In today’s customer support industry, companies face many challenges, including seasonality, that demand strategic adaptation. With this comes the intricacies of providing multilingual support on an international scale. As companies increasingly expand their global footprint, the need for effective communication in customers’ preferred languages becomes paramount.

Today’s post-pandemic hybrid working model has urged CX leaders to explore evolving trends, effective strategies, shortcomings, and innovative ideas to rethink and address these two challenges. 

The Shifting Impact of Seasonality

Traditionally, businesses could anticipate and plan for predictable volume spikes during specific seasons. Customer support teams could brace themselves for the expected surges in inquiries and service requests. However, the post-pandemic era has ushered in a complete paradigm shift, disrupting the patterns of seasonality.

As more companies embrace digital channels for their marketing efforts, customer support teams find themselves grappling with an unprecedented surge in volume. Having more channels available to customers means more opportunities for them to reach out to support teams through multiple forms of communication. This means that more comprehensive customer support strategies are needed to ensure a seamless customer experience (CX).

Bridging the Knowledge Gap With Technology

To effectively navigate seasonal challenges, companies must strike a delicate balance between understanding staffing needs and leveraging technology. While the human touch remains indispensable in customer support, the sheer volume of inquiries during peak periods necessitates the integration of advanced technologies to enhance efficiency.

Companies are turning to innovative automation solutions, and strategic partnerships play a pivotal role. As businesses contend with seasonal peaks, minimizing onboarding and training times for customer support agents is critical. Tools like Laivly’s Sidd Pro drive productivity, engagement, and quality across the entire customer journey — pre, during, and post interaction. 

One of the critical questions that emerge during seasonality is how to enhance agents’ skills in a short timeframe. A key answer is leveraging technology to automate chunks of knowledge traditionally shared in classroom settings. By bringing essential information to a platform accessible at the touch of their fingertips, technology bridges the knowledge gap to foster confidence and efficiency among support agents.

The Globalized Customer Support Landscape

Globalization is relevant across industries now more than ever before, and businesses find themselves struggling to provide multilingual customer support. With seasonal peaks, the ability to secure language-proficient agents swiftly can be difficult and often results in a smaller pool of talent to hire from.

Assistive technology provides a solution to bridge the language gap, ensuring a rapid response to customer inquiries and serving as a strategic differentiator in an era where linguistic inclusivity is essential for heightened customer satisfaction.

Price Versus Native Language Support

Language plays a pivotal role in shaping customer preferences with many consumers prioritizing receiving assistance in their native language over the price of a product. This shows the significance of multilingual support in influencing customer perceptions and, consequently, their loyalty to a brand. 

Customer retention, a common challenge for businesses, is directly connected to the ability to offer assistance in diverse languages. Scalable staffing resources is even more imperative when unforeseen circumstances require a swift response.

The Need for Speed and Personalization

Customers, more than ever, crave responsiveness and promptness in addressing their queries. But the speed of response is only part of the equation. Setting accurate expectations plays a pivotal role in maintaining customer satisfaction. 

Personalization is a key differentiator in the CX industry, and language is a crucial way to personalize customer experiences. Knowing your customers goes beyond generic demographic data and into their linguistic preferences, a crucial element in establishing an emotional connection between businesses and consumers.

Removing Barriers in the CX Space

Technology promises solutions to complex challenges, however, as businesses increasingly place their trust in technology, questions arise about how to reconcile the reliance on automated solutions with the human touch that has traditionally defined customer support.

The Balancing Act: Trust, Privacy, and Quality

One of the primary concerns surrounding technology in customer support is the issue of trust. Companies invest heavily in human support, and the transition to technology-driven solutions prompts questions about privacy, security, and the overall quality of the customer experience.

Privacy and security concerns, especially when dealing with third-party tools for translation, are critical considerations. Sharing customer information for translation purposes requires a delicate balance between efficiency and safeguarding sensitive data. Quality remains an important consideration.  

Transparency and Openness

To build trust in technology, a customer-centric approach is essential. This involves actively seeking input from customers about their preferences and expectations. By engaging customers in the decision-making process, companies can tailor their technological solutions to meet specific needs and pain points. 

Transparency and openness play a crucial role in alleviating customer concerns. Clearly articulating how technology is integrated into customer support processes fosters confidence and positively impacts the overall customer experience. 

Language serves as a powerful catalyst for creating empathetic connections. When customers are informed that the agent communicating with them may not speak their native language, an instant empathetic reaction can occur. This creates a sense of understanding and shared experience, fostering both empathy and delight—two elements that customer service companies ardently seek. 

Empowering CX Workers Through Digital Transformation

The integration of voice services with digital platforms has become a transformative strategy, offering businesses agility and scalability. The deflection of voice interactions to digital services ushers in a new era of improved communication, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

By strategically inserting options for customers to transition from voice to SMS or other digital platforms, brands can deflect voice interactions toward digital channels to adjust to seasonal fluctuations. This shift not only elevates the quality of communication but also provides a more direct channel for interaction.

The redirection towards digital solutions enhances service levels. Digital platforms not only facilitate agility and scalability but also enable businesses to optimize their agent teams more efficiently. This omnichannel approach translates to lower costs for businesses, underscoring the economic advantages of building teams with a digital-first mindset.

The key is to prioritize customer choice. Forcing customers into a specific channel can be counterproductive. Instead, the emphasis should be on offering digital solutions as an option and doing so effectively. This approach aligns with evolving customer expectations and fosters a sense of empowerment, as customers can choose the communication channel that best suits their preferences.

Simplified Technology and Agent Retention

Adopting digital service platforms is an effective way to simplify technology for customer support agents. Streamlined processes and intuitive interfaces empower agents, contributing to higher levels of job satisfaction and, consequently, increased agent retention. 

But it’s important to remember that technology cannot act as a solution alone in the CX industry—the need for human support remains paramount. IntouchCX has championed the use of digital channels as a pathway to improved customer support without solely relying on the technology as an end solution. A balanced approach is needed to provide accurate and efficient service while fostering empathetic customer interactions. 

The Future of Customer Support in a Globalized Landscape

At IntouchCX, our commitment is to lead from the future, empowering our clients to revolutionize customer experiences. As we navigate the complexities of multilingual support, seasonality fluctuations, and the integration of innovative technologies, now is the opportune moment to reevaluate traditional approaches and embrace new, forward-thinking methods. By staying attuned to the global shifts affecting the industry and leveraging the tools at our disposal, we can exceed customer expectations, ensuring a future where exceptional customer support is the reality