Globalizing E-Support: Avoiding The
Headaches, Reaping The Rewards
BY KATRINA TEAGUE, LIONBRIDGE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
When you compare the costs between supporting customers via a call
center and via the Web, it's clear why so many companies have adopted
e-support strategies to slow escalating support costs. Fully loaded, it
can cost your business $30, $50 or more for call center staff to answer
the phone. If your customer seeks self-help by logging onto your Web site,
the cost can drop significantly, to less than $5 per incident. At General
Electric, where the Consumer Appliances business alone fields more than 20
million sales and support inquiries a year, CIO Gary Reiner foresees cost
reductions of more than 50 percent by moving support from the phone to the
Web.
But dramatic savings aren't the only driving force behind this changing
mode of support. Increased customer satisfaction is key. Customers like
the empowerment, the single point of contact and the opportunity for
instantaneous resolution 'round-the-clock.
Until now, most companies have provided electronic support in English
only. But global customers are escalating their demand for e-support in
their own languages. Just as they prefer conversing in their native
language when receiving support over the telephone, customers want
frequently asked questions (FAQs) and knowledge base articles in their
native languages as well.
Just how significant is this demand? International Data Corporation
projects that by 2001 at least 60 percent of Web users will be coming from
outside the United States. Studies by U.K. research firm �quip indicate
that a significant portion of those Web users in European and Pacific Rim
business communities will be unable to cope with the English language on
the Internet. These same studies show that productivity suffers when
Internet users are forced to work with untranslated information. In short,
your non-U.S. customers prefer speaking, reading, using software and
troubleshooting problems in languages other than English. If your market
demographics indicate that a growing percentage of your customers live
outside the United States, your company will need to globalize its
e-support.
Tackle Globalization With Experts At Your Side
When you begin the process of globalizing your e-support site, don't let
the sheer complexity of the task discourage you. Successful globalization
programs start with a well-defined process. More important, do not try to
do it alone. Select a business partner with the expertise in critical
areas such as internationalization engineering, localization,
connectivity, workflow and language management to help you make it work.
Start With The Elements Of Your E-Support Site
The globalization of your e-support site will need to be addressed at
three levels: 1) the user interface (UI) to the support site; 2) e-support
applications running on the site; and 3) the underlying content. Each of
these three elements must be evaluated for internationalization, meaning
each one's ability to handle languages other than English, especially
16-bit Asian character sets.
Any modifications you make to your site to accommodate globalization
must take place at the source code level. Architecturally, you do not want
to create multiple versions of source code because maintenance will become
complicated and expensive.
The User Interface: Does Your User Interface Support English Only?
The ideal user interface is one that is available in the user's
preferred language. While language choice will eventually be handled by
content negotiation between the user's client and your server, it is still
far from reliable, which is why Web sites use manual options for language
selection.
The flag was initially the most commonly used symbol for language
selection, but that has changed. Companies now realize that some languages
(e.g., German) are spoken in many countries while in some countries (e.g.,
Switzerland) many languages are spoken and for purposes of e-commerce in
particular, knowing where users reside is essential. There are a few
options for implementing a language choice: having a language menu on the
home page (probably the most common nowadays), having a language menu on
all subsequent pages (if the user enters through a URL other than the home
page) or using a staging page (which takes the user through an extra page
to designate language choice). Of course, once language selection is
defined, the UI itself must support the character sets of those preferred
languages. It will do little good to implement a language menu and/or
store Japanese data if there is no way to view the information properly.
Similarly, the architecture of your site needs to accommodate multiple
language versions of the data. Internationalization and localization is
key in designing your Web site to meet the UI requirements of your global
market.
The E-Support Applications: Does Your Search Engine Recognize
English Strings Only?
There are a host of knowledge base platforms on the market that were
originally developed to support English content. This was adequate for
English-speaking customers seeking e-support, as the search engines were
designed to seek out English language strings. But when you create and
maintain localized versions of your knowledge base, your search engines
must be adapted to recognize non-English character strings and search
multiple multilingual databases. Otherwise, the results of any search will
be unreliable, either returning inappropriate answers or returning no
answers at all.
Regardless of the knowledge base application you're using (home-grown
or off-the-shelf), make sure it supports multiple languages, including
double-byte languages such as those spoken in Pacific Rim countries.
In addition, whether you exchange support information with your
customers via e-mail, forums or chat applications, these functions also
need to be internationalized. Many companies learn this lesson the hard
way -- a customer in China may send an e-mail in Chinese requesting
support. The customer waits in vain for a reply to a message for help that
was never received.
Today's e-mail engines are sophisticated enough to seek keywords,
search the knowledge base and recommend answers. But even if you have
localized the knowledge database, if your e-mail system is not
internationalized, your auto-response function will not function properly.
The search will fail because it cannot process the data. All your
applications must be audited for internationalization to ensure all
methods of support are enabled for multilingual communication.
The Underlying Content: Do Your Data Repositories Speak Their
Language?
E-support content encompasses everything from frequently asked
questions to white papers, technical tips and technical articles. Data may
be pulled from a single knowledge base or multiple databases throughout
the enterprise. Large e-support sites -- such as those of IBM, Dell
Computer or Hewlett-Packard -- typically contain 100,000 to one million
pages of content and require as many as 250 daily changes. The sheer
volume and velocity of new content and revisions rule out a purely manual
approach to localization. Content can be addressed in two stages: 1)
localizing the backlog or legacy content (you may wish to select only
frequently accessed content); and 2) streaming or maintaining localization
of new and changing content.
While the huge volumes may seem daunting, localizing the backlog
content is straightforward, requiring the appropriate language and
engineering resources to do the job through batch processing. The real
challenge is in localizing content on the fly when new articles are added
or existing articles are amended in the knowledge base. In the case of
urgent revisions or addenda -- such as product recalls, safety hazards or
new viruses -- turnaround times could be needed as quickly as four hours
or less.
The best strategy for coping with the demands of volume and velocity is
to translate content once, from the central repository. Using language
management tools, the translated text strings may then be reused,
minimizing costs and maximizing the speed of maintaining a fully localized
site.
Get Everyone To Buy In Before You Start
Before you can implement any globalization process, you have to lay
the appropriate groundwork. First, you need to scope your existing
environment: user interfaces (browsers), knowledge base applications
(search engines), e-support applications (e-mail, forums, chats, etc.) and
content repositories (databases). If they cannot accommodate languages
other than English, you will have to internationalize the code. You may
want to select a partner to assist you in architecting your site to
accommodate the demands of multilingual support. The engineering work to
implement the plans can proceed in parallel with the global team building
required to make the ongoing process a success.
Second, you need to choose the members of your global team. Lead
support personnel in each of your representative geographies should be
included in this team. Their role is vital to understanding the specific
requirements of the customers in the countries you plan to e-support. You
may choose to include a validation cycle of the local language versions of
these files before they get posted to the knowledge base. What will the
process involve? Determine what elements of the support content are
country- or language-specific, such as part numbers, product availability
and warranties. Determine what organizational redesign is required to
implement an effective global e-support strategy. To maintain worldwide
brand consistency, meet turnaround demands and keep costs to a reasonable
level, a more centralized approach may be the most effective option.
Third, you need to define a logical plan for systems implementation.
Integrating localization processes into the pre-existing content
management environment mentioned above will require systems-level
expertise from your localization services provider. Selecting an
experienced partner with a proven track record is an important element of
success.
Fourth, you will need to localize the backlog of content. Since you
most likely have localized products, documentation and Web content
already, your globalization partner may be able to leverage existing
content by using a translation memory strategy. Your partner will
recommend establishment of glossaries and style guides to ensure optimal
quality of localized content. Once the initial batch of content is
localized, your maintenance strategy will take over. Identification of new
and changed content will trigger the ongoing process of maintaining your
globalized e-support site.
A well-planned strategy and investment in the these first four steps
will minimize the headaches that might occur during piloting and going
live with your multilingual e-support site.
Automate A Logical Workflow For Localization
As changes occur in the source repositories, tools to monitor the
dynamic flux of information can automate the identification and extraction
of the new and changed content. There are tools available that can read
the meta data associated with the content elements, flagging those they
identify as having new and/or changed content. Agents look at the
parameters of those files identifying turnaround times and language
requirements and then transmit the data to the appropriate localization
workflow -- platforms which automatically route the files through the
appropriate localization process. The system first searches its
translation memory database for identical text strings and reuses them in
the new context. If no such strings exist, the new text strings are routed
to pre-selected human translators; translated and reviewed for quality
assurance, legal and marketing ramifications (or whatever criteria you've
designated); validated for technical accuracy; and then re-inserted into
the multilingual knowledge bases.
Pilot Before You Launch Full Scale
No transition is flawless. Start the globalization process by piloting
a subset of content and a subset of languages. Work out the bugs that are
likely to occur: like a glitch in the code that displays all the articles
in Japanese, but displays the titles in English. Once you've ironed out
the problems during the pilot phase, you can begin to roll out the
full-scale multilingual e-support site.
Most companies find that as soon as they announce localized e-support
in a core set of languages, the rest of their global customer base demands
parity. If your company is truly focused on customer satisfaction,
globalizing e-support has to be an integral part of the equation.
Reap The Rewards Of Globalizing E-Support
Statistics show that support is the number one reason a person uses
the Web today. Since e-support is often your customer's first experience
on your Web site, it is important to ensure they have a positive,
personalized experience. Local language provides a draw and is proven to
increase the likelihood of buying additional products and services. It
also increases the chances your customers will return to your site as the
primary source for technical assistance, freeing your call center support
staff to devote more time to handling complex problems that require live
assistance.
Katrina Teague is vice president, Multilingual eSupport and
eLearning Solutions, for Lionbridge
Technologies, Inc.
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