Multilingual customer service
Multilingual customer service – why do you need it?
Customer service has always been a crucial part of the business for any company that desires to be valued. Your company’s attitude towards customers creates a particular image that can strengthen or weaken your business. When it comes to the most high-profile brands and companies, their goal is to address as many people as possible, crossing the geographical, cultural, and also linguistic borders. With the latter two, multilingual customer service comes in handy. What is it, and why should you take care of it? Let’s get right to it.
Suppose your company develops rapidly and you decide to conquer foreign markets. Without a doubt, it’s a difficult and complex challenge. First off, you need to take proper care of your customer service and translate all of your marketing materials. Let’s talk a bit more about that.
Multilingual customer service – a key to understanding its role
Companies targeting audiences from many different countries have to find a way to achieve the best results. Although English is now the most well-known and widely-spoken language, not everyone is capable of communicating in it. Also, people usually feel more comfortable speaking in their native language. This way, they can address their thoughts much easier.
That’s why your customer service has to meet all the individual needs of potential customers who might come across your company in a different country. The decision to introduce multilingual support is not only a novelty in some areas but, increasingly often, it is also a necessity: if a company wants to attract as many different customers in the new market as possible, it is crucial to make them feel confident and comfortable while doing business.
There are many ways in which multilingual customer service may be introduced to the company. We will discuss some of them shortly. No matter what you do, though, pay attention to the high quality of your service. According to the latest Gladly’s report, you simply need it to grow your business:
How to take care of a foreign customer
Multiple surveys (including the cited one) have reported that customers are willing to pay much more for a product if they are satisfied with the customer service. It is the approach to your clients that influences most of the company’s profit. Customer service should be strongly connected to the feeling of comfort, trust, and loyalty. If there is a feeling of mutual understanding, the customer will more likely perceive the company as a trustworthy and safe place to spend their money.
This raises a vital question: what can be done to enhance all of these positive images in a customer’s eyes? There are a few ways that will surely elevate multilingual customer service.
ANALYSE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
First and foremost, you need to get to know your customers not only for their business needs but also for their personal ones. Working with people is a challenging task, which is why it is necessary to prepare for it correctly. Before launching a product in various countries, it would be best to conduct some research regarding a different language, culture and everything that comes with it – customs, manners, behaviours. It is especially important for customers who come from countries where English is not the first language; it will definitely be more comfortable for them to communicate in their native language. The research and analysis of multilingual customers’ cultural backgrounds will help build trust for both sides of the deal.
LOCALISE THE OFFER
The theory is one thing. While getting to know your target audience is crucial, it is not enough to familiarise yourself with general information about the new country and culture. It must be visible for a customer that his their world is understood and respected by your company. That is why immersive observations should precede every aspect of customer service. In order to fully understand a completely different culture, you need to dig deeper into it. Paying attention to details and making the offer natural to your new customers will work miracles.
Moreover, at this point, you should think about the localisation service. Translating marketing materials is rarely sufficient. You need a more thorough approach. We talk about that in this blog post: Marketing translation: from websites to slogans.
START COOPERATING WITH NATIVE SPEAKERS
While getting to know multilingual customers’ backgrounds as much as possible gives you a significant advantage in the market, sometimes it may be really problematic to fully grasp every little detail that is hidden inside a new linguistic culture. That is why investing in cooperation with native speakers is highly beneficial. Not only will they share their professional knowledge, but they will also make the customers feel more comfortable during conversations.
Native speakers are specialists in one specific language and culture; thus, they can find these little nuances in communication that may be crucial in the customers’ perception. Moreover, they have more familiarity with the foreign culture, which will make the conversation more effective, e.g., thanks to the awareness of how the customer prefers to be addressed.
The importance of multilingual customer service
The benefits of good multilingual customer service are crystal-clear. Using the customer’s native language:
- Increases the trust and loyalty towards a particular company
- Helps with enhancing the feeling of comfort
- Makes the company more reliable and viewed as respectful towards the target country’s culture.
However, these are not the only advantages that multilingual customer service offers. By providing proper, well-prepared support for foreign customers, your company can expect multiple profits:
- Unrivalled position in the market: we are more and more aware that English is not the only language used for global communication. Attention should also be paid to other languages, even minor ones. If the company offers products or services in multiple languages, it becomes more attractive for people in other countries.
- Increased sales: the better the position in the market, the more popular and recognisable the company is. Adding to this, more service options result in a more varied audience. As a result, you get more satisfied customers across different countries.
- Facilitated communication: with a well-developed multilingual customer service, the language barrier doesn’t exist. Customers are provided with a safe, well-known atmosphere thanks to experienced native speakers, which makes it easier for both sides to lead a comfortable, stress-free dialogue. Thereby, the relationship between customers and the company is strengthened immensely.
You can achieve some of the customer-service-related goals on your own, e.g., by hiring native speakers. Some of them require the professional help of a translation company. And that’s why you have us, especially when you’re interested in the Polish market.
The Aploq’s role
We understand how important customer service is – it comes with a lot of benefits and plenty of responsibilities. How can we help you with them? We provide a whole range of language services, including:
Our clients’ satisfaction is and has always been our top priority. Drop us a line today, and see how we can help you conquer the amazing Polish market!
