According to Superoffice, when surveyed 1,920 business professionals about their top priority in the next five years, about 45.9% reported that they would prioritize customer experience (CX).
It's not a surprise because, in another study by Walker Info in 2020, 86% of respondents said they would pay more for better CX.
One way of enhancing your CX is by maximizing your omnichannel strategy that centers around the CX principles. Today, we'll discuss how website translations can improve your Omnichannel's CX and maximize it to increase retention from international customers.
If you want to learn more about this, then keep on ready!
Why Should You Enhance the CX in Your Omnichannel Strategy?
Before anything else, let's first discuss what Omnichannel is? It's an approach in eCommerce wherein you create a seamless buying experience for your customers through multiple channels. In an omnichannel approach to your eCommerce sites, you will have to integrate different channels that promote, communicate, and distribute your brand's products and services to your customers.
Now when defining what omnichannel CX is, it mainly focuses on how you approach CX in your omnichannel strategy. For example, identifying the needs of your customers and addressing them accordingly.
We've listed a couple of data and facts omnichannel CX you should consider when implementing website translations in your strategy:
- About 88% of companies have heavily invested in CX, making competition harder over the years. (Deloitte)
- Of the top 10 million websites, 60.4% of the content was in English, while only 16.2% of the entire population spoke that language. Meanwhile, only 1.4% of the same top websites were in simplified Chinese, even though 14.3% of the world's population speaks this language. (Visual capitalist)
- More than three channels in a campaign saw a 287% increase in purchases compared to single-channel ones. (Omnisend)
The data presented shows that many companies prioritize boosting CX and omnichannel potential in eCommerce sites. However, many eCommerce businesses fail by incorporating website translations in their omnichannel CX strategies to make their experience simpler and more engaging.
How Website Translation Plays a Crucial Role in Omnichannel CX
Besides your competitors not prioritizing the cultural and linguistic aspects in omnichannel CX, there are several reasons why website translations should be your top priority when planning to increase your interaction with international customers.
Data Reportal reported that about 33.3% of international users that are of a working age use translation tools as they search online. The major disadvantage of overlying online translation tools in making your eCommerce content available in another language is that it's most likely to mistranslate the meaning of the text.
If you were to work with professionals specializing in website translation services, they would create SEO-friendly multilingual content that would make it more accessible on their search engines while ensuring top-quality translations convey your brand's message. Relying on Google Translate and other online translation tools doesn't optimize your eCommerce sites and doesn't enhance your overall omnichannel CX strategy.
Your international users deserve the best CX from your eCommerce, and mistranslations and cultural inconsistencies will disrupt this immersive flow. Because of this, when you're planning to target a specific market, part of your strategy is preparing and utilizing techniques based on their cultural and linguistic preferences.
5 Point Questions for Creating an Omnichannel CX for Your Target Users
To get you started in creating the right omnichannel CX strategy for your target users, we've listed a few questions you will need to answer as you plan your strategy.
1. How well do you know your target users?
There are various reasons you're planning to enter international markets, like fewer competitors and increasing profitability. But if you're planning to gain more customers, you will have to identify your new audience, depending on your market research and way of creating a buyer's persona.
This process will take some time as you might have to conduct surveys to identify market gaps and do competitor research. It will help you understand where you can pinpoint what parts of your business's operations and marketing strategies need improvement.
In knowing more about your users, you can provide better services and instruct the website translator on how you would like to best accommodate your customers on your site.
2. Do you have the experts to integrate the changes to your eCommerce site?
Often the reason why many eCommerce sites fail to enter and integrate into another market is that they haven't collaborated with experts. These experts could be eCommerce marketing experts, website translation services, local consumer behavior specialists, and content creators.
Collaborating with experts in being part of the planning and integration of changes in your omnichannel strategy will ensure that changes are successfully implemented to increase the user engagement of your target market.
3. What social media platforms do they usually use?
The usual reason why many online businesses fail to maximize their social media accounts is largely due to not knowing which social media platform their target audience is more active on. Social media platforms allow you to have more direct contact with your customers and foster a relationship with them.
If you're not updated on the latest trends on social media and don't know where your customers are flocking towards, your omnichannel strategy is in danger of becoming obsolete. Each market is specific, that's why you should also know which social media metrics are important to track. For example, two years ago, Youtube was the top social media platform in Germany, but recently Whatsapp took its place. In your market research, you should identify these small nuances to not waste time and opportunity on which social media sites you should prioritize.
4. What is your multilingual content marketing strategy?
It's not enough that you created a multilingual website. You should market your eCommerce site with content in the native language and culture of your target users.
As mentioned, your most significant advantage in translating your eCommerce site is that it makes your business more accessible and geo-target oriented compared to others solely in English. So with content creators that are masters in your target market's native language and culture, you can create appealing multilingual content that's useful and entertaining. Combined with a multilingual SEO strategy, you can increase your ranking on local search engines where your users can easily find.
5. Is your eCommerce site ready to accept payments and delivery to your target market?
As you know, each country has its preferred way of sending payments and delivery systems. The challenge of creating an omnichannel CX for your international customers is integrating various payment and delivery methods that would efficiently get them to purchase your products and avail of your services.
One way of ensuring that your international customers have access to your brand's products and services is by having it across multiple marketplaces, which resolves some of the payment and delivery issues in catering to your target market.
So during your market research period, look into the kind of delivery and payment options your target customers use and decide what you will include in your omnichannel strategy as it will make integrating it easier than adding it later.
Final Thoughts
Creating that customer experience where the customer is in a state of "flow" as they navigate your eCommerce site is easier said than done. Omnichannel CX is your best bet in increasing your site's conversion rate, and by incorporating website translations, you can make a lasting impact on your international customers.