When in Rome, do as the Romans do…especially on the Internet

According to a study carried out by Forrester in 2009, over 80% of consumers expect to receive service in their own language when conducting commercial transactions. Furthermore, the survey revealed that 70% of them asserted that they would feel more at ease and would make purchases over the Internet if essential elements of the website, such as technical assistance, FAQ and after-sales services were available in their language.

We are still taken aback when, with a new decade in full swing, we are confronted with such glaring linguistic barriers in a globalized world interconnected by web technology. This, however, is the reality that we must live with, and we must adapt to this situation, especially when we are carrying out commercial transactions. As the Forrester report demonstrates, people are prepared to pay a bit more if the instructions or composition of the product acquired on the Internet are in their language.

For this reason, we here at Seprotec adopt a clearly-defined stance and encourage companies to make the translation and localization (in the case of technological products) of certain goods and services an essential part of their international expansion budget. And, of course, the better the quality of the translation, the more possibilities the company will have of successfully breaking into new markets. This is because, at the end of the day, the customer wants to be able to be a customer anywhere in the world and also wants, if possible, to be pampered.

If you don’t think so, just look at consumers in China and Japan, two hot markets companies are eager to sink their teeth into at all costs. They have an even more alarming statistic: only 7% of Chinese and 5% of Japanese people feel comfortable making a purchase in a language other than their own.

So what are you waiting for? The world isn’t going to adapt to meet your needs, especially not in your own language.