As a global brand, you’re always trying to develop cost-efficient customer experience (CX) strategies while scaling your business to different regions — and speaking your customer’s languages is necessary when doing so. So how can you effectively optimize language operations in your contact centers to provide a consistent, superior CX? In this blog, we’ll discuss five key strategies to enhance language operations in a CX contact center, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5 ways to boost contact center optimization
1. Implement multilingual support
First thing’s first: you need to hire agents who are proficient in different languages spoken by your customer base. By having a diverse team, you can ensure that customers can communicate comfortably in their preferred language, leading to better understanding and resolution of their issues. Another thing you should consider for your to-do list is to provide language training programs for existing agents to expand their language skills and enhance their ability to serve a wider customer base.
2. Leverage translation and localization tools
To streamline language operations, your contact center should leverage translation and localization tools. These tools help with translating customer interactions into different languages, such as emails, chat conversations and support tickets. By automating the translation process, agents can respond to customers quickly and accurately in their native languages.
Not to mention, automation can tremendously improve workflows by handling these kinds of tasks while your agents can focus on more complex issues. Localization tools can also adapt content to specific cultural nuances, which ensures that the customer feels understood and valued. And when customers feel like a brand knows them and is invested in them, they’re more likely to continue interacting with that brand, increasing your brand’s customer lifetime value.
3. Use AI-powered machine language translation
The benefits of using AI to improve CX are invaluable, and according to research from Ryan Strategic Advisory, there’s a great deal of enthusiasm among contact center leaders for generative AI when it comes to the multilingual contact center. By integrating AI into language operations, you can boost efficiency, reduce response times and improve overall customer satisfaction.
AI-powered language processing tools can analyze customer interactions in real time, identify customer sentiment and provide agents with relevant suggestions or responses. These tools can also assist in language translation, enabling agents to communicate seamlessly with customers who speak different languages. While human translation is still essential for accuracy, machine translation can assist in handling large amounts of content quickly, adding resource flexibility by enabling leaders to operate in their nonnative language. This can also lower cost to serve and increase uptime — win-win.
4. Implement language-specific knowledge bases
Not only do agents need to be proficient in a customer’s native language, but they also need to have a thorough understanding of the solutions. Your job, then, is to develop language-specific knowledge bases. These knowledge bases should contain detailed information about products or services, FAQs, troubleshooting guides and best practices, all available in different languages. By providing agents with access to language-specific knowledge bases, they can deliver accurate and consistent support to customers, irrespective of their language preferences.
5. Continuous monitoring and feedback
Achieving contact center optimization is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and feedback. Regularly assess the performance of language operations by analyzing key metrics such as average handling time, customer satisfaction scores and resolution rates for different languages. Collect feedback from customers regarding their language support experience and use it to identify areas for improvement via analytics. Also, conduct regular training sessions and workshops to enhance language skills and keep agents updated with the latest language trends and customer preferences.
Investing in language operations not only improves customer satisfaction but also builds long-lasting relationships with diverse customer bases, contributing to the overall success of the contact center and the business as a whole. To learn more about best practices when it comes to providing multilingual support, read our whitepaper “Mastering multilingual: A guide to consolidation, consistency, cost efficiency and scalability.”