New Research from HDI and Lionbridge: Service Desks & IT Help Desks Prioritizing Multilingual Support to Optimize Success
Faced with staffing challenges, technology helps eliminate language barriers across channels
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. and WALTHAM, Mass., July 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HDI, in conjunction with Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., today announced the release of a new research report, Multilingual Service in the Support Center, which examines the need for multilingual support and its impact in the IT service management industry. The report explores how service and support desks prioritize language, the impact of multilingual support on stakeholders, as well as challenges and solutions for providing language coverage. Download the report here.
The survey focused on the effect of multilingual service in service desks and IT support centers, including satisfaction scores, challenges, language priorities, and plans for change. Key findings include:
Is it important to the industry?
Providing multilingual support is paramount in the industry, with every leading support center looking to conquer this challenge. 71.5% of respondents indicated that multilingual support in their service center is a priority, while over 28% of respondents plan to add languages within the next year.
The effect of multilingual support
73% of respondents confirmed that customer satisfaction scores were better when support was provided in the customers' native language, concluding that multilingual support has a proven effect on the success of a service center. Additionally, 46% reported that problem resolution upon first contact was also improved.
The challenges of multilingual support
Multilingual support has become a significant challenge: 23% of survey respondents report that they did not have solutions for communicating in non-primary languages.
Currently, the biggest challenge in providing multilingual support is hiring the right people. 42% of survey respondents said that finding and retaining in-house multilingual analysts was their biggest issue, while 37% of respondents cited the cost of hiring staff as their biggest challenge. Although providing multilingual support is a difficult undertaking, only 10% of respondents said they would prefer not to provide support in non-primary languages.
Multilingual support on the rise
Multilingual service is becoming a top priority for support centers, as many of them want to provide their customers who speak non-primary languages the service they need. 88% of respondents like providing support in non-primary languages and almost half of all respondents, 47%, already provide support in two or more languages.
"As our world continues to shrink, it is important for support centers to expand their ability and range of service by adapting to service in multiple languages," said Roy Atkinson, senior analyst, HDI. "A support center that can deliver on multilingual service will have an inherent advantage in the marketplace, with the ability to support markets that its competitors cannot."
"Enterprises have struggled with multilingual support due to the cost of traditional language strategies and the limitations of technology," said Tom Tseki, VP and GM, GeoFluent and Customer Care Solutions, Lionbridge. "The landscape is changing. New technology solutions make it easier than ever for service desks to provide the language support across communications channels that employees, partners, distributors, and suppliers want and value. This enables true omni-lingual, omni-channel communications."
The Multilingual Service in the Support Center research report is comprised of survey responses from more than 380 IT professionals spanning 23 countries and 30 industries, including all levels of job functions, from entry level to C-level executives. Out of the individuals surveyed, close to half, almost 42%, are in a mid-level management job function. Additionally, 42% of those surveyed are in an external, customer-facing role at their organization.
Lionbridge will showcase GeoFluent for Enterprise Service Management, an omni-channel translation and interpretation solution that enables organizations to provide multilingual helpdesk and service support without hiring or maintaining bilingual staff, at itSMF and HDI's FUSION 17, taking place October 31- November 3 in Las Vegas. To learn more and register for the event, please visit: servicemanagementfusion.com
About GeoFluent
GeoFluent is an omni-channel multilingual platform that helps service desks, contact centers, and enterprises eliminate language barriers with their customers, prospects, partners, distributors, and employees. Across channels and languages, GeoFluent enables more effective communications and increases CX without having to hire or maintain bilingual staff or use multiple language services providers. Visit www.geofluent.com for more information.
About Lionbridge
Lionbridge enables more than 800 world-leading brands to increase international market share, speed adoption of products and effectively engage their customers in local markets worldwide. Using our innovative cloud technology platforms and our global crowd of more than 100,000 professional cloud workers, we provide detail-critical business processes, including translation, online marketing, global content management and application testing solutions that ensure global brand consistency, local relevancy and technical usability across all touch points of the customer lifecycle. Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge maintains solution centers in 27 countries. To learn more, visit www.lionbridge.com.
About HDI
Founded in 1989, HDI is the first membership association and certification body created for the technical support industry. Since then, HDI has remained the source for professional development by offering the resources needed to promote organization-wide success through exceptional customer service. In other words, we help professionals in service management better serve customers. We do this by facilitating collaboration and networking, hosting acclaimed conferences and events, producing renowned publications and research, certifying and training thousands of professionals each year, and connecting solution providers with practitioners. Learn more at www.ThinkHDI.com. HDI is organized by UBM plc. UBM is the largest pure-play B2B Events organizer in the world. Our 3,750+ people, based in more than 20 countries, serve more than 50 different sectors. Our deep knowledge and passion for these sectors allow us to create valuable experiences which enable our customers to succeed. Please visit www.ubm.com for the latest news and information about UBM.
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SOURCE HDI
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