In the present global digital era, businesses are no longer limited by geographical borders. As companies extend their services to various areas, there is a growing demand for customer support in multiple languages. Offering multilingual customer support is crucial for a smooth customer experience across different cultures and languages.
According to CSA Research, 76% of online customers prefer to buy products with information in their own language. Therefore, it is vital to engage in conversations with customers using their preferred languages.
In this blog post, we will learn about what multilingual customer support is, how to effectively offer multilingual customer support and some benefits of multilingual customer support.
What is multilingual customer support?
Multilingual customer support involves businesses providing customer service in multiple languages to ensure that customers’ queries, complaints, and issues are resolved effectively regardless of their geographical location and culture.
Multilingual support allows businesses to expand beyond geographical boundaries and offer customers a wider range of options.
As such, brands seeking to explore international markets and serve a global audience have unlimited potential.
How to effectively offer multilingual customer support
To provide excellent customer service, it is important to communicate with clients in the language they prefer. Here are some of the ways to effectively offer multilingual customer service:
Understand the language your customers speak
It is crucial to clearly understand the language spoken by your customers to offer support in their preferred language since they may be from different locations.
This can be achieved by requesting customers to specify their preferred language when contacting your support team or by utilizing language detection tools.
Offer multilingual help desk software
A multilingual help desk is a customer support system that can provide customer service in multiple languages.
With a multilingual help desk, agents can easily interact with clients and resolve customer issues without encountering any language barriers.
To set up a multilingual help desk, you can include the following features:
- Multilingual knowledge base: Support agents can translate knowledge base articles in various languages, allowing customers to find solutions in their preferred language.
- Multilingual customer portal: Enables users to specify their preferred language in their profiles in a customer portal.
- Multilingual agent portal: Guarantees agents the freedom to customize their language preferences within their profile.
- Multilingual email templates: Enables the creation of personalized templates for different languages.
- Multilingual support for forms and fields: Field names such as priority and status within a website can be configured to accommodate multiple languages.
- Multilingual satisfaction survey: Customer satisfaction surveys can be configured in various languages.
Translating a help desk into different languages has the following impacts:
- Increased customer retention, as customers will prefer help desk software that offers customer service in their native languages.
- End-user customization of the help center in the language customers prefer.
- Services reaching new markets and a global audience to increase customer experience.
Design a multilingual knowledge base
A multilingual knowledge base is a centralized repository of information that includes articles that are available in multiple languages.
By creating a multilingual knowledge base, you can provide support and information to customers/users in their native languages.
This allows you to:
- Improve the accessibility of information in various languages.
- Enhance collaboration within a support team using different languages.
- Enhance communication between customers and agents.
Here are some multilingual knowledge base features:
- Create and translate categories, sections, and articles: Translates categories, sections, and articles into various languages, which enhances the accessibility of a knowledge base to a broader range of users.
- Set up primary and multiple secondary languages: This allows customers the ability to access services in their desired language.
- Manage article translation: Translation management involves monitoring translated articles and updating them when original content changes. This ensures articles are accurate and up to date.
- Language-specific article versions and restore option: Enables customers to easily switch between different language versions and revert to previous versions if needed.
- Language-specific article metrics: This allows you to track the performance of customer engagement with your knowledge base for all languages. It involves tracking article views, comments, likes, and shares for each language.
- Multilingual tags and search options: Multilingual tags help users find relevant content quickly in a knowledge base with multiple languages.
- SEO in article language: Implementing SEO in a knowledge base is crucial, as it makes it easy for users to find articles they want.
Customize your website to suit your audience
Customizing your website involves translating its content into various languages and adapting it to align with the cultural preferences of your target audience.
This simplifies navigation for customers and enables them to easily access the information they require.
This approach improves customer satisfaction, cultivates stronger customer relationships, and stimulates business growth.
Use translation tools
Utilizing translation tools, such as ticket or content translation tools, plays a crucial role in overcoming the language barrier that exists between customers and support agents.
These tools facilitate the translation of articles, customer inquiries, and customer service portals into multiple languages.
This improves effective communication, guarantees uniformity in content or information, and expands global reach.
The translation tool can also lead to prompt and effective responses.
When choosing a translation tool for multilingual customer service, it is important to consider factors such as:
- Tool translation accuracy
- The number of languages it can translate
- Its integration capabilities with existing systems
Recruit agents proficient in multiple languages
Hiring agents who can fluently communicate in multiple languages is one of the most effective ways to provide multilingual customer service.
This ensures improved customer support by understanding cultural subtleties and ensuring effective communication, which results in increased customer satisfaction and higher business expansion globally.
Benefits of multilingual customer service
The ultimate goal of every business is to grow and establish a global presence. Here are the benefits of multilingual customer service.
Improved customer loyalty and trust
Businesses providing multilingual customer service demonstrate a deep understanding for their customers. This ensures customers loyalty and promotes brand recommendation.
If representatives speak the same language as the customers, it enhances customer trust and loyalty to your brand, as they feel more understood.
Enhanced brand reputation and credibility
Offering multilingual customer service can improve a company’s reputation, as it demonstrates respect for different languages and cultures.
This can enhance your brand’s image and make it stand out from competitors who may not offer multilingual support.
Improved communication between representatives and clients
Providing multilingual customer service improves communication between the support team and the customers.
This allows representatives to interact with a customer in that customer’s preferred language, making customers feel more understood. As a result, customer concerns are addressed promptly.
This can also improve collaboration between agents from different companies.
Improved customer satisfaction
Interacting with customers in their native language is one of the ways to increase their satisfaction with your brand.
By providing multilingual customer service, companies can enhance stronger customer relationships and effectively resolve customer concerns. This leads to higher customer satisfaction rates.
Increased competitive edge
Providing customer support in various languages enables a business to gain a competitive advantage.
An appreciation for different languages and cultures shows a company’s dedication to customer satisfaction.
As a result, a business can attract a larger global customer base.
Shattered language barriers
Providing support in one language can be challenging, since some customers might have difficulty conveying their problems to the support team.
By offering support in multiple languages, companies can ensure that agents are able to resolve customer issues regardless of their language.
Increased revenue and market reach
Improving multilingual customer communication enhances a company’s ability to engage with new customers in unexplored markets, boosting revenue and expanding the customer base.
Reduced churn rate
Churn rate refers to the percentage of customers lost over a period, which can occur for various reasons, including communication obstacles.
Offering support in the languages preferred by customers helps them feel genuinely understood, enhancing their loyalty.
When individuals feel they are appreciated as valued members of a company, they are less inclined to switch to rival businesses.
This decrease in customer churn rate leads to increased customer retention and stability, promoting the growth of your business.
Implement multilingual customer support today!
Businesses can now reach a global market by implementing multilingual customer support, which breaks language barriers, enhances collaboration between support agents, and streamlines communication between customers and agents.
Get exceptional multilingual customer service through BoldDesk help desk software. Sign up for a free trial today to observe how BoldDesk can enhance your support team’s efficiency. If you have any queries, feel free to reach out to the BoldDesk support team for help. To see how BoldDesk can be customized to suit your business requirements, please get in touch with us to arrange a live demo.
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