Prior to joining Voiance's team, I spent four years working at a large-scale US contact center, similar to those that provide customer support for the nation's largest financial institutions. During my time there --taking calls, training new hires, and managing agents -- no one seemed to give multilingual support, or the ability to effectively handle contact with non-English speaking customers, much thought.

I now understand what a missed opportunity that was. Partnering with a quality language services provider to handle non-English calls can impact critical metrics for financial institutions and their contact centers:

1. Average Handle Time

Non-English calls will take longer than their English equivalents – that’s unavoidable. But a trained, certified professional interpreter may be able to minimize AHT by clearly and accurately conveying the agent’s message to the caller and ensuring that the caller truly understands the answer to their question prior to hanging up. A callback due to misunderstanding means another non-English call impacting AHT, not to mention an unhappy customer.

Also, shaving seconds off the process of connecting to an interpreter can add up over the course of hundreds or thousands of calls. Partner with a language services provider that offers training, puts their number on speed dial for a one-button connection to an interpreter, and uses auto-authentication to enable your agents to skip inputting credentials. These steps could save up to a minute per non-English call before the conversation even begins.

2. Sales/Closures

Successfully setting a customer up for a new account, loan, or financial product depends heavily on developing a relationship – making sure they know that you understand their situation and building up trust through empathy. These dynamics are harder to cultivate with a language barrier in the way, so high-quality multilingual support may mean the difference between a happy customer with a new line of business and one who walks away due to confusion, mistrust, or misunderstanding.

3. Customer Satisfaction Scores

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) surveyed hundreds of contact center leaders and found a general consensus that language services improved the overall customer experience. These leaders also reported that about half of non-English-speaking callers call in expecting service to be available in their native language. Providing quality multilingual support gives financial institutions the opportunity to meet these customers’ expectations while surprising and delighting the other 50% of callers who didn’t expect their language to be supported.

Now that you understand how professional interpreters can impact critical contact center metrics, download our e-book to learn what’s available – and how easy it is to get started.