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§§ Table of Contents − − − − − − − − −
Ultimate Guide to Difficult
Conversations
1. Introduction 2. When you don’t know the answer 3. When you have to transfer a customer to someone else 4. When a customer requests a feature or product 5. When a customer asks you for a favor that you cannot do 6. When there’s something wrong with the delivered product 7. When you close the conversation 8. When a customer is angry 9. When a customer is unwilling to pay 10. When a crisis occurs 11. When you have a frequently complaining customer 12. When customers complain on social media 13. When you have legal issues 14. When you have to deliver bad news 15. When you have an abusive customer 16. When customers cross boundaries 17. When the customer speaks a different language 18. When a customer asks a vague question 19. When customers ask when something is going to be available 20. When you or your fellow agents made a mistake 21. When a customer wants to speak with a manager 22. When you can’t resolve the issue right away 23. When you need to let a customer know that it was their mistake 24. When a customer reaches you by mistake 25. When a customer asks how your product is different from others 26. When a customer is worried about how secure your service is 27. When a customer says that they forgot their password 28. When you want to point a customer to your documentation 29. When a customer violated your terms of service 30. When a customer is not tech-savvy 31. When a customer is right, but your policy is not 32. When a customer sounds like a bigot 33. You’ve got this!

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17.

When the customer
speaks a different language

There are so many languages in the world it is practically impossible for a company to support all of them without a little help. Luckily, there are many options when it comes to supporting people in different languages, and none of them require you to hire any additional people or have a huge, remote global staff.

If you have a customer that emails in in a language that no one on your team speaks, but you still would like to support there are a few steps:

  1. Paste the email into Google Translate and allow it to translate it for you.
  2. Take the customers translated email and add it as a note to the conversation so that anyone else that looks at the conversation has context.
  3. Write a simplified, clear straightforward version of what you would normally write, using incredibly simple text. Include a note right at the beginning to let the customer know that you are using a translation service and that you don’t have anyone on your team that speaks their language.
  4. Place it into Google Translate, to translate it into your customer’s language.

The most important point is that you let your customer know that you are using a translation service and that it’s because you don’t have any native speakers of their language on your team. This will make them much more understanding of any potential errors that Google Translate might make, and also may encourage them to speak in English instead. Many customers, especially if your product has excellent localization, won’t even think twice about writing in their native language.

That being said, they may still speak English, and be willing to do so if that is their main way of getting support.

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16.
When customers cross boundaries
Next Chapter →
18.
When a customer asks
a vague question
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