Building effective multilingual customer support allows UK businesses to serve customers across European markets while maintaining clear and consistent communication. However, supporting customers in several countries, languages and channels can create operational challenges.
Although English is widely used internationally, customers may still prefer to communicate in their native language when reporting a problem, asking a technical question, making a complaint or requesting a refund. Offering support only in English can lead to missed opportunities.
According to a survey from Unbabel 2021 Global Multilingual CX Report, approximately two in three surveyed consumers would consider switching to a brand that offers support in their native language. One in three also identified a lack of multilingual experiences as a significant concern in localized customer experiences.
This article explains how UK businesses can select the right languages, staffing models, technology requirements and quality controls. It will also look into the benefits of outsourcing multilingual customer support and how UK businesses can build an effective strategy and expand into new markets.
Why multilingual customer support matters for UK businesses?
UK businesses planning to expand across Europe need to be prepared that each market has its own language and expectations. Poorly translated support can create misunderstandings and damage confidence. Delivering good native customer support becomes even more important when the topic is sensitive or when the client has specific issues or concerns. Delivering customer support in the local language of the customers builds trust and increases customer satisfaction with the brand. UK companies need support operations that can adapt and grow with their expansion strategies.
Start by identifying the languages customers actually need
Trying to immediately offer support in all languages is tempting, but often not the best strategy. It’s important to look at where most enquiries come from and prioritize offering support in those languages. For example, if all enquiries are coming from Germany, France, Italy and Spain, then the company should look into offering support services in those four languages.
There are many factors that have to be considered when deciding which languages to prioritize. Companies could look into each market’s size and revenue for their business, website traffic from location and sales enquiries. UK businesses should prioritize offering support in the language of the markets where they want to expand to. It’s best to base the decision on facts and actual demand, rather than to make assumptions about the languages the business needs.
Understand the difference between translation and localization
Translation and localization are two terms that are often used together; however, they have very different meanings and purposes in the context of new market expansion. Translation converts communication from one language into another. Localization goes further by adapting that communication to the terminology, cultural expectations and practical requirements of a particular market.
For UK businesses, supporting continental European markets also requires planning around local public holidays, operating hours and customer expectations, even where time-zone differences are limited.
When translating and localizing to different languages, businesses should first understand the terminology being used in that specific country for their industry and the culturally appropriate tone. Automatic translation of the language could be useful, but complicated and sensitive conversations are better handled by an agent or customer support representative.
Based on the research of the market and the information it has for it, the business should decide how the agents would speak to the customers – formal or informal tone, what terminology and words to use and when to switch to an agent, who is fluent in the language.
When translating to the local language, companies should also take into consideration the currency and measurements of the country. The legal part should also be researched; some products could have different names in other languages and there might be market-specific wording. If the company offers physical products, it’s useful to learn more about the delivery times.
Offering multilingual support services is about more than just translating to the local language. It’s about adopting a localization strategy, so that clients can get a smooth experience.
Choosing the right multilingual support model
UK businesses can choose from four main operating models for multilingual customer support:
- In-house multilingual team – This model can suit teams with manageable volumes and those who want more operational control. However, some challenges to this model are hiring for multiple languages, covering holidays and scaling through peak demands like Black Friday and Christmas.
- Shared outsourced team – Agents cover more than one language and serve multiple markets. It’s a good fit for businesses with moderate ticket volumes, especially if the agents are proficient in the languages.
- External multilingual support partner – Best for companies looking to scale faster and need higher flexibility. The selection of a partner and the governance are some of the challenges with these models.
- Hybrid model – The internal team retains product ownership and complex cases, while an external team handles selected languages, channels, hours or ticket categories. This is a good option for companies who want more control over the operations but also want scalability and need external resources.
Build a consistent multilingual support operation
Building a consistent multilingual support operation is challenging as companies need to plan extensively beforehand.
The first step is to choose the right channels for each market as there is no need to offer local language support on all channels. The company can start by analyzing which are the most used platforms locally and where do their target audience communicate and spend most time and then prioritize these channels. There are many options, the brand can offer only email support or can also offer calls when the topic is sensitive, or the enquiry is complicated and can adapt the strategy according to each individual market.
Another important thing to consider is offering consistent multilingual support. It’s important to give a good knowledge base built on Q&A, product information, website content, return policies and for it to be centralized so all agents learn the same information and keep a consistent tone-of-voice. All translations should be adapted as the information of the business changed, so each market gets relevant and accurate answers.
It’s important to keep the quality of the languages high by retraining the agents, providing feedback and having clear escalation processes. A business could provide good support in English but lack a good delivery in Spanish. The quality of the delivered languages should be constantly evaluated and improved.
Use AI without removing the human element
AI tools are advanced enough that they can translate and answer repetitive questions, can automatically detect the customers language, route tickets and even suggest new responses to the customers enquiry.
While the human agents can take over the more sensitive and complex cases. They can be very helpful in understanding more ambiguous language and market-specific cultural context.
So, leaving the translation job entirely to AI is not recommended, but combining AI with human expertise can significantly improve the delivery.
UK businesses should carefully consider what kind of customer data the AI gets access to and how it stores and later uses it in order to ensure full transparency and accuracy.
Measure and improve multilingual customer support
Businesses should track first-response time, resolution time, customer satisfaction, escalation rates, repeat contacts and cost per interaction. These results should be segmented by language, market and channel to reveal where demand is increasing and where additional staffing, training or process improvements are required.
Effective multilingual customer support requires more than translating existing English responses. UK businesses need to identify the languages and channels their customers actually use, adapt communication to each market and create consistent processes for training, quality assurance and escalation.
AI can make multilingual support more efficient by handling routine enquiries, assisting with translation and directing conversations to the right team. However, human expertise remains essential when an interaction requires empathy, cultural understanding or complex decision-making.
Mercatus Outsourcing helps UK businesses build scalable multilingual customer support operations across European markets. Contact our team to discuss the languages, channels and coverage your customers require.
