The importance of culture training to multilingual call centers

Tuesday, May 27, 2014


Outsourcing to a multilingual call center can help a business reach out to its diverse customer base effectively. But its success depends on many factors. Open Access BPO discusses the importance of cultural knowledge in delivering topnotch customer support in a multilingual contact center.

While language proficiency is essential to multilingual call centers, it's not the only key to having a successful customer service delivery. Providers of Multilingual support must also foster cultural competency in order to build stronger connections with international customers.

Why cultural compatibility matters

Non-English speaking customers are faced with language barriers when engaging with a regular customer service representative. Moreover, the differences in cultural background can also create a gap between the two parties. It's therefore wrong to think that language skills should be the only considerations when hiring multilingual agents.

Cultural compatibility must also be ensured in order to successfully connect with foreign customers. It enables multilingual call center agents to comprehend not only what the spoken word conveys, but the cultural context of issues presented by customers as well. By having a solid cultural knowledge, agents can relate to the values upheld by the customers and prevent themselves from being offensive or insensitive to cultural differences.

This is the same rationale applied by marketing campaigns that are designed to reach out to a vast and diverse market. Advertisements must always be localized to the target demographic to make sure the brand's image is more relatable to the customers of a particular geographical area. This enables a business to gain strong foothold in the specific community it aims to expand to.

How call centers can foster cultural compatibility

A multilingual call center can make sure that its agents are culturally competent by prioritizing applicants who are native speakers of the language and are manifesting strong cultural knowledge. Aside from the recruitment stage, language and cultural proficiency must constantly be reinforced by giving regular training followed by effective evaluations.

For a business outsourcing to a multilingual call center in the Philippines, cultural diversity must never prevent quality customer service from being afforded to customers. By guaranteeing that agents are able to communicate with customers in the language they are most comfortable with while showing cultural compatibility, a business can keep its customer base satisfied with its services.