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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."
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.