Businesses often hire bilingual employees to provide customer service in multiple languages. However, this approach may deliver less value than using remote interpretation services.
Let’s review the advantages and disadvantages of hiring bilingual employees compared with partnering with a qualified language services provider.
Hiring Bilingual Employees for Your Business Operations
Your employees understand company policies and strategies for providing excellent customer service, delivering support, and retaining business. This approach works well when communicating and solving problems with customers who speak English, but how do you handle calls from customers who speak other languages?
More than 25 million people across the United States speak English less than “very well,” meaning people with limited English proficiency account for approximately 9% of the US population.
Approximately 71.5% of customer service leaders report an increase in customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) when customers receive support in their native language. However, only 19% of surveyed customer contact centers offer support in multiple languages.
A survey by Intercom also reported the following findings:
- 29% of businesses say they have lost customers because they do not offer multilingual support.
- 70% of end users say they feel more loyal to companies that provide support in their native language.
- 62% of customers are more likely to tolerate problems with a product when they can communicate with support representatives in their native language.
According to Intercom’s survey results, 85% of support managers say it is challenging to find representatives who speak more than one language.
Using Remote Interpretation for Your Business Operations
Remote interpretation allows your existing employees to apply their knowledge of company policies, customer service practices, and support procedures while communicating with customers who speak other languages.
Interpretation services can help improve customer satisfaction, first-call resolution, average handling time, and overall service quality.
ICMI partnered with Propio to evaluate the effects of introducing language interpretation services. The study found improvements in the following areas:
- First-call resolution increased by 36%.
- Average handling time improved by 20%.
- Overall quality improved by 32%.
In addition, 5% of customer service leaders report that providing support in a customer’s native language increases satisfaction.
Reducing Costs with Remote Interpretation
Choosing remote interpretation instead of hiring bilingual employees can also help reduce fixed costs.
With Propio, you are charged only for the minutes you use. All spoken languages are available at the same rate for over-the-phone interpretation, video interpretation, and teleconferencing.
This approach can reduce the time, effort, and expense associated with recruiting bilingual employees while expanding the multilingual support available to your customers.
