How Shutterstock Eliminated Manual Processes and Scaled Multilingual Support Across 20+ Languages

Leading stock photography provider Shutterstock sought a way to improve and streamline the process of translating its knowledge base articles into multiple languages.

Challenge

While based in the United States, Shutterstock sources from contributors and serves customers in more than 100 countries, resulting in an international focus that includes the need for multilingual content.

The brand’s experience with providing multilingual content was historically a frustrating one. Translation of support articles required manual processes that included tedious file formatting, copying and pasting, and back-and-forth communication between translation agencies and team members. With these processes delaying translation, non-English speaking customers had to seek assistance via phone or email because translated FAQ content wasn’t available to them yet.

Solution

Shutterstock was first drawn to Language I/O due to the ease and simplicity of its integration with Salesforce. After further evaluating the solution, the team at Shutterstock chose to implement Language I/O’s Knowledge Article translation software into its Salesforce environment. The decision was bolstered by the fact that the team could automatically translate content with the click of a button, rather than sending requests back and forth between itself and a language services provider.

“The savings for us was more in terms of having a robust knowledge base where customers can find answers themselves, which results in a better customer experience. If we’re able to provide a translated article to someone in Sweden, that person does not have to write to us to get a response. […] We’re not having to handle that email, and the customer is happier because they get a response in real time instead of having to wait for a response in a foreign language.”

Shutterstock Representative

Further efficiencies offered by Language I/O made the decision an easy one. The team appreciated how seamless it is to access various types of translation, including machine translation post-editing (MTPE), directly within the same platform and under the same contract. This flexibility provides the choice to prioritize certain content initiatives based on cost and timeliness. Ultimately, the solution proved to be far quicker and more cost-effective than any available alternatives.

The ease of translating articles led Shutterstock to incorporate Language I/O in more than just the knowledge base portion of its customer service operations. After adding Language I/O’s Salesforce Case integration, the team at Shutterstock began responding in real time to tickets and emailing with customers in the various languages being used in its knowledge base.

Outcomes

Ability to translate into 20+ languages

2,000+ Multilingual tickets / month

125+ Articles translated

Immediately after implementing Language I/O, Shutterstock was able to translate its existing library of FAQ and support articles into 20+ languages. With articles available across the various languages spoken by customers, Shutterstock saw a welcome decline in the volume of incoming support requests on email and phone channels.

To-date, Shutterstock has used Language I/O to translate and maintain up-to-date translations across more than 125 articles spanning 20 languages. Having also implemented Salesforce Case translation, the Salesforce team processes more than 2,000 multilingual tickets per month without requiring native speakers to address those tickets. This has enabled the brand to think more strategically about how to deploy their most experienced agents, giving the team more flexibility to prioritize by support needs rather than language.