“Coming from a Google Translate background and knowing the pain points there, we were very positively surprised by the quality of the translations. The fact we’re dealing with people's salaries and similar, we need to remove risk in communications with customers. The team really enjoyed the fact when we were checking the translations with local language speakers they stood out as very good in quality”Jonas Nordberg, Support Manager, Sympa
Founded in 2005, Sympa helps company HR departments gain insight into their organisation, from what employees are doing through to salaries being paid and more. It also helps bring all this related data into a single point which helps with data hygiene and empowers employees and managers to deal with many individual HR-related tasks on their own, allowing the HR team to focus on the bigger picture.
Challenge
Sympa has been growing rapidly into new international markets. However, high-quality and timely customer support is a key differentiating factor. As the product is dealing with personal information it’s vital that help is available rapidly and issues are resolved fast.
The question they face was, as customers start to come on board in a new market, how do they give them the support they expect from Sympa? The options were:
- Recruit new team members that speak the language. However, if the customer base is small in new territories this can be an expensive resource and result in underutilised team members.
- Use Google Translate as a temporary measure. The danger here is given the sensitive nature of the data, even a small mistake in a translation can have big implications.
- Offer support in English until there are enough customers to justify a full-time employee. This is a suboptimal option since not everyone will be comfortable using English. It also means some customers don’t get the complete Sympa experience.
“Looking at our customer base, when we’re dealing with critical subject matter like payroll and other HR topics, it’s highly sensitive. Knowing the exact correct English words might be a challenge and so it’s much more efficient to deal with customers in their own language. It also feels better for the customers to know there is someone available that speaks their language and understands.” says Jonas Nordberg, Support Manager at Sympa
Solution
After hearing about the new Transfluent for Zendesk product, Sympa decided it may be able to meet their needs and so they wanted to trial it to see if it could deliver the accuracy and quality required.
The Outcome
Translation quality was the first measure of success since Sympa had to be confident the tool would reliably give customers the right message. So, local language speakers on the team put it to the test since they could check and the results were positive.
“The team was checking the quality and asserted it was on a good level. They had been using Google Translate internally to understand what the customer was saying but we couldn’t use that to send messages as we knew the quality wasn’t high enough” says Jonas.
It was also important that the tool was easy to set up and use so it doesn’t turn out to be a piece of software that actually drains resources.
“The whole implementation phase was super easy. It didn’t take long or require much onboarding. Simply allow the team access to the tool and let them test it. That’s pretty easy for me as a manager and for our management team to know there is nothing technical in the background. It’s there and it’s ready, so get going” Jonas comments.
The Transfluent Zendesk translation app has also helped create common language terms across the different teams and team members so customers don’t get confused by the same thing being called by different names.
“One of the major benefits is how it has helped us to be consistent across the company. If individuals are translating messages they may refer to certain things using different terminology. Now there is a unified way of speaking using a solid process that we can trust. That delivers a consistent service for customers”, says Jonas.
Ultimately, the conclusion was that Transfluent for Zendesk delivers what they need and helps open up opportunities in new markets.
“This could be a competitive advantage for us. Customers may know Sympa doesn’t yet have a big presence in their country but already we’re helping them in their language”, enthuses Jonas.
Extra benefits for Sympa from Transfluent for Zendesk
Solving the main challenge isn’t the only benefit Sympa got from using the tool:
Saving time and delivering an even better service
The automated translation helps enhance Sympa’s service even further by giving instant translations. On average, this is estimated to save between 5-10 minutes per ticket, meaning customers get their answers faster and the team saves time.
“We deal with a lot of cases each week. Multiply that by 10 minutes we are saving a significant amount of time by not doing translations by hand”, explains Jonas.
Onboarding new team members
Transfluent for Zendesk helps Jonas when new team members join even when he doesn’t speak the language they are supporting. He can use the tool to review their messages and identify where they may need extra help.
“It helps me validate and assess their way of communication and the tone of voice. Now their messages aren’t a mystery to me and I can support them by saying, for example, you should have mentioned this or phrased this differently. It’s very important to me to be able to guide employees”, Jonas comments.
Covering staff
Even when you have a language resource available, they can’t be there every day of the year. During a holiday period or if illness strikes, Sympa can now be confident that other team members can use the tool to carry on offering customers support in their own language.
“This helps a lot as now we have a tool in place that means we pretty easily solve cases without even understanding that local language”, says Jonas.