Chat Translation Helps Open the Door to Global Customers

Scaling your business globally requires scaling your efforts. In fact, Entrepreneur reported that expansion, diversification, and customer engagement were among the top 2021 business priorities. Ultimately, these priorities cannot be properly executed without one core component: being able to communicate with customers around the world without running into the language barrier. Ensuring your business can converse freely and easily with international customers can be the deciding factor between a stagnant or flourishing business strategy.

Chat translation technology allows you to chat with customers in different languages without the need to employ a team of linguistic experts, saving your business time, money and effort while opening the door to countless opportunities across the globe.

If your business is looking to grow and expand this year, then it is essential to incorporate live chat with foreign language capabilities into your communications suite with current and potential customers. Let’s examine how chat translation can assist in scaling your sales and support efforts.

Increase Global Customer Satisfaction

In the past, live chat might have been a great bonus feature, but as we enter a new digital-only era, we are beginning to see virtual communication and messaging rising in importance. Live chat is expected to continue to grow by as much as 87% in the next year. Not only is it crucial to incorporate live chat into your business strategy, but ensuring that your live chat feature is equipped with the ability to communicate with customers in their own native language can assist in increasing customer satisfaction among your local and international customers.

Speaking in customers’ native language allows them to comfortably speak and understand the exchange that is going on between them and the support team, alleviating the confusion and frustration that can come from language barriers. Additionally, chat translation can be performed in real time, streamlining the process and decreasing the chances of a customer waiting an extended period of time to get a proper response in their language. Oftentimes, foreign translation requires a translator or linguist to handle the exchange, which may delay the response time. When a customer has to wait for a reply, they may be more inclined to go elsewhere for services where they receive timely and more prompt customer service.

An ICMI survey reported that 79 percent of contact centers have customers who aren’t native speakers of the primary languages that they serve. Yet 60 percent of those customers expect service in their native language. The report also found that quality scores improve when customers receive support in their language. As businesses look to expand and grow, it is crucial to prepare for this demand of language capabilities to ensure customer satisfaction.

Boost Global Sales

The primary motive for expanding internationally is increasing your sales and revenue metrics. To do so, you must have the ability to interact with these customers on their level. The American Marketing Association reported that B2B companies who used live chat saw a 20 percent increase in conversions on average.

Communication is essential for gaining international customers and boosting sales across the globe. The alternative to utilizing chat translation technology is hiring a translator, which can be costly and more time-consuming. Translators often charge by the word, and each word costs an average of 12 cents. Alternatively, chat translation technologies charge an average of three cents per word. While there are many options for international communication, utilizing chat technology is the most cost-effective option for businesses. Foreign language chat capabilities allow your business to adapt to the language needs to interact with potential customers while maintaining cost efficiency. Although English is a common language for the United States and many international countries, limiting your communication efforts to cater to English speakers can severely limit your sales opportunities. In fact, European Business Review reported that 90 percent of consumers won’t even consider purchasing from an English-language website if they cannot read or speak English. Furthermore, nearly 75 percent of customers are more likely to purchase from a brand if their website and product information are available in their native language, according to LanguageLine Solutions. 

If we’ve learned anything from 2020, it is that sales efforts can be challenging without effective communication. With foreign language chat capabilities, one thing is clear: Businesses that realize the importance of international communication can flourish significantly just by expanding their communication abilities to reach the plethora of global customers that wait just behind the barrier of language.

Chat translation is essential in scaling your sales and satisfaction efforts worldwide. Without the ability to reach customers from all corners of the world, we are limiting our growth abilities. Communication—often an underestimated factor in business success—can present countless opportunities that can be uncovered through foreign language chat. Do not limit your business by ignoring the countless opportunities that await; incorporate chat translation into your business strategy and watch your company soar to new heights with boosting sales metrics and increased customer satisfaction.

Jason Smith brings more than 20 years of telecommunications experience to the CallTrackingMetrics team. As the sales engineer, Smith partners with both the sales and engineering teams to match customers with a customized solution to meet their business needs.