It’s becoming increasingly clear, especially now with advancements in AI and communications, that customer service can be a major revenue driver for businesses. Good customer service can help brands retain loyal customers and bring in new ones. On the flip side, poor customer service puts $3.7 trillion annually in sales at risk.
In spite of increasing awareness surrounding mental health, physical disabilities and accessibility — and recent developments like the accessibility lawsuit involving a major pizza chain — there’s still debate about the ROI of making digital offerings including customer service accessible.
We’re here to prove, once and for all, that great digital accessibility in customer service has a huge impact on revenue and consumer trust. Not only that, we’ll also show you how automatic translation can enhance your customer support and make your customers feel empowered.
Empowering your customers with automatic translation and accessibility
When it comes to disability, many of us think about visible and permanent disabilities. However, temporary and situational disabilities are just as common. Who among us has been unable to speak after a dental procedure or had our eyes dilated for a checkup, blurring our vision? Who has visited a foreign country and felt unable to communicate effectively? That’s right, it’s more people than you think. And these situations disempower people, building fear and distrust in them.
To build trust and a good relationship with customers, brands must empower them. For global businesses, one of the best ways to do this is to speak in all the languages that the target audience speak. Translation, especially providing customer service in the customers’ preferred language, fuels business growth, expansion and inclusivity, increasing consumer trust.
The natural progression of that is to build accessible practices as well. Empowering your disabled customers through digital accessibility — from adhering to accessibility standards to supporting your customers with real-time translation and self-service support — will lead to better, more inclusive experiences for all customers.
Still not convinced? Research shows that with poor digital accessibility practices, brands lose out on $13 trillion in overlooked annual disability spending power. It’s clear that not only does digital accessibility need to be an ethical priority for businesses, it’s also a lucrative financial one.
Buyer’s Guide to Multilingual Support Software
Selecting the right provider of this technology is critical for success. In this guide, we cover the key aspects of evaluating and selecting the right multilingual support technology provider for your organization.
Making automatic translation and accessibility go hand in hand
Here are a few actionable tips to improve accessibility and customer experience with automatic translation.
Provide multiple communication options
Different customers prefer to communicate differently. Some prefer phone calls and don’t mind waiting for the next agent; however, some prefer the asynchronous nature of email or instant chat support. Implementing multiple support solutions will empower your customers with multiple ways of reaching you. Finding an automatic translation partner like Language I/O who can support you by providing real-time translation across all these different formats will help you break language barriers and boost accessibility even further.
Create self-service support options and make them easy to find
Self-service options like knowledge bases and FAQs with chatbots integrated help customers discover answers to their questions without having to speak to a representative. Not only does that help a customer feel empowered to find their own solutions, it also significantly decreases the burden on support agents, reducing costs and saving time for the business as well. Automatic translation solutions like Language I/O can scale the translation of such self-service resources and also translate the accompanying chatbot, making your customer support instantly more accessible to a wider range of customers.
Find accurate translation that accommodates misspellings, typos and other errors
The general misconception is that many people with disabilities don’t use computers. But they can and do use assistive devices, such as screen readers and magnifiers for visual disabilities or keyboard instead of a mouse. Mobility-related disabilities, for example, can contribute to misspellings and other errors in communication. Your translation solution needs to be accommodating of different types of input and also accurately translate these with errors. Customer communication isn’t always consistent. Sometimes there’s jargon or slang as well. An advanced automatic translation platform like Language I/O can provide culturally sensitive and accurate translations of user-generated content like these, helping you avoid burned bridges with your customers and PR fires.
Wider reach and greater impact
A recent report shows that 41% of consumers are willing to pay more to companies committed to accessibility — and 51% are willing to pay up to 10% more. 45% of consumers went so far as to say that they care more about digital accessibility than even the availability of the company’s products or services.
Making your customers feel empowered with automatic translation and accessibility best practices will help you build positive relationships with your customers and successfully give them a sense of community. With increasing consumer interest in accessibility and multilingual communication, it’s clear that these measures can only enhance the quality of customer experience for your brand. Not only are these thoughtful ethical solutions, they also have a direct impact on the bottomline. And finding the right automatic translation partner for your customer service is only the first step in this long journey.
