If you’ve been in the e-commerce or SaaS business for a while, you probably already know that over 70% of consumers prefer buying in their native language. And those figures are from 2020, so we can only expect them to increase.
You probably also had some user suggestions or complaints about your website being in one language. So, you strapped up and you translated it. Awesome! Now, all that’s left is your customer support.
Is it still in one language? If that’s the case, you can expect fewer customers to reach out during the purchase process. That makes your sales funnels incomplete or ineffective in capturing your target audience fully, which is just a fancy way of saying you’re losing money.
In this article, we’ll go over the 5 major mistakes businesses make when localizing customer support. At MotaWord, we’ve dealt with these issues ourselves throughout the development of our multilingual solutions, so we know what it takes to implement support localization.
If you’re in the process of localizing or if you’re just scouting your options, be aware that this process can go wrong in the least expected ways. Hopefully, this article will prepare you and set your expectations throughout the process. Let’s dig right into it!
Reasons to Localize Your Customer Support
Before we start, we’d like to tell you a little about the benefits of localizing your customer support. Many businesses doubt when it comes to taking the leap, so hopefully we’ll give you a nudge in the right direction. Here are the benefits of offering customer support in other languages:
- Boosts customer trust: When your customers can get help in their native language, they’re more likely to feel understood and valued. This builds trust and keeps them coming back for more. Remember that nowadays, people are looking for companies with a humane side, and this small detail shows that you actually care about your customers.
- Increases customer satisfaction: A localized support experience means fewer misunderstandings and quicker resolutions, leading to happier customers, more trust, and fewer complaints. If you’re correctly and promptly answering questions throughout the purchase process, you’ll also increase your sales.
- Improves your global reach: By offering customer support in multiple languages, you’re opening doors to new markets and broadening your potential customer base. This is especially true if you translate your help center or knowledge base. This can also be very useful if you’re looking to rank with multilingual SEO.
- Drives sales conversion: Customers are more likely to convert if they can get help in their preferred language. Localized support helps ensure your sales funnel works for every audience.
- Reduces language barriers: Even if you’ve translated your website, there’s still a chance customers struggle with language nuances. Localizing your support ensures that you’re truly communicating with them on their terms. This is especially important, for example, when you’re translating languages that have several dialects, like Spanish. Spanish from Spain is very different from its Latin American counterparts, even though it’s the original language.
Ok, now that you know the benefits, let’s get into the common mistakes you should keep an eye out for.
Mistake 1: Relying on Machine Translation Alone
Let’s face it: machine translation, like Google Translate, is a great tool for quick fixes. But when it comes to customer conversations, it’s simply not enough.
Machine translations can work wonders for short, simple phrases, but they can fail miserably in live chats or detailed support interactions. Also, when you use Google Translate, you’re sharing the information you’re translating, and Google can use it however it wants.
So, when you’re relying too much on Google Translate or even ChatGPT, you can send translations in live chat messages that can cause your customers' frustration.
Imagine a customer asking for help with a billing issue, and the machine translation turns "refund" into "charge." Suddenly, the conversation is heading in the wrong direction, and your customer is more confused than when they started. If that happens, they might escalate the issue more than it should be.
That forces you to spend more resources, keep your team busy, and the whole experience is slower due to a simple translation bottleneck. That’s not the kind of experience you want to create.
Solution:
The key is to blend machine translation with professional human editing or live multilingual agents, while also leveraging glossaries and style guides to ensure consistency and quality. This hybrid approach ensures the message stays accurate, nuanced, and culturally appropriate while speeding up your support process.
Don’t rely on technology alone because the human touch is still necessary to get it right. This is especially true when you’re using chatbots. Chatbots are efficient; they lower interactions, free your support team’s time to deal with very specific issues, and more. However, improving the translation and localizations of their dialogue alone can go a long way in improving the experience.
Mistake 2: Ignoring Cultural Nuances and Tone
When localizing customer support, it’s easy to focus on translating words, but the tone, politeness, and formality of your messages matter just as much, if not more. Language isn’t just about words; it’s about how they’re communicated, and tone varies widely by region. What’s considered polite or neutral in one language can come across as casual or even rude in another.
For example, in English, a casual "Hey, can I help you with that?" might seem friendly and approachable. But in other countries, this informal tone can seem dismissive or unprofessional to customers, which is a huge no-no in formal settings.
In these cultures, a more formal approach is expected, and addressing customers with too much casualness could hurt your brand's reputation and customer trust. And this applies to several countries, like Germany, Japan, Korea, and China, to a lesser extent.
Solution:
The key here is to localize the tone, not just the words. Adapting your tone to suit local customs and expectations makes your customers feel respected, ensuring your brand feels professional in every market. Adjusting the tone is as important as translating the content accurately.
Additionally, this is extremely important, depending on the type of services or products you offer. If you’re in a luxury or industrial niche, then it’s even more vital to respect the tone.
Mistake 3: Not Offering Live Chat in More than One Local Language
Customers are likely to bounce if they can’t get instant support in their language. This is especially common in countries where multiple languages are spoken. For instance, in the US, millions of Spanish-speaking potential customers could walk away if your support isn’t available in Spanish.
When customers don’t see their language offered, they might feel neglected or frustrated, ultimately leading to lost opportunities for your business. Who’s going to catch them? Your competitor, the one offering the missing language!
An easy example would be Spain. In Spain, some communities speak French, Catalan, or different Spanish dialects. Although most businesses use Spanish or English, these languages are also used.
Solution:
Deploy multilingual live chat tools and agents. The key is to make it crystal clear that your website is available in your customers’ language, providing them with the option to select it easily. This personalized support experience will make customers feel more comfortable and understood, encouraging them to reach out and stay engaged with your brand.
Offering multilingual live chat shows your commitment to a positive customer experience across regions, making a world of difference in your conversion rates. And, of course, investing in such a team is highly recommended, especially in the case of high-ticket services or products.
Mistake 4: Poorly Localized Help Center/Knowledge Base
Before reaching out to customer support, most customers will first check the FAQs or help center. If the content there is poorly translated, it can confuse, frustrate, and simply waste their time. Imagine a customer trying to solve an issue using a poorly translated knowledge base. Terms might not make sense, or instructions could be unclear.
This will only lead them to contact support, but by then, they’re already frustrated and might not have the best experience. Plus, if this happens several times, your support team might struggle to keep up.
Solution:
Localize and regularly update your support content professionally. Accurate, culturally appropriate translations in your help center and knowledge base are essential to ensuring customers find clear answers to their questions without contacting support. Make it a point to review and refresh content as languages and customer needs evolve.
By investing in localization, you can reduce support requests and create a seamless self-service experience. This is crucial if your knowledge base has plenty of guides with images or graphs of some kind, because you should translate them too, including the UI in the images, or better yet, translate your software.
Mistake 5: Failing to Train Support Agents on Localization Basics
Even if your live chat is translated, your support agents need to be aware of the cultural expectations that come with different languages. Agents should understand the cultural nuances that influence communication.
For example, in some cultures, directness is appreciated, while in others, indirect communication is preferred. Misunderstanding these subtle differences can lead to frustrating exchanges with customers, causing dissatisfaction and damaging your brand’s reputation.
There’s an often dismissed fact that not a lot of localization services talk about: not all clients are the same! Your customer support team should be prepared to handle the cases of several types of clients that have different ways of communicating, even if the language or region is the same.
Solution:
Provide basic cross-cultural communication training for your support agents. This ensures they not only understand the language but also the appropriate tone, politeness levels, and communication styles for the cultures they’re engaging with.
Additionally, they can receive training to identify several buyer personas. By equipping your team with this knowledge, they can interact more effectively with customers, ensuring a smoother and more positive support experience for everyone.
