Customer care is a large part of many modern business operations. When that customer care is multilingual, it can be complicated to get it right. You You often have to make sure you have bilingual customer support reps and translated customer care documents. Call centers in the Philippines, for example, make sure they hire people who are knowledgeable of the language used by their clients. While business processes can be learned, a person who already knows how to speak a certain language is more competent in communicating well with the customers. You might even need certified translation if you’re providing technical details. An easy solution is to outsource that multilingual customer care service to translation agencies, chatbot software, interpreter services, and certified translation services. You can also opt for voiceover production companies like WellSaid Labs (check here), where you can create an avatar in any language that could be used to communicate with customers that speak different languages.
Customer Service and Certified Translation
Let’s start with some definitions. Customer care can involve both spoken and written services. For multilingual customer care, interpretation covers anything that translates speech in real-time or recorded audio. Meanwhile, Ofer Tirosh, CEO of translation agency Tomedes, advises that translation handles converting written text from one language to another. You might also see certified translation services or other translation specialisms. How do you certify a translation document? By using a professional translator who issues a certificate stating that the translation is accurate and complete in the new language.
Since interpretation and translation are a division of text versus speech, you can see where one would work for certain customer care situations over another. For instance, any customer support that happens over the phone or sales conversations would benefit from interpretation services. Meanwhile, translation can handle customer websites, customer care chatbots, any sales documents that go out to customers, or even customer service emails, as some examples.
This huge breadth of services has created plenty of scope for outsourcing customer care. Indeed, the outsourced customer care services market is projected to grow a CAGR of 6% from 2017 to 2024.
Using Customer Care Chatbots in Different Languages
One of the most exciting technologies that continue to be improved upon is chatbots for customer care. These scripted, responsive programs can answer basic customer questions and direct people to the right departments or areas of the website.
Chatbots provide a double win for businesses that use them wisely. They can reduce customer care costs by up to 30%, as well as speed up response times. Chatbots can answer up to 80% of routine questions.
But what do you do when those chatbots need to run in different languages? You can actually find companies that help translate chatbot text. You can also find APIs that handle neural adaptive machine translation that you can add to your chatbot software.
In many business settings, machine translation isn’t always an option, since it still makes little slip ups that can be disastrous when, say, marketing a product in a foreign region. A single typo can cause offense or make your company look unprofessional. However, chatbots are more simply scripted and usually meant to address common concerns. They are also set up to direct people to the right departments or customer care reps. So machine translation could actually help you outsource your multilingual customer care with chatbots.
Localizing Your Website for Better Customer Care
With e-commerce being more popular than ever, more people are shopping globally. To help your customers have a good experience with your company’s digital portal, it pays to localize it.
Can I translate my own documents? With the complexity of localization, it might be best to outsource localizing your website, plus your other customer care documents, to an experienced translation and localization agency. After all, localization goes far beyond just translating text. It considers all aspects of a product or service.
As localization applies to a website, it might update text so it fits local formats, like currency symbols or addresses. It would update and redo any graphics so they fit well with local cultures, the new language, and foreign consumer habits. Localization can make sure the layout of the whole website looks good in the new language. It might also make sure the website is abiding by local standards in a foreign region, like any laws regarding cookie disclosure or privacy laws. Further, localization looks at the overall message and presentation to make sure it is not offending local cultures. This is all part of providing a good service to your customers.
Certified Translation for Businesses
What does certified translation have to do with customer care? There are several examples of when outsourcing certified translation makes sense in the business world.
For instance, you may run a business in the medical field. It helps to get certified translation for sensitive medical documents or instructions since errors could lead to improperly administered treatments.
Legally, it might help to have a certified translation of an important contract to show that nothing is getting lost in translation. Even certain marketing documents, like highly technical product specifications that a B2B customer might review, could benefit from certified translation services sourced from a reputable online translation agency.
