. Therefore, to complement your customer service efforts, you have to make sure that you localize your product correctly.
An app, a burger, or even a lipstick might be at the top of your product offering. More than likely, you will have a platform, such as a website or a mobile app. With this, it can be ordered directly or used for marketing purposes. Ensure the user interface has a localized design and dynamic layout and can be quickly translated to other languages.
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Know What Degree of Multilingual Support You Want to Offer
You can provide assistance in one of two ways – through human or AI-assisted engagement or through self-help tools. Your budget should determine the method you take. It will also depend largely on the availability of multilingual call center services and your company’s long-term goals.
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Hire Native Speaking Agents
When a customer contacts and speak with a representative of any brand, they are likely to have explored various alternative options ahead of time. Native speakers are aware of the subtle cultural differences connected with a language or place, and they are often able to pick up linguistic clues that non-native speakers are unable to.
However, this can be costly, and native speakers of a foreign language may not always be available in your area. This is a possible option if you require in-person representatives, such as front desk employees,
Follow the Local Communication Norms
Customer service is no exception. Each culture has its own set of conventions that are set to be observed. Even in target locations where the language is the same, such as the United States or the United Kingdom, the same collection of words or phrases might have various meanings.
The disparity is considerably bigger when languages divide cultures. For example, depending on their age and level of familiarity with them, you can address another person formally and informally in some European and Asian languages.
This is where localization comes into the picture. You can avoid cultural misunderstandings by thoroughly understanding the target market. One way to accomplish this is to translate and localize all of your materials by a professional human translator. This human translator will be responsible for taking care of the finer points of culture.
Another option is to train your front-line executives on cross-cultural best practices for the regions they are responsible for on a regular basis.
The Final Wrap Up
When it comes to providing global support, it is advisable that you begin at the local level. Establish relationships with customers in tiny but firm stages, no matter how close or far they are from your base location. For example, French or Spanish call center outsourcing begins by providing online and self-help materials in multiple languages.
As your company expands, you will be able to handle more sophisticated tasks, like multilingual customer service in person. So, having talked about all of such aspects, you now know that multilingual call center services should be preceded with these tips.
