Providing a multilingual customer support

The idea that a “great” customer experience is not just a conversation, but a holistic approach to all of your interactions. When these interactions culminate in the form of an excellent customer experience, you’re golden. And what better way is there to achieve this than providing your customers with multilingual customer support?

Customer support is your gateway to the customer’s heart. Customer service strategies centered around customers’ own languages is a great way to convey your messages and provide spectacular customer service to win them over.

Around the world, 96% of customers say that customer service is a big part of their loyalty to a brand. According to a report published by Common Sense Advisory, 75% of global consumers in 10 non-English speaking countries prefer to buy products in their native language. We think it’s safe to say, as a corollary, that customer service is a part of this preference.

The benefits of providing a multilingual customer support

When you give your users the option of using their own language, it results in improved customer satisfaction, better time-to-sales, and improved customer loyalty.

Additionally, if your organization operates on a global scale, you’ll want to get access to the widest possible market. Despite the English language is the lingua franca, it is not that widespread in every country. On top of this, some cultures may even prefer to stick to their own languages when it comes to the services they use. Defeating the language barrier in customer support will definitely help you in your marketing efforts on this front.

This should go without saying at this point, but building brand loyalty among your customers is no easy task and it requires a lot of strategic planning and effort. Localized customer service can go a long way in achieving this. Preventing miscommunication in customer service is hugely important and it can lead to longer response times and increased costs in the long run. Increasing loyalty and getting your consumers’ trust is essential in any business, after all.

It’s also a good way to gain an advantage against your competitors in the same space. Your prospective customers will choose a brand that offers service in their native language against a brand that doesn’t. The other way around is possible as well: if you’re not the first in the market that does this, your chances of making it in that geographical area might not be as high as you’d want it to be.

So, what’s the best way of going about it?

⇒ Identify the level of support that needs to be multilingual: Which areas of your customer support do you need to localize? Prioritize the areas that you need to localize and start from there. A good start would be the areas that are used the most frequently and the channels that don’t need that much interaction from your agents. This will give you a good start to begin providing multilingual customer service while you constantly improve on the other areas.

⇒ Maximize the use of Chatbots: Chatbots enable you to answer simple questions, respond to simple demands, and keep providing customer service even outside working hours. It is a big opportunity to localize your Chatbot and start offering support through this channel. Maximizing the use of Chatbots will lower your support costs significantly while letting you engage customers in non-English speaking countries around the world. Desk360’s brand new Chatbot can help you get started very quickly with its professional translations in 40 languages and its easy integration feature.

⇒ Localized customer self-service and FAQs: For customers who like to find answers to their questions themselves, FAQ pages are a great resource. Utilizing FAQ pages further lowers the cost of support and gives your customers another way of finding answers. Localizing your frequently asked questions pages will ensure a smooth self-service experience for all your customers abroad. Check out Desk360’s custom FAQ pages here.

At the end of the day, if your service or app is geared towards a global audience, you need a multilingual customer support solution to boost your sales and to acquire more loyal customers. A single language service may not be enough if your organization operates in multiple geographic areas as both you and your customers have to find a way around the language barriers. Let Desk360 be your partner in doing this. Visit us at this link and tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.