Introduction:
For many European languages, there are plenty of nearshore customer service locations, but few farshore. Our client, a subscription media company, wished to test the feasibility of using real-time translation to enable English-speaking advisers in India to serve German-speaking customers over messaging channels. If it worked, it would be a game-changer for customer service on costs, recruitment and retention as well as offering customer more choice on digital channels.
Challenges:
- Find new offshore locations that can help resolve onshore staffing challenges and reduce cost to serve.
- Improve customer service by offering a greater choice of channels – Webchat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger – with longer service hours.
- No compromise on customer experience, ARPU retention or upselling conversions.
How we made it happen:
Careful introduction of new technology
The system was set up and configured, but needed time to learn properly – German is a complex language that is difficult to translate with lots of details to get right for great CX. After comprehensive internal testing, the new approach was piloted to customer with full transparency on how it worked. There were some initial clumsy translations, but these were ironed out in four to six weeks.
Phased approach
The service was launched with 12 associates handling a straightforward customer care queue. The new approach proved itself quickly, and was expanded with more complex queues added over the next 18 months. The service now has nearly 500 associates handling eight different queues including customer retention, sales, and ‘value’ conversations regarding the customer’s subscription options.
Attention to cultural differences
Initial training and ongoing coaching of associates helps them understand cultural differences to support the German market.