Without adequate language support, however, companies risk alienating customers who will flee to find a company that can help them in their native language. It’s a dilemma that most contact centers serving an international audience face.

Modern call center technology can help, however. Companies are finding that there are steps they can take to alleviate the problem with the help of translation technology and self-service.

For starters, companies can begin by offering multilingual self-service channels through their Web sites that can help deflect between 10 and 30 percent of incoming (live) calls that require multilingual skills. For customers that require the touch of a live agent, real-time chat translation can allow agents without language skills to type in their own language and have the chat translated automatically. Machine translation can also enable agents to serve customers via e-mail in a variety of languages.

On Thursday, September 26^, at 2PM EST, SDL Language Technologies is offering a Web event called, “Top Three Multilingual Best Practices for Global Multichannel Customer Support Operations.”

The event will help attendees seeking to create significant customer support efficiencies and improve overall global customer satisfaction with a smarter approach to multi-language support. The presenters will use specific, real-world examples of how large global enterprises have tested and proven these best practices in their customer support operations.