The benefits of customer service translation.

Very few companies today operate within a single-language environment. A local store with an online presence and webstore will likely get queries from people who don’t speak the language. That’s why the challenge of customer service translation is becoming the key problem to solve, in order to create a successful operation.

There are two general solutions to this issue. The first one is the standard use of native speakers for each language area. The second one is fairly new and it entails the use of translation tools. While the benefits of the first approach are well known, the benefits of customer service translation may not be immediately apparent to everyone. 

What are the benefits of customer service translation?

At Transcom, we have developed Automated Translation, an AI-powered real-time translation solution that seamlessly integrates with any platform you use, to allow you to quickly and accurately translate voice or text without the need to know a foreign language. Through implementation with clients, we have found many ways to use customer service translation to improve your business. What you’ll see is that many of these benefits interact with each other meaning they create a positive feedback loop i.e. benefits create benefits.

Increase interaction quality.

People in general work better in their native language. With Automated Translation, you can create inclusive customer service. This increases interaction quality and CSAT because customers were able to easily communicate their issues and were able to easily understand what was said to them.

That means that with a 97% accuracy in translation with our tool, there is less chance for miscommunication and misunderstanding.

Decrease load during surge volumes.

This benefit is best explained through a hypothetical situation. Say you have a call center in Portugal and another one in the Philippines, which both serve as customer service for an airline. For some reason or other there has been a large influx of calls in the center in Portugal with many people put on hold. Usually, this would mean lower CSAT, longer wait times, overworked and irritated agents, etc. On the other hand, you have the center in the Philippines with almost no active work, with agents sitting idle.

This is where our tool comes in. With it, you can instantly switch agents from the Philippines center to assist the ones working in Portugal, without them even knowing the language in question. This leads to shorter wait times, increased CSAT, and agents who are not overworked or sitting bored waiting for a call.

Optimize agent performance.

This benefit ties into the previous one. With agents being able to “speak” multiple languages, there is a lower chance of them not working due to lower volumes. This means more satisfaction for the agent, because boredom and idleness play a great part in AX, and it also means a more efficient company where all agents will increase their occupancy due to the fact that they can work in all languages.

Shorter training times.

Agents will quickly grasp what’s important in their line of work. They will have an improved learning curve due to the sheer volume of calls and reduced idle time. This means less cost for training and having experienced agents ready for work much sooner than usual. Also, Automated Translation doesn’t require extensive additional training because it is seamlessly integrated into the agent workflow with agents reporting 100% satisfaction with the tool.

Easily expand to new markets and scale up your operation

By using Automated Translation, you can easily and quickly expand your business without the need to hire staff in the new market. If the new market has a higher worker cost, you can expand your business without the need to hire people in the new market because our solution eliminates the need for native speakers.

This means that you can have an experienced workforce, that knows the systems you use, that is familiar with the processes of your business, ready to work in any market. Also, if the need for more employees arises, they can be trained by their already experienced colleagues. Apart from that, hiring in your original, lower cost market, allows you to hire more people that you would be able to in the new higher cost market, making it possible for you to grow faster as a business.

Training for new employees is also much more effective due to them working at a higher volume of interactions, be it calls or chat.

Reduce cost.

All of the benefits mentioned above also serve to reduce overall cost. By not having to hire new workers you save on future expenses, on the other hand Automated Translation can also make it possible to reduce FTE thus cutting expenses, and for one of our clients those expenses dropped by 50%. 

As far as expansion goes, you can also move your operations to a lower cost market, thus expanding, and again, cutting costs. All of these benefits, in the end, lead to a much lower TCO.