Customer inquiries and requests for quotes are some of the most important communications between a customer and an industrial website. RFQ’s allow potential customers to describe their projects or needs or begin the process of ordering services or equipment.  These inquiries are just as important for your international website.  So it goes without saying that you should be able to handle inquiries from those sites, even if the inquiries are not in your native language.  Why?
•    Not everybody speaks your language (even if it is English).
•    Customers may not feel comfortable conducting business in a language they don’t know very well or is their 2nd or 3rd language.
•    Visitors will be writing their inquiries or RFQ’s in their native language, and will probably expect the same in a reply

So how can you make sure you have the ability to respond to communications in languages you don’t speak or don’t speak very well?  If you’ve got someone in house to work with foreign inquiries, great.  They can act as a central point of contact if necessary.  Local and international affiliates can also be good resources to have or make good use of.

If you don’t, you’ll need to enlist professional translation services to assist in understanding or writing communications in whatever language(s) you’re receiving inquiries in.  Optimally, you should be able to at least begin your relationship with the customer on their terms, and show them you’re interested in gaining their business.

If worse comes to worse, you could add a message to your contact forms, telling visitors that they may receive a reply in your language.  Or, you could ask site visitors to check what language they would prefer to receive a response in.  This may be the preferred method in any event.  It’ll help them understand that you are an international website.  It’ll also give you valuable customer information right off the bat.  Over the long term, you can track their responses to this question and get a better idea of your market and their preferred methods and ways of communicating.

Do you have any suggestions for handling RFQs or other customer communications in languages you don’t speak?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 11:53 am and is filed under International Internet Marketing, International Keyword Research, International SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.