Telephone Interpreting Data: 3 Reasons the Details Matter

When your business relies on a call center to generate sales and support customers, you need as much information about your incoming and outgoing calls as you’re able to gather.

How much data do you have about your incoming and outgoing calls? How about when those calls require the assistance of your telephone interpreting service?

If you have a lot of data on the interactions between your call center representatives and your English-speaking customers, but almost no data on your interactions with Limited English Proficient (LEP)* customers, you don’t have the telephone interpreting call data you need.

*An individual who is Limited English Proficient is considered to know English less than "very well".

Let’s take a look at how data-forward language services providers move your business forward by showing you every detail about your telephone interpreting activity.  

Your Telephone Interpreting Bill: Analyze & Discern

There are two kinds of bills your language services provider can hand you – the one that leaves you in the dark, and the one that turns on the light of insight.

• The Bill That Shuts You Out: 
  This kind of bill offers very little insight into your telephone interpreting data. It typically only contains the total number of minutes used per month. That’s it. There is no visibility into how many minutes were used during each call, which languages were required or details on which customers needed telephone interpreting. There isn’t a way to know if the minutes you’re being billed for are accurate, let alone if they were used efficiently and for the right reasons.
  
  Many businesses accept this situation because they don’t know better options exist. However, with new technologies, tech-driven language services providers offer all the information you need to understand your bill.

• The Bill That Opens Your Eyes
  The more innovative providers out there are turning on the lights and making your telephone interpreting bill “talk.” They provide call data that helps you link individual calls and costs to different customers and clients so you know how many minutes were used during each call. You can also track activity by language. This information not only helps your accounting department track costs and close out accounts at the end of each month, but also shows you where you can reduce overhead and amp up resources for growth. 

Your Provider’s Performance: Track & Manage

With some language services providers, you have no transparent way to track performance. You don’t know how long your telephone interpreting calls are lasting or how long it’s taking to have your calls connect to a telephone interpreter. Anecdotal evidence from your staff is the only insight you have into call and interpretation quality.

More progressive language services providers have technologies that significantly reduce connect times – making it much faster to connect to the correct interpreter with knowledge of your industry. But they take a step further… with data.

Live data dashboards give you instant insight into the connect time and handle time of each call, as well as the averages by language, department and location. Dashboards also allow your representatives to rate and comment on the quality of each interpretation, if they choose to do so. This way, you can make absolutely sure that you (and your customers) are getting the telephone interpreting quality you’re paying for.

Business Innovations & New Markets: Spot & Seize

Real-time telephone interpreting call data doesn't just help accounting track costs and operations track performance; the information also opens the door to new marketing opportunities.

With 61.8 million Americans speaking a language other than English at home, there’s tremendous potential for growth within Limited English Proficient markets. With your real-time data dashboard, you’re able to see visualizations of your language mix – making it easy for your product development and marketing departments to spot trends, brainstorm new ideas and reallocate resources to capitalize on new markets and ensure seamless support for all of your customers.

Make life easier for your accounting and operations departments. Track performance. Spot and seize opportunities to grow your business. Give your customers the all-encompassing support they deserve.

The Details in the Data

Take a deeper dive into what sort of data your language services provider should make accessible to you; download the diagram!