BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Whilst language issues may not currently be a daily problem to every
organisation, the simple fact is that 6 million people in the UK – over 10% of
the Water Utility Sector’s client base – speak a language other than English
when at home. On top of this figure is the number of migrants making the UK
their new home each year. No matter what your view on the subject many will not
have English as their first language but all need access to goods & services
used by English speaking residents, particularly within the utilities sector.
Most utility companies cater for the needs of the hard of hearing or blind, and
some have a Welsh phone line, but very few make their services available for the
150+ languages spoken in the UK today.
THE CHALLENGE
Having recognised the need for language support, but without being in a position
to recruit our own linguists, Anglian Water engaged a Telephone Interpreting
service to help us overcome the language barrier. We have benefited from having
access to a phone interpreting facility for the past 10 years. Whilst we have
used the service regularly the main areas of improvement we were looking for
were around speed of access, ease of access & cost, which
have historically restricted use of the service. The bulk of calls required
either Polish, Russian or Lithuanian interpreters however over the course of a
typical month there will also be a requirement to cover a variety of others such
as Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Gujarati, Punjabi, Czech, Italian, Cantonese,
Hungarian, Slovak, German and Hindi.
THE SOLUTION
LangCommLive approached Anglian Water to identify how they could help us improve
on the service provided by our incumbent Telephone Interpreting supplier. When
the agreement was in place LangCommLive were quick to assess our needs and set
up a series of mini training workshops for Call Centre team leaders. The main
purpose was to demonstrate how their state of the art web based system could
access an interpreter quickly & easily, typically within 20-30 seconds. By
simply clicking on a desktop icon we can now access the service and deliver
improvements in customer satisfaction by reducing the caller’s time on hold.
Further assistance was provided by LangCommLive to improve the effectiveness of
calls using an Interpreter with a selection of useful tips to help reduce
overall call times. This together with a very competitive price per minute
charge has ensured that we have saved approximately 50% of our annual telephone
interpreting bill. The new service has now been extended to other teams such as
the Debt Recovery Team who had previously found the telephone interpreting
facility prohibitive on the grounds of cost. Anglian Water is now entirely
self-sufficient when it comes to languages – a 24/7 “pay as you go” service
means we are never unable to manage a customer whatever the language.
‘LangCommLive are a company we have started working with recently who offer a
translation service. I have been really impressed by both the standard of
translation they provide and the web based system that allows call centre agents
to get hold of an interpreter really quickly compared to the old company we
used.’
‘We now use a company called LangCommLive who have a web-based system enabling
you to select the language from a drop-down menu which provides a number to call
that connects directly with an interpreter in the required language. This takes
20-30 seconds – the translation standard is excellent and I have also been
impressed by advice they have given about managing translators to reduce call
times.’
“……………the debt recovery department didn’t use the old facility because of the
cost but they are much more comfortable with the current deal.’
Martin Bailey - Customer Service
Manager,
Anglian Water
