As the world is becoming more connected than ever now, the need for multi-language support is slowly emerging as essential for any organization that wants to stay in the game. Customers expect to interact with businesses in their preferred language, and organizations have continuously been struggling to translate inbound and outbound messages. However, communicating with customers in their preferred language is an art that even successful businesses are yet to conquer. To get over this hurdle, traditional technology is being modified to incorporate capabilities that allow interaction with customers in a variety of languages and dialects.
What is a Multilingual User Interface?
A multilingual Conversational UI (Chatbot or Virtual Customer Assistant) is a virtual agent that can communicate with users in multiple languages during a live conversation.
Traditional VCA technology has a limitation that it can conduct conversations only in one specific language. For example, if an organization has its business in Germany, its website or application must have a chatbot that can interact in the German Language. But, since its customers may not all be German-speaking, they may need to build a chatbot that can switch to various languages. Just like this, most enterprises that are doing business globally need a customer support user interface that can communicate in multiple languages.
Because customers from various geographies want to interact with organizations in their native tongue/preferred language, multilingual VCAs can prove to be a great asset for an organization. They help organizations make customer engagement personalized by including a contextual conversation, based on past communication.
Why multilingual VCA?
If organizations want to continue expanding their business, reach larger audiences, and support their global customer base while ensuring a smooth customer experience, they need a multilingual VCA. Integrating a multilingual VCA can help organizations to stand out from the competition. Engaging with customers in their native language can help them to boost brand loyalty. A multilingual bot can effortlessly switch between languages, improving personalization and customer service. The bot addresses consumers directly in a custom-made manner. This includes one-to-one messages, segmentation, and even addressing people by their first names.
Contact centers that have multilingual bot support can offer help and troubleshoot problems of users in a language in which they are comfortable. Multilingual bots also help organizations to reduce costs because they do not have to recruit resources of diverse language proficiency.
Even a company like Amazon recently launched a live translation feature on its Echo devices and smart displays. With this addition, Alexa can act as an interpreter and automatically identify what languages are being spoken and translate both sides of the conversation.
This addition also acts as a testament to the fact that multi-lingual support is becoming more important by the day, and even larger companies cannot ignore its rapid adoption and popularity among the masses.
Benefits of Multilingual VCA
Developing a multilingual VCA is an intelligent step for organizations that are looking to reach customers based in countries other than English-speaking countries. Bots that can communicate in multiple languages help organizations in:
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To increase the customer base:
If an organization is working in a particular country but plans to expand its customer base, then the chatbots and VCAs they employ must be able to assist customers with different language preferences. A multilingual bot can switch from one language to another and help organizations to reach out and appeal to a wider customer demographic. Multilingual bots are also useful in recording customer feedback in a customer’s native language. This ensures that as a multinational brand, organizations can reach out to more consumers and develop a remarkable reputation.
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To reduce costs:
In order to connect with local customers, most global companies spend a considerable amount of money on recruiting native language speakers and translators. While this may seem like a good strategy to expand the customer base, it is simply not efficient. Having to hire and train personnel to meet the requirement of varied language needs, increases costs significantly. A cost-efficient alternative is implementing multilingual bots, so that, depending on the customer base, organizations can train chatbots and VCAs to communicate in multiple languages.
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To boost efficiency:
When organizations deal with business users and customers globally, communication barriers lead to a longer turnaround time. To increase efficiency, particularly while handling customer issues, companies must focus on removing any existing language barriers. Multilingual bots help companies boost efficiency in resolving customer issues by offering support in native languages.
Conclusion
Conversational UI, in the form of chatbots, VCAs, and messaging applications have gained popularity globally, and are expected to become even more empowered in the future with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. Developing multilingual chatbots or VCAs helps enterprises to communicate with a broader and diverse audience.
To learn more about Conversational Platforms, go here.
To learn more about Virtual Customer Assistants, go here.
