Bilingual Call Centers: Your Growth Catalyst

If any E-commerce company has to appreciate the importance of engaging a customer in their native language, there is no better example than Russia. Trade platforms like E-commerce sites thrive on using virtual mediums. Be it merchandise selection by the customer when browsing through the catalog on the website/application or completing the bargain by using an online payment mechanism, the entire sales cycle seems to be a function of a few clicks. The much-needed human touch is provided for only by the customer support center which engages the client in the sales cycle and helps with grievance redressal. Bilingual Call Centers, those which provide support in the local native language apart from English and specific Russian Call Center for customer support, provide a distinct advantage to brands operating in the Russian geography. This is also applicable to those demographic profiles which have Russian as their first language.

Russia has been an economic superpower and continues to hold sway in international trade. When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – The USSR – was still functional, its economic might was second only to the United States of America. Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and United Nations have Russian as an official language. 260 million people speak Russian globally and the language happens to be the seventh most spoken one, in the world. Russia as a country is home to nearly 144 million people. Just for the sheer population, it is ranked ninth globally. You will be surprised to know that Russian is the second most used language by people while browsing the internet or conducting searches. Thus for any consumer-facing Internet company eager to make its mark in Russia, it is mission-critical to have a Russian Call Center for client engagement. Bilingual Call Centers interacting with customers in local dialects have proven success stories in this geography.

Various studies conducted in the target geography for assessing the efficacy of e-commerce operations indicate that Russians are more welcoming towards brands that display the capabilities of engaging with them in their mother tongue. They lend credence and are more trusting towards such enterprises. Russians usually are wary of trusting a new brand and are initially apprehensive about making high-end purchases. They like to have multiple engagement cycles before the trust level gets built up. However, hearing a voice speaking in their familiar language reduces the number of these cycles drastically. A Russian Call Center or an array of Bilingual Call Centers become quite effective in reaching this coveted objective. Russians are known to be amongst the most loyal patrons of the brand once credibility is built and they display keenness towards the long-term association.

The investment by a brand in setting up a Russian Call Center or Bilingual Call Centers is not without merit. Let’s have a sneak peek into some data points which augment the case. Russia has an internet-savvy population and 73 percent of its resident are quite conversant with it. Russians represent the sixth largest population base in the world when it comes to accessing the internet. The two-decade-old booming e-commerce penetration has further been bolstered by the Corona pandemic phase when most people migrated to the medium to get their fill of daily needs delivered to their doorstep. The E-commerce market in Russia is further expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 11 percent for the next five years.

It is of quintessential importance to note that the Russian language has its own heritage and cultural nuances. The number of dialects that are present is unprecedented for a specific country. These organic language off-shoots can be attributed to the then prevalent geo-political equations. While your customer care representative may be adept in addressing the Russian customer in native Russian, if he or she is not well conversant with the cultural innuendos, the do’s and not’s, all efforts toward building a customer experience may go down the drain. Russian language speaker is quite particular and prickly about the right usage of words and tonality of diction.

As suggested above, if a brand is able to win the patronage of a Russian client, it is for keeps. Russian customers are always looking for building long-term associations. They can go out of their way to pass around a good word about the company from which they recently concluded a purchase. Russians have a deep-seated desire of having calm and reassuring conversations whenever they communicate with the customer care representative of the brand. The icing on the cake is if this conversation takes place in their beloved mother tongue. They need to have confidence in the person whom they are speaking to on the other side of the telephone or live chat. Once this bridge is built, they become one of the most vociferous supporters and have a history of being highly rated repeat customers around the world.

Thus for any brand aiming to achieve high Customer Satisfaction standards and spur business growth through up-selling and cross-selling, it is nearly mandatory to engage a Russian Call Center.  Excellent customer care support provided by Bilingual Call Centers in native Russian and English language to the engaging client will win laurels for your brands.

It is worth noting that setting up a captive in-house Russian Call Center may be restrictive both in terms of cost and staff bandwidth needed. It is not easy to hire and train domain experts who have a fair command over your product/service features as well as be high-quality native Russian speakers. Your Internet Company may end up feeling the drain on monetary and staff resources. The way out is to outsource your Bilingual Call Centers to a third-party international service provider.

Amongst global e-commerce players, there is an increasing trend of engaging a third-party outsourced Russian Call Center. These Bilingual Call Centers service providers can offer round-the-clock, 365 days a year services for a fraction of the cost. One such company of international repute is LiveSalesman which provides customer care support in more than 30 international languages. Setting up a Russian Call Center or multiple Bilingual Call Centers is their forte. 

The team of experts manning LiveSalesman Russian Call Center operations, are native speakers hailing from local centers of business and have a firm grip over local customer sentiment. They have a proven track record of increased customer engagement and reduced resolution time of customer queries.

Just pay heed to the fact that the way to a Russian heart is through the use of their mother tongue, and see how magic rubs off on your brand’s acceptance and success!