The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up a Salesforce Multi-language Platform for a Global Audience

Many businesses have thrived in the globalized market, especially small-medium enterprises. According to OECD, 95% of companies are SMEs, accounting for 60-70% of employment in most countries.

Some have pointed to the rise of the Internet as a major catalyst in the global expansion and growth of many SMEs. This, in turn, has led to the need and use of customer relationship management (CRM) like Salesforce.

Today, we will discuss how you can work with a translation agency to make your Salesforce CRM platform multilingual and enhance customer experience. If you want to learn more about it, then keep on reading!

Common Pitfalls of Transforming Monolingual Platforms into Multilingual Ones

Unlike other CRM platforms, Salesforce translation settings make it easier to transform from English-only to a more multilingual-friendly platform. I have listed a couple of common issues and pitfalls below that you should consider when making your Salesforce multi-language support platform.

Technical Challenges of Transforming a Platform into a Multilingual One

One of the challenges when developing your Salesforce multi-language platform is that you will have to work with professionals in software and translation. Even though Salesforce has built-in automated translation settings, some languages will not be available so you will need a translator. Besides this, you might consider hiring a translator or translation agency to ensure the content is accurate and personal.

By working with professionals and experts, you can ensure that the characters and languages used are displayed correctly. It makes sure that the layout and design follow your target market's preferences. This can be as simple as having characters from left to right and vice-versa.

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Cost of Transforming a Platform into a Multilingual One

There are a lot of factors that will determine the costs of transforming from a monolingual platform to a multilingual one. Because of Salesforce translation settings, changing the content will be much easier. However, the settings support around 18 languages, so if it's unavailable in the target language you want, you can work with software and translation experts. And this can affect the charge as the more uncommon a language, the higher the price will be.

Suppose you plan to create a more personalized customer experience for your multilingual audience. In that case, you will need a translation expert specialized in marketing to either post-edit the automated translations to make the platform more relatable to your users.

From our discussion, you can see that translating content can be costly. However, if the outcome would lead to better retention and conversion rates, the costs should be considered an investment. So don’t cut costs and compromise quality, as it would defeat the purpose of creating a multilingual platform. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid During the Transformation Process

The translation process became quicker and more accurate due to machine translation. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a simple task. Many big companies in the past made mistranslations that detrimentally affected their brands. 

So before you go out and translate or localize your content, there are a couple of considerations when you enable multi-language Salesforce. I have listed some of them below.

• Lacking knowledge of your target market’s culture: The translated content should align with your target audience’s cultural preferences through the tone and manner you present your brand through the platform.
• Implementing automated translation: The Salesforce language and translation settings are available. However, even though it’s available, you risk mistranslating the content. Machine translation is limited in its capabilities as it lacks cultural nuances and creativity. Because of this, it’s always good to have a freelance translator or a translation agency handle the process for you to ensure it is culturally and linguistically accurate.  
• Failing to do quality assurance: Always test your translations, either by having beta testers or a selected group of native speakers take a look at the platform. Through this, it ensures that the content doesn’t contain errors. It is especially important for languages with different character sets or right-to-left orientations.

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Tips and Tricks on Translating and Localizing Your Salesforce Platform

Based on my experience working as the tech localization manager of the translation agency Tomedes, there are some considerations that you have to know before you get started in translating or localizing content.  I’ve listed a couple of best practices for preparing or implementing the changes to your Salesforce platform.

• Conduct Market Research: You will need to know your target audience’s cultural and linguistic preferences before you can start transforming your content. You must deeply understand your user’s needs to create a personalized website and platform that can answer and solve their problem. 
• Create a translation and localization strategy: Determine which languages and regions you need to support and plan how to translate and localize your content effectively. We will discuss this more when we tackle creating a multilingual-focused user experience.
• Prepare the tools used for extraction and translation: Translation agencies usually have these tools in hand. However, if you choose to translate the content with a remote translator, you will need specialized tools for resource file extraction, string extractions, translation, etc. 
• Work with experts: If you’re under a time constraint, you can work with experts specialized in translating platforms. Because they have more experience in transforming content from CRM platforms like Salesforce, you don’t have to worry about quality.
• Test and retest the platform: After you have translated or localized the content, you need to test and retest the platform to catch any bugs, mistranslations, or inaccuracies before you publish it.

Using Salesforce translation for a Multilingual-Focused UX

There’s a reason why about 75% of marketers say their translation spending has drastically increased over the years because of the effectiveness of communicating in the user’s native language to improve outreach and revenue. Because of this, creating a multilingual-centric user experience strategy is absolutely essential, especially if you want to stand out from your competitors. I have listed a couple of ways you can develop a strategy for your Salesforce multi-language support.

• Language-specific search: By having this feature, your users can search for content in their native language, despite it being in another language. You can set the language option which implements automated translations or have it manually translated by a translation agency that will make sure that no errors are found in the content.
• Providing language content recommendations: On websites and platforms that offer content in another language, options are accessible and easy to navigate. You can also automatically have your platform's content in another language if searched through SERPs in your site's target language. This makes it convenient for multilingual users searching for content using their native language.
• Sending promotions based on the user’s language: Countless studies show how promotional content in the native language of users can positively increase retention and revenue. Your multilanguage Salesforce platform can automatically send your promos to your target users. 

Conclusion

In today’s global marketplace, creating a multilingual platform is crucial for businesses that want to expand their reach and engage with international customers. By making Salesforce a multilingual platform, you can improve customer satisfaction, build stronger relationships, and increase your revenue. With a translation agency, you can get experts to streamline the process and ensure your translations are accurate and culturally appropriate. Hopefully, these tips and tricks will come in handy when you begin to translate your platform.