Multilingual Contact Centers: 5 Ways to Overcome Language Barriers

57% of consumers feel overlooked when brands don’t provide services in their language. It’s not just a statistic—it’s a reality check.

In a world where communication is everything, not offering multilingual support in your contact centers is more than a missed opportunity. Miscommunications with customers can cause frustration, break trust, hurt sales, and weaken long-term loyalty.

Sure, hiring multilingual agents sounds like a good idea, but let’s face it—it’s often impractical and expensive. What if we told you there is a way to offer multilingual support without hiring agents who are experts in specific languages? Curious to learn more?

Let’s dive into five strategies that will help you break down the language barriers and drive customer satisfaction and business growth.

Five Best Practices for Overcoming Language Barriers at Multilingual Contact Centers

One of five best practices to overcome language barriers is by implementing a multilingual knowledge base that empowers customers to self-serve. It speeds up response times, boosts accuracy, and improves customer satisfaction across regions. For instance, Enghouse’s knowledge base helped a global scientific products company overcome these challenges. Curious how? Read more below.

In addition to implementing a knowledge base, there are four other key strategies to help you tackle language barriers while optimizing your contact center’s performance:

• Implement a Multilingual Knowledge Base
• Empower Agents with Smart Tech Tools
• Enhance Customer Experience with Audio Branding
• Educate Agents About Cultural Sensitivities
• Streamline Omnichannel Communication

Let’s delve into each strategy, starting with empowering agents with smart tech tools.

#1. Implement a Multilingual Knowledge Base

Creating a multilingual knowledge base is key for global customer support, allowing customers to find solutions independently. But it’s more than just translating content—it’s about adapting to cultural nuances like local examples, currencies, and terms that resonate with each region.

Enghouse CCaaS’s Knowledge Management system takes this a step further. With AI-driven content recommendations, it improves multilingual support and streamlines content creation across languages, ensuring everything stays current.

For instance, a global scientific products company was dealing with highly complex customer queries, especially from China. To tackle this, they partnered with Enghouse Interactive. With Enghouse’s centralized multilingual knowledge base, they were able to respond faster and more accurately, boosting customer satisfaction and making their operations more efficient worldwide.

Moreover, to ensure customers satisfactorily self-serve themselves through these multilingual knowledge bases, regular updates based on customer feedback are essential.

#2. Empower Agents With Smart Tech Tools

Technology is a game-changer in overcoming language barriers. Smart tools like real-time speech recognition and AI-powered translation help your customers and agents communicate clearly, regardless of language. These tools aren’t just bells and whistles; they ensure your agents give accurate answers quickly.

Taking this innovation further, Enghouse CCaaS changes the game with AI-powered real-time chat translation. Here’s how it works – When a customer calls, the system’s IVR detects their language using call data, like country code. If no agent speaks the language, the system can invite the customer, via an SMS or email, to switch to a chat session. For customer-initiated web chats, customers can select their language from a drop-down. The solution then automatically translates the conversation in real time, allowing both the customer and agent to communicate in their preferred languages.

This innovation really hit the nail on the head for Hitachi Energy, who uses Enghouse CCaaS’s chat translation to provide 24×7 multilingual support across 140 countries. Read the full case study here.

#3. Enhance Customer Experience With Audio Branding

Language barriers aren’t just about words—they’re in the way your contact center sounds. Imagine a customer calls in and hears a voice that speaks their language fluently, making them feel understood from the start. That’s the power of audio branding. It’s not just translation; it’s creating a welcoming experience that bridges gaps and removes barriers instantly.

Enghouse CCaaS offers an audio branding and recording solution that helps tackle language barriers. It creates a consistent audio experience across all customer touchpoints—IVR, on-hold messages, greetings, and outbound messaging. They provide voice recordings in over 30 languages, designed to match the cultural and linguistic preferences of your diverse customer base. This ensures your customers always hear the right message, delivered professionally, no matter what language they speak. Check out the solution brief here to know more about audio branding capabilities offered by Enghouse Interactive.

#4. Educate Agents About Cultural Sensitivities

When dealing with customers from diverse backgrounds, cultural sensitivity is essential. Even a small misstep can lead to misunderstandings and damage relationships. Consider this scenario:

A Japanese customer calls to discuss a delayed shipment.

This comment can be seen as disrespectful, potentially offending the customer.

Instead:

This response acknowledges the issue respectfully, fostering trust and strengthening the relationship.

To prevent upsetting your customers due to such cultural insensitivities (which could creep in unknowingly), your contact center teams need more than basic training—they require continuous, tailored development that nurtures empathy and a deep understanding of cultural sensitivities. This includes being aware of local customs, values, and communication styles. It’s about stepping into the customer’s shoes and responding with care and understanding, which ultimately builds trust and strengthens relationships.

If you support remote work for your agents and in-room training does not look feasible you can explore – Momindum. Monindum delivers HD video-based training, allowing agents to engage with interactive, visual content that enhances learning and retention.

However, when it comes to making the most of tools and technology Enghouse Interactive truly shines in offering training. From hands-on classroom training to self-paced online courses and interactive webinars, Enghouse’s training programs ensure your team is not just prepared but confident in using technology to handle customer interactions effectively and efficiently.

#5. Streamline Omnichannel Communication

Let’s say a French-speaking customer encounters an issue with your product/service but isn’t comfortable discussing it over the phone in English. Instead, they choose to send a detailed message via WhatsApp in French. Because messaging is asynchronous, your agents have the flexibility to use translation tools to understand the customer’s concern and craft an accurate response.

Here’s how this approach benefits both parties:

• Flexible Response Time: Agents can take the time to translate messages accurately, consult internal resources, and ensure their responses are clear and helpful.
• Customer Convenience: Customers can communicate in their preferred language and at their own pace, which is especially beneficial for complex issues that might be compounded by language barriers.

Besides streamlining omnichannel communication across voice, email, sms, chatbots and social media and Enghouse raises the bar with its self-service options powered by advanced AI and speech recognition. These tools adapt to customers’ language needs and offer personalized support, no matter their location or time zone. Available 24/7, these tools can reduce average handle times by up to two minutes and cut IVR costs significantly, improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Ultimately, to tackle language problems effectively, contact center leaders need robust contact center solutions that empower them to practice all the strategies mentioned above. That’s where Enghouse Interactive truly shines.

Power Multilingual Contact Center Excellence with Enghouse Interactive

With 40 years of experience, Enghouse Interactive has become a trusted name in the contact center industry. Not only does it offer cutting-edge contact center solutions, but it has delighted its customers over the years by keeping pace with rapid innovations, customizing solutions to meet specific customer needs, and more.

And when it comes to multilingual support for contact centers, EnghouseAI, one of the latest innovations at Enghouse Interactive truly shines with its understanding of nuances of language and accurate translations.

Besides innovations, at Enghouse Interactive, compliance with industry regulations and data privacy are given utmost importance. As Ben Levy, CTO at Enghouse Interactive, rightly says, “Our deep AI expertise ensures that all EnghouseAI products have robust guardrails, safeguarding communication and data integrity.”

Don’t let language hold your business back. Contact our experts today!