The last couple of years have been problematic for businesses the world over due to complications linked to the Covid pandemic, and many European and British firms have also had to deal with the fallout from Brexit, so why should UK firms go multilingual now?
Read on to find out…
At Creative Word, we have been helping UK firms go multilingual for two decades and understand the benefits this gives our clients, their teams, and their customers.
Here, we’ve listed the top advantages, with a few tips on how to achieve the best results.
The UK is Multilingual (and so is the rest of the world)
The UK is a dynamic, multicultural, multilingual melting pot of people from all over the globe who chose to live and work here.
And cities, such as, London are epicentres, where on any given day, you might hear up to 300 different languages, with many of these people speaking little English and having a limited understanding of the language.
According to the Office for National Statistics, almost 10% of the UK population consider a language other than English to be their main language, with almost 1 million UK residents considering themselves “non-proficient” in the language.
For firms trading in the UK, or those looking to expand further afield (including Europe, the Middle East or Asia) speaking your customers’ native language is vital.
Multilingual websites offer customers the opportunity to engage with your brand in their native language giving improved brand recognition, understanding and positivity.
It also means global expansion is easier, faster, and more successful than firms offering only a monolingual site.
Becoming a Multilingual Firm
Becoming a multilingual firm is more straightforward than you might imagine if you enlist the right help, and plan ahead.
Professional Language Service Providers (LSP) offer multilingual language services ranging from website translation to design and marketing which all help to facilitate better communication with your customers while ensuring language accuracy and linguistic expertise.
LSPs can help with the following:
• Cultural and language knowledge of target audience
• Competitor insights and evaluations
• Social media localisation
• Webhosting advice for global websites
• Native copywriters
• Improved SEO and ratings
• Keyword and content translation and localisation
Improving Customer Communication
Key to every successful relationship, is good communication!
Bridging the language gap between your firm and your customers is essential for sharing brand ideology and promoting a positive brand image, fostering product knowledge, improving customer services, creating engaging marketing campaigns, and developing sales.
If your audience doesn’t understand your website, can’t interact with social media sites, or buy products using their preferred currency, they are likely to find a firm to purchase from that they can.
Losing potential customers due to language barriers is still a common problem yet it is easily overcome.
How to improve Customer Communication
Professional translation and localisation services are the best option for improving multilingual customer communication.
They help with the following:
• Language
• Currency changes
• Brand
• Images/photographs
• Laws and regulations
• Formatting
• Design
• App translation
• Cultural awareness and understanding
Further information regarding localisation and translation services for UK firms considering going global, or offering more language options on their UK websites, can be found here.
Alternatively, check out our helpful blog page here, which has hundreds of articles relating to the professional language services available here at Creative Word.
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