By Pole To Win

Multilingual support is essential in a global market. At a basic level, exceptional customer experience relies on exceptional communication.

The underlying fundamental is exceptional, coordinated and consistent communication in all of your customers’ native languages. Making an assumption that all of your customers are able, willing or comfortable with communicating in English is done at significant potential peril to your brand, and does not reflect the ambitions of a customer-centric organisation. Multilingual customer experience is quite simply indispensable for your customers and your business.

Your customers are more satisfied after interacting in their native language

It seems obvious that customers respond better to brand interaction when they can do so in their own language. It’s something that’s easy to overlook but the benefits should not be. According to ICMI’s 2014 report, 72% of respondents said their customer support satisfaction was increased when it was offered in their native language.

Native language support increases loyalty

Customer loyalty is hard sought and easily lost. It can be the linchpin of your company and continues to provide returns on investment over time. The same ICMI report showed that 58% of customers said their loyalty to the brand was increased by being offered support in their native language. And since 94.5% of customer service managers said that customer loyalty is important, why wouldn’t your company want to take advantage of it?

You don’t want to be left behind

According to the 2017 CCW Executive report more than 70% of businesses intend to invest in multilingual customer support. In today’s increasingly competitive market, companies not offering multilingual support will stand out for all the wrong reasons, which is not a differentiator to be proud of!

Easy to grow new customers

Ecommerce has not only changed the way people shop but has also opened up the geographical locations of customers. A boutique in Reykjavik, Iceland can easily have customers in Tianjin, China. Shipping to worldwide locations can easily be arranged through a whole manner of air, sea and road options. Customer service in your customer’s native language will not only increase satisfaction for your current customers but will also make other speakers of that language more likely to make that purchase. A 2014 Common Sense Advisory report showed that the more language-local content available throughout the customer experience leads to a greater likelihood of purchase.

Removes anxiety

Angry customer communications often arise from frustration and, understandably, communicating in a non-native language can add to this. By providing the option of native language communications, customers may experience a reduction in some of the anxiety around the experience, resulting in a more relaxed environment. According to Esteban Kolsky, if customers are not happy, 13% of them will tell 15 or more people. So, a tense, difficult conversation in non-native English will almost certainly be taken into consideration when spreading the word about your company.

Domestic companies can benefit too

The 2011 census showed that 4.2m people in England and Wales spoke a language other than English at home. By offering multilingual support in these target languages then you can increase positive customer experience by considering the needs of the wider customer base in the United Kingdom alone.

About Pole To Win

Pole To Win is an experienced global partner offering multilingual customer experience in over 30 languages from locations around the world.