The Guide to Translation and Localization: Telephony-based Interpretation Services

Home

The Guide to Translation and Localization: Telephony-based Interpretation Services

By Lingo Systems,
Portland, OR, U.S.A.

info [at] lingosys . com
www.lingosys.com

Get the List of 4,500+ Translation Agencies Now!
No Recurring Membership Fees!

[ Table of Contents ]

Chapter 18: Telephony-based Interpretation Services

by Linda J. Parker

Telelnterpreters Director of Marketing

Telephony-based interpretation services, also known as Over The Phone Interpretation Services, provide on-demand, 24/7 access to interpreters for virtually any language. Connection to an interpreter is accomplished within 30 seconds, commencing a 3-way conference call during which the interpreter facilitates communication between the limited English customer (or prospect) and the company representative.

In a consecutive interpreting mode, the interpreter conducts the session through an alternating exchange between English and the source language. Mastery of language, with complete fluency in both English and the foreign language, is but one criterion for a qualified interpreter in an over-the-phone environment. Telephony-based interpretation also requires mastery of advanced, consecutive interpretation skills, which include:

• The ability to quickly comprehend in the foreign "source" language and just as quickly re-express in English with fullness of meaning,

• Trained listening skills that allow the interpreter to accurately and immediately recall information in one language and instantly and accurately translate the information into another language, and

• Command of cultural distinctions that affect language with the aptitude to appropriately convey the meaning of culture-specific expressions and regionalisms.

How Does Telephony-based Interpretation Work?

One of the great benefits of telephony-based interpretation is its ready accessibility through the telephone, its ease of use through efficient call handling protocols, and the seamlessness of an interpretation service that eliminates language barriers. Understanding this service is best depicted in a call flow diagram.

Telephony-based Interpretation

Healthcare organizations, commercial enterprises across all industry sectors, and government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels utilize Over The Phone Interpretation Services when an individual with limited English speaking capabilities makes contact with their organization.

Requests for language support vary by industry sector and can involve:

• Financial transactions,

• Insurance claims or policy questions,

• Bank loans and credit card services,

• Help desk questions,

• Opening of new accounts,

• Billing questions,

• Reservations,

• Human resource functions such as employee training and benefit programs, or

• Emergency services such as 911.

When an individual with limited English speaking capabilities contacts an organization's representative, the representative makes a toll-free call to their interpretation service provider. At Telelnterpreters, we utilize computer telephony integration technology (СП) to gain call handling efficiencies and promptly relay customer specific data, such as their unique access code, to the computer screen of our call center operator. This facilitates auto-identification of incoming call and account information to the operator and expedites connection to the interpreter. The operator ensures the connection to an interpreter based on the language request. If the language required is unclear, the operator is trained to quickly identify the language of the caller.

Connection to the appropriate interpreter takes under 30 seconds to complete. Once the operator completes the connection to the interpreter, the service charges begin.

AtTelelnterpreters, our skills-based routing platform quickly accesses the appropriate interpreter based on profile attributes of the call such as call type, knowledge-base requirements, and language. This is an important service distinction because industry-trained interpreters are required to support a number of call types including: medical-related calls, calls involving legal proceedings, and calls requiring specific knowledge of financial transactions.

The Value of Telephony-based Interpretation

In its inception, telephony-based interpretation services were developed to meet federal government mandates for qualified interpreters, to address emergency medical care needs, and to fill a void in multilingual capabilities within customer service call centers. Over the past decade, demographic and economic trends have significantly increased the demand for Over The Phone Interpretation Services.

If operational necessity was the springboard for the initial growth of Over The Phone Interpretation Services, strategic imperative has become the catalyst for accelerated demand of such services in recent years. Today, language support is shifting from a reactive mode to a business expansion opportunity. This is because the U.S. and Canada are becoming multicultural economies with the rapidly increasing purchasing power of multilingual market segments. Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern populations are now outpacing the historical influx of immigrants experienced by the United States and Canada in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Hispanic population alone represents more than 41 million people in the United States today. To put this figure in perspective, some sources say there are more native Spanish speakers in the U.S. than in Spain. By 2009, nearly one person out of every six in the U.S. will be of Hispanic origin. The Asian population, comprised of a multitude of languages and cultures, is projected to exceed 14 million as the end of the decade approaches, nearly doubling its 1990 base. Many other ethnic populations are growing at a rapid pace including Russian, Armenian, Middle Eastern, and South Asian populations. In the U.S., ethnic populations were concentrated in specific geographic markets, such as major metropolitan areas or the East and West coasts, but today are increasingly distributed across the country.

Organizations are determining that the multicultural population boom offers strategic value for increasing revenue growth and market share among market segments that are highly profitable. That value is clearly in the numbers. The Asian and Hispanic markets, for example, are on a trajectory to reach an estimated value of $1.7 trillion in the U.S. by 2010. From the perspective of the total consumer market place, this represents nearly 17 percent of consumer purchasing power.

Recognizing the financial implications of this explosive growth in multilingual populations, organizations are developing business strategies to capitalize on the growing purchasing power of these markets. What has become apparent to many companies is that they are not currently communicating to these potential markets in proportion to their purchasing power. Why? Because these segments include consumers of diverse national origins that actively use their native languages, actively practice their cultural traditions, and prefer in-language services and the in-culture experience.

Significant revenue opportunities exist for businesses that understand that language is the key to accessing these markets. At Telelnterpreters, our goal is to be the strategic partner for organizations by leveraging our in-language expertise in over 170 languages and our 2,700 professional interpreters to help them successfully acquire and retain multilingual market segments.

As companies and organizations develop their business strategies to capitalize on the multicultural economy, it is essential that they recognize the distinct attributes of the market segments driving the multicultural economy. These unique attributes underscore the significant potential rewards of these markets, their lifetime value, and the profit contribution to the bottom line. Members of these market segments exhibit, for example, a much stronger brand affinity and purchasing loyalty than other consumer segments. And, their active presence within their cultural communities makes them strong brand advocates.

Selecting the Optimal Over The Phone Interpretation Service Provider

While companies are clearly gaining an understanding of the financial contribution that telephony-based, in-language services can make to their business, it is important that they select an Over The Phone Interpretation provider based on stringent criteria. This will help them determine the optimal service provider that can offer partnership value. After all, with the potential to affect not only business operations but contribute to revenue growth and customer market share, there's a lot at stake.

To evaluate an Over The Phone Interpretation service provider that can offer solid partnership value, decision makers should consider whether the service provider meets the following criteria:

1. Accredited professional interpreters

Many service providers rely on bilinguals to support their customers' language requests, rather than professional interpreters. Bilinguals, by definition, have varying degrees of proficiency in a language pair and no accreditation, training, or experience to perform consecutive interpretation. Consecutive interpretation requires not only language mastery in both English and the foreign language, but highly specialized, advanced skills to interpret between two languages in an instantaneous, over-the-phone environment.

2. Offshore business model

Does the service provider employ offshore interpreters? Many service providers have a cost-first business model that utilizes cheaper language resources from offshore. Generally the only qualification is bilingual capability. While cost containment is an essential component of solid financial practices, offshore bilingual resources can lower quality performance. It can also have implications for information security where adherence to U.S. laws and regulations is essential to specific industry sectors or a customer's business practice.

3. Return on partnership investment through performance management

Look for a service provider with a quality-first business model that utilizes performance-based service metrics to return cost savings to its customers.

4. Dedicated account management

One of the value-add components of a partnership with a language service provider is periodic review with a manager dedicated to the specific customer account. This dedicated account management process should include quarterly business reviews to ensure complete partnership accountability and visibility as well as on-going training to users of the language service.

5. Information security practices

Does the service provider have policies and actionable measures that ensure the integrity of customer data and information assets? Are these measures comprehensive and do they include administrative, technical, and physical security processes and procedures? Most importandy how do offshore business operations affect adherence to U.S. laws and regulations regarding information security?

6. Efficient and accurate call routing processes

Consider the affects of using interactive voice response (IVR) technology, which can impede quick identification of the language requirement. In many cases, a live operator can more accurately and efficiendy determine the language need and quickly connect the call to the appropriate interpreter.

7. Scalable service

With the growing demand for multilingual support, it is important that the service provider have the scalability to meet increasing volume requirements.

8. Web-based customer portal

Customers of telephony-based language interpretation services should have at their disposal near real-time and historical data via a web-based, secured portal. It should tell them at a quick glance the progress of their multilingual initiatives, developing trends in language requests, volume of calls, connect times, and length of interpreter sessions.

9. Investment in quality assurance

Has the service provider invested in quality assurance with human and technical resources to ensure that quality is maintained at the highest level? Is there a quality assurance program in place that the provider implements on a daily basis? Are the specifics of this program satisfactory?

10. Interpreter qualification and training

The service provider should adhere to well-defined criteria during the interpreter hiring process to ensure that candidates are professional interpreters with the advanced skills to perform consecutive interpretation. Pre-hire testing is an integral component that should validate both language and interpreting skills. The service provider should conduct an additional training program that reinforces interpreting protocols, and incorporates industry-specific training, customer service training, and professional ethics.

About Telelnterpreters

Telelnterpreters is recognized by Fortune 1000 companies, healthcare organizations, and government agencies as the language services provider of choice for clients demanding quality-driven services with a proven return on partnership. As part of the Coto Global Solutions family of companies, Telelnterpreters' 2700 professional interpreters provide Over The Phone Interpretation Services that support requests in any of 170 languages. Telelnterpreters offers Over The Phone Interpretation Services on a 24/7 basis, enabling its clients to communicate with their multilingual customers on-demand without the need for reservations.

As a seamless multilingual extension of an organization's sales and customer service, Telelnterpreters' business solutions empower companies to handle every language and service need of their linguistically diverse customer base.

[ Table of Contents ]