Localized Tech Support Outsourcing?

phebz23 asks: "I am a supervisor for a modest (7 person) technical support department. Our company is going through a growing phase, but we're hitting a wall support-wise. We do business worldwide, but when it comes to technical support we only offer it in English. My boss and I are starting to research organizations that can provide technical support in other languages like French, German and Spanish. Does anyone have any experience working with an organization in this capacity, and/or have any suggestions on an appropriate solution? Thanks everyone."

Comments

Why do you need native speakers?

[duffbeer703]

Hiring French, German and Spanish speakers is a waste of time. Everybody knows that if you yell loud enough, those people will understand!

Re:Why do you need native speakers?

[anticypher]

Not the French. Even when I yell at them loud enough in *French*, they still don't understand. Best to avoid them altogether :-)

avec toutes mes excuses,
the AC

Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quite a few french/english billingual people in Canada...

Re:Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quite a few french/english billingual people in Canada...

As a Canadian who's been to France, I can honestly say No, there isn't.

There are, however, quite a few quebcois/english bilingual people in Canada.

In the words of a French friend who visited me - upon hearing the airplane safety message for the first time - "That's not French. I'm from France, and that's not fucking French."

Pick me!

[metalhed77]

I personally speak a very poor strain of German.

Re:Pick me!

[schnits0r]

Ich bin besser. Ich spreche fast sehr gut!

Re:Pick me!

[Molina the Bofh]

German ? Somehow it reminds me of die blinkenlichten.

ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!

Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.

How about hiring multi-lingual Americans?

[fmaxwell]

Despite the jokes to the contrary, there are Americans who speak other languages. Have you tried placing 'help-wanted' ads for American technical support personnel who are fluent in French, German, and Spanish? With all of the U.S. tech support people who are out of work, I can't believe that it will be very difficult to find qualified people who speak other languages.

You'd be better off not paying a middle-man. Hiring multi-lingual employees would give you people who could fill multiple roles, you would be able to supervise and train them directly, and you'd have a staff that worked as a team and could consult one another directly. Think about the flexibility; If, for example, there were no French-speaking callers at any given time, the bilingual French/English tech support person could handle calls from English-speaking callers.

Growing-pains in Spanish.

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically you need tech people that know more than one language. Problem is twofold. One that takes time, and two those people can command more money. Short-term is find some local translators as go betweens. Long-term is either train your tech staff in whatever language is needed, and pay approprietly. Or find an organization that has the same expertise your selling, and language skills, and cut them a portion of your profit. Anyway you slice it, it's not going to be easy.

Languages

[jaredcat]

My company operated a 120+ agent call center in Romania since the wage is cheap (like $2/hr for language students from the University) and they speak excellent English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Romanian, Czech, Bulgarian, Russian, etc.

You might try a firm in that area.

You must be new here...

[wronskyMan]

Advocating outsourcing on Slashdot... please report to reprogramming site immediately :-)

Check your local university

[bluGill]

My local university offers classes in foreign languages. Off hand I know of Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Japanese. Thats just one (though one of the larger ones) I suspect I could find Greek and Hebrew in a religious school somewhere close by. (though not necessarily forms spoken by modern people)

Send your people to school. If you are in a hurry check summer school I used to be able to get a years worth of Spanish in one summer. (used the entire morning 5 days a week though, and worth a full time course load) Even just pay for night school and reduce their responsibilities a little so they can study while at work. Try to get pairs in each language so they can practice together.

You might want to investigate bringing a teacher in to your company for an hour a day if you have a lot of people who might want a second language. It might or might not make sense for you.

Third party translators-by-phone

[xanderwilson]

Not a comprehensive solution, but I know people who work in free health clinics in areas where a significant portion of its clients speak Spanish only. When they don't have a translator on staff, they use a third party translator by having both the patient and the caregiver talk through a translator on the othe line. I don't know how expensive it is, and I wouldn't know where to find these services. But if they can translate health-related terms like STDs and medical conditions, I imagine they'd be able to handle techy terms as well.

Alex.

Details Please

[m_evanchik]

This does not seem like too tough a nut to crack.

The details of your business operations matter in this regard.

You might consider operating a satellite office in Europe. Labor movement is unrestricted in the EU, so you could have one central office, hiring from all over.

You could also outsource tech support to a European firm, just like you would in America. Maybe you want to consider doing this.

Trying to hire locally might be an option. This depends on how diverse the labor pool is in your area. In New York City, finding foreign language speakers is easier than in Des Moines. If local talent can't do the trick, then you may need to recruit nationally, or even internationally. The farther afield you go, the more you will increase expense and hassle

What are you supporting? What skill set, in addition to language, do you require?

The question of outsourcing the work is a premature one. Language is just one skill among many required. If support is a core business function, then you don't want to outsource it. You may need to hire an outside consultant(feel free to email me) to help you get your ducks in a row, but your problem is a fairly simple one. You are approaching it wrong.

Details matter for everything in this matter. Examine them. Or get the help of someone who can help you figure out your problem. You should also talk to other departments. Sales seems to be successful selling to foreigners, maybe they can give you suggestions on how they get the manpower necessary.

You might even talk to your customers! There's a shocking idea. Ask them what they would prefer: Outsourced support at a lower cost, or in-house support in their language at a higher cost. Or do they even care?

You are probably best off hiring more people rather outsourcing. In the long run, the added cost should be only minimally higher. In the short term, recruitment will be more expensive. Be prepared to bite the bullet and justify it to your bosses.

Re:Details Please

[crath]

Let me add some further background info. to Michel's excellent reply.

As Michel points out, your problem has two solutions: continued internal delivery, or outsourced service delivery. No matter which of the two solutions you choose, there is a base level of work you must continue to perform in enabling your support technicians:

• interact with your customers to understand their non-English support requirements
• produce native language support scripts for the techs to use with non-English speaking callers (asking techs to translate in real-time while they deliver support will slow them down; although, highly technical material supplied by product development is often only supplied to the call centre in English)
• decide upon the level of support you want to offer
• work with your management to decide how much money you want to spend

One word about "scripting": what I mean by this is the creation of the information that your support techs use when they interact with your customers. In call centres that use low-end, untrained/poorly-trained labour, the scripts are literally scripts the techs follows; and they frustrate the heck out of educated callers (for many products, a minority of callers). In call centres employing more experienced and educated staff, the script material is less prescriptive to the techs and is a combination of technical material supplied by product development and an FAQ database created by the call centre techs themselves as they work calls with your customers.

Now to the heart of what I wanted to pass along: sourced vs. internally delivered support service. All the background work necessary to enable an internal call centre must be done even when you choose to outsource. Generally, outsourcing is chosen in situations like yours to gain the following advantages:

• access to a multilanguage call centre
• delivery of extended hours service without locally staffing off-hours
• cost variability through pay per call billing (i.e., a high quality product that doesn't generate calls keeps call centre costs down)
• potentially lower labour rates (in the call centre) lowers your per-call cost

Any qualified outside service provider will provide the above benefits, but there is a fixed start-up cost associated with externally service delivery that you must account for. By this I mean: while an outside supplier will charge you on a per-call basis, there will be something called the "base fees" that you will pay so that the supplier is able to recover the fixed costs associated with preparing to take the first call from your customers. If call volumes are high enough, a supplier will generally agree to smear the fixed cost across their per-call charge; but you will then face a minimum number of calls you will have to pay for each month (even if no one calls). To be fair, you will have a fixed cost internally too; and that cost needs to be factored into your business decision.

There is one midpoint solution you might consider: using your in-country distributors to supply non-English support. This alternative sits somewhere between internal and external service delivery. I have seen small software companies who provide support resources and extra product price margins to their in-country distributors, in exchange for the suppliers taking native language calls from customers, and then passing difficult problems back to the English-speaking support team in your home office. Again, all the background work still has to be done; it's just the solution implementation that changes. For a small software company, this is often the most cost effective solution.

English is a good start

[quintessent]

Dell, for one, could use some tech support people who speak English.

In our company

[arrow]

We have customers in lots of countries and as far as I know, its established up front that all of our support folks speak english or spanish.

We've developed lots of extensive documentation in english and paid outside companies to translate them for us into a half dozen languages. When the docs don't cover it, the company finds an employee inside their orginzation that speaks passable english or spanish and have them call us. From what I understand, this isn't that big of a deal for them, and is a hell of a lot easier than us finding a dozen people who speak every language under the sun.

Keep in mind, english is the language of business.

Look into Great Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

Before it went bankrupt, my last company - a call center, was looking at opening a location in Ireland or Scotland, can't remember which. I'm leaning toward Scotland. Something about the immigration laws making it very easy for people to move in to Scotland for five-plus years to perform multi-lingual support at a call center.

Per the bankruptcy, it never made it beyond a beautiful dream, but the theory might be sound.

It'll cost you

[FreeLinux]

these guys will do a great job but, it isn't going to be cheap. Sykes Help Desk