Building a Multilingual Contact Center: 7 Steps to Advance

The rise of BPO outsourcing services brought opportunities for businesses to integrate professional and scalable customer service. And as businesses increasingly cross geographical boundaries, effective communication in multiple languages becomes a requirement. While it poses numerous challenges, a multilingual contact center is more than a competitive edge. In search of business opportunities, we have put together 7 steps to integrate multilingual services. 

The Strategic Value of Multilingual Call Center Services

Research shows that 76% of consumers prioritize purchasing products or services when information is available in their native language, resulting in deeper trust and repeat business. Imagine if businesses could fix ROI with a multilingual call center. This is quite real. 

Customer Loyalty through Native-Language Support

Personalized customer support is the goal most businesses strive for as one of the straightforward lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention strategies. Providing customer service in a customer's preferred language directly correlates with customer loyalty. Research from CSA 

Expanding into Global Markets

1.4 million of the global population are English speakers, and this statistic makes businesses focus on English-speaking agents. Here are more numbers: 1.1% of the population speaks Mandarin, followed by Spanish, Hindi, French, and Arabic. Of course, there are millions of bilinguals but not taking into consideration these statistics means losing the chance to reach out to these markets. 

Offering multilingual customer support with one or more additional languages positions companies to penetrate international markets effectively. 

Companies adopting multilingual approaches experience market expansion opportunities 25% greater than their monolingual competitors.

Revenue Growth and Enhanced Retention

Organizations that invest in customer-centric multilingual services see significant increases in revenue and retention rates. According to Harvard Business Review, businesses excelling in customer experience see revenue growth rates that are approximately 4-8% higher than their competitors.

Which companies need a multilingual contact center?

Ideally, any company that has a global reach, BUT, critical sectors where multilingual support is a necessity are airlines with international flights, large IT organizations, and businesses that outsource services.  

Key Challenges in Building Multilingual Support

Being the first customer touchpoint, the contact center is the “center” of high pressure and stress. Managing a contact center to keep customers satisfied and agents happy about their work is a real challenge. Now double this challenge for multilingual contact centers. But it’s not so bad. Every challenge can be tackled with a strategic approach. 

• Navigating Linguistic and Cultural Nuances: If the agent is not a native speaker, they can face miscommunications due to language and cultural misunderstandings, which may result in dissatisfied customers and decreased loyalty. 

• Managing High Operational Costs: Establishing multilingual support involves significant costs for recruitment, training, and infrastructure setup. The solution is a BPO contact center, which can support business growth goals. 

• Compliance and Security Concerns: Adhering to regional compliance and data privacy regulations across multiple jurisdictions complicates operations.

Essential Technologies for Effective Multilingual Support

Real-Time Speech Speed Adjustment

Technologies like Hecttor AI’s real-time speech speed adjustment are the features of multilingual contact agents (both native and non-native speakers), that have been missing for so long. The tool enables agents to better comprehend fast and/or accented speech, significantly enhancing communication clarity and reducing call duration.

Multilingual Intelligent Call Routing

Advanced IVR systems can automatically route customer calls to agents fluent in their native languages, thus decreasing wait times and enhancing customer satisfaction rates. An agent answering in the customer's native language instantly gets a positive response from the customer. 

AI-Enhanced Multilingual Chatbots

The easiest yet most functional part is the multilingual chatbots that not only provide immediate customer service, handling numerous inquiries simultaneously across various languages but also gather priceless information that can be later used by human agents. 

Implementation Strategies for Multilingual Customer Support

Operating a multilingual contact center is not a walk in the park and in most cases, the challenges and costs are higher than the ROI of multilingual customer support. Nevertheless, if the business is already in the stage of deciding implementation strategy, there are two options available. 

In-House Multilingual Teams

Companies, choosing to establish internal multilingual teams, can exercise greater operational control and tailor their customer service closely to organizational values. However, it involves considerable investment in training, recruitment, and continuous management of contact center performance.

Outsourcing to Multilingual BPO Providers

Outsourcing to multilingual BPO specialists allows businesses to scale quickly, effectively manage costs, and access extensive linguistic capabilities without substantial upfront investment. Still, this strategy can lack the level of control. 

7 Practical Steps to Launch a Multilingual Contact Center

From theory to practice, here are the seven basic steps to consider when building a multilingual contact center. Of course, based on the sector and business specifics, there will be more steps. 

Step 1: Conduct Language Demand Analysis

To understand which languages are your target (because you can’t target them all), identify existing markets you already have and target those to prioritize. Then prioritize languages by analyzing customer demographics, geographic locations, and market trends to allocate resources effectively.

Here the step is analytics. For example, you may target a market where the native language is Spanish, but that doesn’t mean you should include Spanish in customer support. Make sure your target customers are native Spanish speakers and they do need to be served in their native language. This data could be generated through customer surveys. 

Step 2: Assess Existing Infrastructure

Evaluate current customer support systems and infrastructure. Determine what adjustments are necessary to incorporate multilingual services, ensuring smooth integration and minimal disruptions.

Step 3: Recruit and Train Multilingual Staff

If you have chosen an on-site multilingual contact center model, you will need to hire native speakers or multilingual professionals and invest in ongoing training programs emphasizing both language proficiency and cultural sensitivity. A more efficient approach is outsourcing contact center services in the target locations, thus minimizing language biases and maximizing customer experience.  

Step 4: Integrate Advanced Multilingual Technologies

Adopt and integrate innovative technologies and AI in customer service, such as multilingual IVRs, AI-powered chatbots, and speech analytics to streamline and optimize multilingual interactions.

Step 5: Develop Robust Multilingual Resources

Build comprehensive multilingual knowledge bases and training materials to keep agent skills up-to-date. Use machine learning to translate materials and make sure employees have easy access to a knowledge base. 

Step 6: Implement Advanced Routing and Automation

Deploy intelligent call routing and automation solutions to ensure swift customer-agent pairing, minimizing response times, and enhancing the customer experience.

Step 7: Continuously Monitor and Improve

Regularly analyze contact center KPIs, including customer satisfaction, average handle time (AHT), and resolution rates. Continuous performance monitoring is critical for identifying areas of improvement and sustaining high standards.

Emerging Trends in Multilingual Support

Multilingual customer support is a whole new trend that opens space to so many opportunities for delivering truly exceptional service. 

• Multilingual Chatbots: AI-driven chatbots will be widely used in customer service to communicate effectively across multiple languages.

• Omnichannel Multilingual Customer Support: Seamless multilingual communication will be available through various customer interaction channels.

• Real-time Translation: Instant translation tools will break language barriers immediately during interactions.

• Increased Data Security: Enhanced measures and regulations will secure customer data in multilingual interactions, complying with international regulations.

• BPO Contact Center Outsourcing: Strategic partnerships with multilingual outsourcing providers will ensure scalability and expertise.

Enhancing Multilingual Capabilities with Hecttor AI

Integrating technologies like those provided by Hecttor AI, including real-time speech speed adjustment, businesses can significantly enhance agent efficiency and reduce customer interaction issues related to language barriers. Even if you are starting with one additional language support in the contact center, secure your business from stress and customer churn by enhancing agents with all the tools for increased productivity. 

Companies already using Hecttor AI report substantial improvements in customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Schedule a demo with Hecttor AI and explore how our solutions can improve your contact center operations.