The benefits of prioritizing customer experience in your Localization strategy (and how to do it)

"Do you really want to make the customer experience your top priority? Then meet multilingual hyper-personalization: the localization strategy to follow to delight your potential customers.

A few years ago, I was involved in a mobile phone project, and I remember we had meetings every Friday where we discussed the progress of the project and the opportunities ahead of us as a company. I remember two things from those meetings: how good the chocolate hazelnut doughnuts that the program manager would bring us 😋 and the word "synergy" was used a lot in those meetings.

At that time, it was a word I had not heard much, and in the beginning, it seemed interesting. The conversation going on in my head as I remember it went something like this:

"We have to generate synergies working with the service providers." Hmmm, that's a good idea!

"We must generate synergies working with the localization engineers to internationalize our code." Hmmm, of course; why had I not thought of that before?

"We must evaluate synergies with the sales team to maximize results." Hmmm, we indeed have to do more of that!

Synergies, synergies, and more synergies...and what seemed to be an exciting concept at the beginning...at the end, I got tired. I got tired of the word and thought, "How cool it would be if they gave me a euro every time someone says the word synergy." 🤑

There are words that, when they become fashionable, we hear all the time. I think the same thing is starting to happen to me with another term that I hear or read a lot, everywhere...and that word, well, words, better said since there are two, are "customer experience/centric."

Now everything is customer experience. Customers must have a delightful user experience. We must put customers at the center of the universe. Customer experience is our biggest priority.

All companies nowadays seem to be customer-centric, aiming to provide an incredible user experience...and I don't think pursuing our clients' happiness is a bad idea. However, what I don't quite understand about those buzzwords that remind me of the era of synergies is how some companies don't quite see how localization is crucial in achieving that customer-centric experience we all seek. That's what I want to unravel in the following post.

How to achieve a delightful customer experience through localization...or, better said, through hyper-localization. If you haven't heard of hyper-localization, read on as I will explain how the union of hyper-personalization and localization would guarantee that your brand stands out, resulting in higher engagement, conversion, and revenue.

Let's start with a definition."

What is hyper-localization?

Hyper-localization is the process through which you create content that is especially relevant to a potential customer based on the data you have about them. 

By personalizing such content, we ensure that we offer the Customer a product that can be useful to them.

Amazon efficiently utilizes personalized emails based on customers' search history or purchase data to improve their customer experience. An example of this is when they sent me a personalized offer for a Fitbit Charge 3 strap, based on my past purchase history. The email was fully personalized, including my name and localized pricing in euros.

“Some companies sometimes forget that a Customer-centric strategy without an accompanying localization strategy to support it does not work.”

 One important aspect of a customer-centric experience is the language, culture, localized prices, and payment methods in each market.

However, it's disheartening to see companies claim to follow a customer-centric strategy on their website but fail to implement it in their mobile applications. For instance, they may choose a font that doesn't support special characters, resulting in errors.

As I've mentioned before, together is better. Through Localization, we can break down silos and build bridges between cultures and markets. Hyper-localization is a powerful tool for reaching a diverse audience.

By combining your marketing and hyper-personalization strategies with the expertise of your Localization team and/or LSP, your product can stand out from the competition. This can lead to higher engagement, better conversion rates, and overall performance.

A marketing strategy that doesn't incorporate feedback from Localization professionals will fail to make customers feel like they are the center of the universe. Likewise, a localization strategy without marketing feedback will also fall short. So remember, together is better!

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How To Achieve Hyper-Personalization with Localization?

Personalization and localization are fundamental elements in this union. 

1. You need to offer your website/product in different languages

2. You need to consider the various currencies of your customers

3. You need to adapt your price purchasing power by region

4. You need to offer the payment model which best suits each of them.

5. You need to use images that are relevant to their culture.

6. You need to use a tone in the content aligned to their lifestyle.

7. You need to enable multilingual chatbots so customers can access answers to their questions quickly in their native language and build trust. 

8. You need to send multilingual marketing messages with targeted results of all the data you collected.

9. You need to localize your keywords to increase your search visibility

10. You need to localize the “Google My Business” experience to drive customer engagement at a local level

11. You need to create hyperlocal content adapted for each market and forget about starting in English and then translating ( better approach it’s implementing a Transcreation strategy).

Conclusion

Marketing is all about understanding people, and if you implement the suggestions summarized in the infographic above, your business will thrive.

Although hyper localization can be challenging, it is incredibly productive when done correctly. By combining hyper localization with marketing, you can take your business to the next level and attract new potential clients. Implementing the strategies listed above will make your product loved by your customers, resulting in a customer-centric experience.

Which hyper localization strategies have helped your business grow? Share your comments in this post! Have a great week!

@yolocalizo