Digitalisation has made it easier than ever to enter the global marketplace. Rather than immediately needing to set up shop in foreign markets, you can now cater to customers worldwide online and enjoy unprecedented access to global customers. When you step your business up from local to global, your brand is virtual for many of your new customers.

But going global comes with its share of challenges. An overreliance on tech sees the human touch lost in favour of automated emails, chatbots, self-service and other quick wins. These quick wins are not get-out-of-jail-free cards for neglecting to build human connections, and fail in the long term if they don’t help you build relationships with each online visitor. Maintaining the human touch in international service – from battling with language barriers to working around time zone differences – is no mean feat.

The human touch is the warm greeting you give to each customer. It’s the flexibility you show when you bend over backwards to help the customer, finding workarounds to tricky queries. It’s the personal touch that you put into your service.

We use emotion to work out whether we can trust a person or a business. Without trust, converting your online visitors is an uphill battle. Since 86% of customers confirm they’ll pay more for better service, it’s clear just how important the human touch can be in boosting your support efforts.

With struggles like this to contend with, how can you hope to offer consistently great service across continents? Used well, digitalisation may be able to help you with that, too.

1. Offer as many long-distance connection and communication options as possible

When you first scale up into the global marketplace, you may not have a physical store or office for your new customers to visit. You’ll rely solely on technology to digitalise your customer service and duplicate that coveted human touch.

While you might not be able to move in right away, you can establish a strong supporting presence on your website.

By making contact information detailed and easy to find, you demonstrate to customers that your business is open to them — even from the other side of the world.

The more channels you can offer for contacting you, the better.

Do more than just displaying a company address and telephone number. Have a social media account customers can reach out to, email addresses they can contact, comment sections on your site where relevant, and a live chat channel to demonstrate that you’re only a few clicks away from helping them out.

2. Overcome language barriers with online translation

While local businesses can be fairly confident that their customers and employees will be able to communicate in the same language, a global business has no such assurance. As you gain employees in new locations with local language capabilities this becomes less of an issue. But when you’re starting off you don’t always have this resource.

Language barriers can restrict the human touch in your service because customers won’t feel personally cared for if they cannot get support in their native language. Accommodating such differences is a personal touch that’s challenging when entering the global marketplace.

Using technology such as live chat software could help you with this. There are solutions that offer real-time chat translation, which lets your team speak in their own language, while customers speak in theirs.

You might also want to consider a multilingual or multi-regional website. A multilingual website offers content in more than one language, while a multi-regional site explicitly targets users in different countries. This helps you create a more fluent customer journey catered to each foreign market.

3. Difficulties caused by time zones

If language barriers weren’t causing enough of a headache, different time zones across the world complicate matters further. Your business is asleep while customers are awake and waiting on replies from your team. After all, support channels can’t help your team offer the human touch if no one is awake to answer.

Empower customers to help themselves. A staggering 90% of customers want to have a self-service option available.

A great way to provide awesome service, without fearing a lack of the human touch (it’s less expected), is by providing self-service options on your site.

You can also support your customers with a well-deployed chatbot. While chatbots can’t assist with every query, they can streamline self-service experiences by offering help navigating the site, or providing quick answers to simple questions. If trained to use your company’s tone of voice, chatbots can sprinkle cordial, consistent support into self-service options.

When it comes to technology, make sure you use it right

Ultimately, it’s important to remember when going global that people often want to deal with people. The technology you use should reflect this, by providing an interface for human support. When you use digitalisation to help you go global, it doesn’t mean engineering your employees out of your customer service.

Part of a great customer experience is meeting customers where they are. That doesn’t mean you need to get on a plane and visit your new global customers. The technology you use to connect with your customers can and must be used to bring the human touch of your team members to every global customer – be they next door or on the other side of the world.

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With the new year on the horizon, you’re likely setting goals and outlining strategies for growing your business in 2017. As you plan to improve your business in the year ahead, you should look at some key technologies that can help you manage your customers, your data and your products.

1.     Customer Relationship Management software

Every business thrives on healthy customer service and customer relationships. When you’re dealing with clients across the globe, especially as you expand, it can be difficult to keep track of all of your contacts. That’s where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can help.

CRM software enables you to create a database of all of your contacts that can be accessed by any applicable members of your team.

With CRM software, you can store a complete record of all of your company’s interactions with clients or potential clients. You can set up your database to capture each individual’s order history, concerns, business and personal information, and all points of contact they have had with members of your team, including phone calls, emails and chats.

CRM software is especially helpful when dealing with businesses on an international scale. It will help you and your team track where customers are located along with the languages they speak, local customs that you and your team need to be aware of and any applicable trade rules or restrictions.

CRM software can help you serve customers better by staying on top of their needs, concerns and preferences. It can also help your team to operate more efficiently, cutting down on time spent searching for information, emails or files related to their customers.

2.     Cloud computing

At this point most people have heard of cloud technology, and nearly everyone who uses a computer, tablet or smartphone has used “the cloud” in some way. While the technology has become ubiquitous, you might not be aware of how cloud technology can improve your business’s operations.

When using cloud technology, your company’s digital operations take place on off-site servers that can be accessed from anywhere.

This can be particularly beneficial to companies operating on a global scale whose employees travel frequently or work remotely.

By using cloud technology, an employee on the go can access files and software utilized by the company back at headquarters from anywhere. It also means that any traveling employees can remain connected to staff back at the home office, whether it’s filing reports, sharing data or communicating seamlessly across international borders.

3.     Logistics tracking technology

For companies that buy or sell internationally, logistics can be the most troublesome part of doing business. Executing, receiving and tracking shipments requires a lot of careful consideration and planning, and shipments that go awry can cost time, money and customers.

To help organizations tackle these tasks more efficiently, innovative new technology is becoming available. Logistics management systems can help bear the brunt of the burden of international shipping. They can help plan trade routes, monitor any trade restrictions or problem areas, and track shipments.

Logistics tracking technology can also be a major help in reworking disrupted routes to get your deliveries back on track.

Electronic shipment tracking is also evolving quickly to help meet businesses’ needs. Once cost prohibitive, radio frequency identification (RFID) devices have become more affordable and attainable for companies to implement. As the technology becomes more accessible, Bluetooth beacons provide another option for electronically tracking shipments.

As both RFID and Bluetooth beacons become more commonplace, businesses will be able to take advantage of automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) in their supply chains, making it easier and more efficient to track and manage their goods.

4.     Translation and language learning software and services

Language barriers can be a major challenge for global companies. It goes without saying that it’s crucial to be able to communicate effectively with customers, leads and business partners.

Web-based translation companies are improving their functions every day. They are sophisticated enough to translate and check your communications, at least for a first draft. While this technology has made great strides in recent years, it’s still advisable to have a fluent speaker or professional translator check your work to avoid any inaccuracies.

If you plan to do business with partners or customers in a region for an extended period of time, learning the language can save you money on translation costs, and it can help you provide better customer service.

To that end, there are plenty of reputable online programs and software that can help you become fluent in a foreign language.

As you plan to upgrade your business in 2017, don’t forget to explore all of the ways technology can help you grow, whether it’s by providing better customer service, keeping your employees connected, improving your logistics or helping you communicate with your customers.

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