6 Steps To Delivering Exceptional Multilingual Support

April 11, 2017

Today’s Conversation

• State of language support in the contact center

• The widening CX language gap

• How Best-In-Class companies support languages

• 6 multilingual best practices

• Q&A

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Experts Agree CX is Critical

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Focus on CX

89% of companies expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience

When Econsultancy conducted their survey for Digital

Marketing Trends, they asked companies to state the

single most exciting opportunity for 2016.

22%

15%13%

11%

7%

Customer

Experience

Content Marketing Mobile Personalization Social

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And we know the importance of CX

SURVEY SAYS: CUSTOMERS HIGHLY VALUE GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES

2020

86% of buyers will pay more for

a better customer experience.

By 2020, customer experience will

overtake price and product as the

key brand differentiator.

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State of Language Support in the Contact Center

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Ways to Support Languages in the Contact Center

3rd Party Interpretation

Outsource In-Country Contact Centers

Back Office Support

In-House Multilingual

Agents

Real-Time Translation

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Supporting Languages is Getting Even Harder

Consumers• Personalized

• Real-Time

• Seamless

• 24x7

• Channel

Preferences:

• Digital

channels

• Social/mobile

• Self-Service

• More diversity

Brands• Near-shoring / offshoring

• Customer journey mapping

• Omni-channel / cloud platforms

• New geographies / website localization

• Deploying collaboration tools

• Beefing up our knowledge bases

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Some Language Facts - U.S. Specific

• Nearly 65M individuals in the U.S. prefer a language other than English – 326M total U.S. population – 20%!

• Nearly 27M individuals in the U.S. are LEP – >8% of population

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What does CX look like for non-primary language speaking customers?

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Only 19% of organizations can support non-primary language customers AND most commonly only over the phone…

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And for the others…The #1 way of “helping” these customers?

Simply apologize…

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In fact…

39% Apologize that the language is not supported and attempt to handle in the agent’s primary language

26% Informally find someone in the department that can translate or speak the language

17% Provide a scripted apologetic response and make no further support attempt

16% Informally find someone in the company That can translate or speak the language

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Typical CX for non-primary speaker

• Very limited self-service

• Very limited digital / mobile

• If offered it is mainly voice via an interpreter

• Limited hours of coverage

• Long hold / wait times

• No support

= Very High effort,

Very frustrating CX

1 Angry Customer 16 Anti Referrals

=

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5 Most Common Reasons why the CX Language Gap exists

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Language Gap Cause #1: Companies don’t know the extent of the problem

• <12% of companies measure effort by language

• <15% of companies measure NPS by language

• <20% of companies measure wait time by language

• <22% of companies measure FCR by language

• <25% of companies measure CSAT by language

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Language Gap Cause #2 & 3: know it but…

#2 - they have bigger issues – get the 85% of volume in a good place

#3 - language support is too expensive / too difficult to support:

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Language Gap Cause #4: There is Lack of Internal Alignment

Companies aren’t staffed to provide Customer Care in the same languages that sales & marketing materials are localized in

Remove Translation Barriers That Obstruct Digital Experience SuccessNovember 2016

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Language Gap Cause #5: The language demographics / volumes are unknown / not taken into consideration

Companies aren’t aware or don’t consider the languages spoken in the markets that their products are sold into.

• LEP speakers (~27M in the U.S.) –16M speak Spanish, 11M other

• Regions / Pockets of other language speakers

Arabic Speakers around Detroit

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74% of consumers are more likely to repurchase

if after-sales care is offered in their language

What is the cost / risk of not providing support across customer languages

What was the difference in CSAT between customers served in their primary language vs. non-primary?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

CSAT was significantly higher when served in primary language

CSAT was moderately higher when served in primary language

CSAT was slightly higher when served in primary language

CSAT was about the same when served in primary language

CSAT was lower when served in primary language

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How best-in-class companies support languages

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B-I-C Companies match solutions with volumes while leveraging Technology

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In-House

Multilingual AgentsIn-Country

Contact Centers Outsource3rd Party Interpretation

2nd Generation

Real-Time

Translation

High Volume

Medium Volume

Low Volume

B-I-C Companies have learned that Technology Lowers The Cost of Multilingual Customer Care

• 162 Global Companies surveyed

• 21% of Businesses use technology for multilingual communications

• Another 20% are considering adopting it for 2017

• Those who have saw:

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B-I-C Companies leverage Language Technology across the enterprise

Leverage customized, centralized “Linguistic Knowledgebase” which powers 2nd Gen AI translation that provides significant advantages to:

• Internal communication & collaboration ( employee engagement)

• Service Management ( employee satisfaction)

• Marketing ( revenue)

• Field Service Operations ( increased efficiency)

• Contact Center ( increased efficiency / improved CX)

– Quicker Omni-lingual support to Emerging channels

Chatbots / Virtual Assistants

AI Voice translation

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B-I-C Companies use OPI & 2nd Gen AI Translation in the Contact Center to:

1. Support languages they aren’t staffed for

2. Geographic expansion without hiring language talent

3. SLA / broader service coverage (24x7)

4. Regional centers of excellence vs. disparate in-country contact centers

5. Adding digital and self-service to reduce inbound calls

6. Adding digital and self-service to provide better CX

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In Summary B-I-C Companies:

• Know the preferred language of their customers

• Measure key metrics by language

• Offer websites & collateral across their prospect’s languages

• Support all languages that their customers speak

• Map journeys by language

• Offer language-agnostic self-service channels

• Offer omni-lingual digital agent assisted channels

• Leverage technology

Which results in personalized, preferred channel, low effort experiences that deliver reduced cost, improved retention, and increased revenue.

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6 Multilingual Best Practice Steps to follow to become Best in Class

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Identify Opportunities Across Languages

Dissect metrics by language

Step 01

Interactions

Effort

CSAT

NPS

Etc.

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Determine your Goal(s)

Your goal will drive the appropriate strategy

Step 02

Broader coverage across hours / days of week?

Quicker response time?

Voice deflection?

Support languages not supported today?

Better CX?

Improvement in CSAT / NPS?

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Map Journeys by LanguageStep 03

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Investigate Staffing OptionsStep 04

3rd Party Interpretation

Outsource In-Country Contact Centers

Back Office Support

In-House Multilingual

Agents

2nd Gen Real-Time Translation

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Build the Business Case

BENEFITS:

Step 05

Increased Revenue

Reduced Cost

Better Coverage

Better CX

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Test & Measure, Optimize & ExpandStep 06

How did the approach impact

key metrics?

Did we get the result that we thought

we would?

Test and control if possible

With validation in-hand, identify the next channel

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Language Maturity Curve by Channel

Virtual Assistants

All Self-Service, Digital

and Voice

Agent assistedDigital

Voice only (OPI)

Multilingual Web

Less than 25% of companies surveyed felt they doing well in meeting their customer’s language needs and expectations.

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GeoFluent for Contact Centers

A SaaS-based platform leveraging interpretation & AI translation that:

1. Adds omni-lingual language support2. To any communications channel (digital, voice, documents)3. Using your existing communication platform(s) 4. And your existing agents / staff

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Thank You!

Tom TsekiTom.Tseki@lionbridge.com | @TomTsekiVP & GM, Customer Care Solutions, Lionbridge

www.geofluent.com

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