August 6, 2024 • 60 mins
Text me with feedback or questions!
BUY YOUR TICKETS TO DENVER ELEVATECX HERE
Unlock the keys to global business success with insights from Markus Seebauer, founder of Gateway Translations. We explore the critical role of localization and translation in today's international marketplace, revealing how businesses can adapt their products and services for diverse markets without losing their brand identity. Markus uncovers common pitfalls in global strategies, the necessity of continuously updating localized content, and the dire consequences of neglecting this upkeep.
He also shares groundbreaking ways to leverage AI to create genuine value and elevate customer experiences—essential know-how for both startups and established enterprises.
Discover the intricacies of maintaining accurate and culturally sensitive translations for technical products. Our discussion emphasizes the paramount importance of human oversight to avoid translation errors and offensive content that AI alone could miss. We delve into cultural nuances, such as negative historical connotations of certain words in German and regional differences in Spanish, underscoring the indispensable role of professional translators. Markus shares real-world examples and personal experiences that highlight the essential investment in proper translation and localization to avert potential PR disasters.
Navigate the complexities of global customer support with our expert guest as we tackle the challenges of providing effective assistance in international markets. From dealing with colloquial language to the limitations of automated translation tools, Markus offers invaluable insights and real-world anecdotes. We explore outsourcing as a viable solution for startups lacking a full-time multilingual team and stress the importance of cultural understanding to enhance the customer experience. Tune in for practical advice on building brand ambassadors through cultural awareness and improving global product support.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
- Barack Obama
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah Caminiti (00:04):
Happy Epochal Growth Tuesday listeners.
I'm Sarah Caminiti and we'regoing to unlock the secrets to
transformative businessstrategies and leadership, and I
am so happy that you're here.
Today's episode is all aboutstanding out in an increasingly
global marketplace.
We have Markus Seebauer with us.
He is the founder of GatewayTranslations.
(00:24):
He's a leading expert inlocalization and translations.
Markus has a wealth ofexperience helping companies
navigate the challenges ofexpanding into new markets while
maintaining their identity.
Here at Epochal Growth, we talka lot about being a
differentiator being adifferentiator in the CX space
or how we lead.
What I was really excited totake away from my conversation
(00:47):
with Markus was looking at beinga differentiator by being
respectful of who it is thatyou're talking to and where they
are in the world.
Markus sheds light on thecritical role of localization
and how businesses can avoidcommon pitfalls when translating
their products and theirservices, and what it means to
continuously upkeep thisinformation, and what happens if
(01:09):
you don't.
We discuss real world examplesof companies that have either
succeeded or struggled withtheir global strategies,
including insights on how theycan improve their customer
support and adapt to diversemarkets.
It's not just abouttranslations.
It's not just about customersupport.
It's also about how we usethese advancements in AI and how
they're reshaping the landscape.
(01:30):
Markus shares his thoughts onleveraging AI not just for cost
saving, but for creating genuinevalue and enhancing customer
experiences.
Whether you're a startuplooking to break into
international markets or you'rea seasoned business aiming to
refine your global strategy,this episode is going to teach
you how to approach thisthoughtfully.
(01:51):
All right, listeners.
Grab your headphones, turn upthe volume if you're in your car
, get ready to discover howyou're going to position
yourself in your business as atrue leader in the global arena.
Before I actually hit the playbutton for the episode with
Markus to begin, I do have toask how many of you still need
to purchase tickets to Denverfor the Elevate CX event.
That is, September 26th and27th in Denver.
(02:15):
Elevate CX is having aconference with industry experts
Craig Stoss, Andrew Rios, SarahHatter, Kat Gaines I mean, I
could just keep going and goingand going.
This is not an event you wantto miss.
Another event you don't want tomiss London, November 8th.
Please get your tickets.
If you plan on getting on aplane and going across the ocean
(02:36):
to get there awesome, so pumpedto meet you, really love your
dedication and bring that energy.
But if you're in London, ifyou're in England the UK if
you're in Europe, make sureyou're getting your tickets.
Make sure you're gettingtickets for your team too.
If you're in a leadershipposition, show them that you
really do want them to be assuccessful as possible and
empower them to be change makersin the CX space by getting them
(03:00):
to this event.
They are all going to sell out.
I can assure you of that.
Now I'm done, I promise let'sget going.
I'm Sarah Caminiti.
You're listening to EpochalGrowth.
This is episode 15.
And we have a very specialguest, Markus Seebauer.
You're always somewhere justenjoying the world.
Markus Seebauer (03:24):
Well, you're always somewhere just enjoying
the world.
Yes, I think it's amazing thatwe have the opportunity to work
from where it works best for us.
Not everyone has that.
I mean, you've heard in thenews and from our peers, right,
how people have to come back tothe office.
(03:44):
Yeah, I just feel that.
Yeah, it's a big opportunity tobe in a place you're happy,
where you're productive, andthere are always ways to get a
new perspective, to meet people.
But the downside is that nowpeople listen to less podcasts.
Sarah Caminiti (04:08):
Well, yes, yes, they do, or they listen to more
because they're able to listento them while they're working.
I bet, I bet it's just youcan't when you're able to make
your day so efficient, when youwork in your own space and have
control over what you're doingwith your time aside from people
like you know asking you formeetings and that sort of thing.
(04:29):
But all that aside, to thenhave to sit in a car and not be
able to be productive, reallylike immerse yourself in
anything that you're listeningto, because you have to pay
attention to the road, bemindful of every single thing
that is around you, becausedrivers are nuts and you never
(04:49):
know what's going to happen.
It takes so much brain, spaceand energy and I'm always a
little bit drained when I getout of the car.
Markus Seebauer (04:58):
Yes, I'm really not into driving.
I got my driving license when Iwas 18 and, uh, now I haven't
driven the car for for 15 years.
And then, um, when I was in ingermany, I tried to get into my
mom's car and, um, then I I toldher oh wow, this is really
(05:19):
complicated.
Just to get out of the drive,they like on the on the left and
right like their cars, and thenthere's like a bus coming and a
rather narrow road like, andthen she said, yeah, usually
people park even closer.
Sarah Caminiti (05:37):
Oh, yeah, yeah, no, it's crazy, it's and it's
and it's just non-stop it's.
Uh, my husband got his driver'slicense right before my son was
born.
He was in his 30s and had neverneeded to drive.
And then it kind of got to thatpoint where it was like, okay,
no, you, really you do need todrive, because what if I go into
labor?
We don't want to have to takelike an Uber or something like
(05:57):
that.
And then it was interesting tosee from me, who had been doing
it for years, to someone who wasvery capable but it was
completely foreign to them howthey adapted and learned and
found different ways to getcomfortable with certain things.
(06:19):
I notice, you know, takesdifferent routes than I would
take, because he feels morecomfortable going in these
different directions and which,oddly, is a nice segue into a
lot of the work that you'redoing of understanding how
people learn and how they learnbest, because, especially as you
get older, you do learndifferently than when you're
(06:40):
younger and you have to becognizant of that when you're
younger and you have to becognizant of that.
Markus Seebauer (06:47):
Yes, I have definitely noticed that for
myself and I think also incustomer success, customer
support I think there are manypeople who like to help, but
also they don't like to bealways on in meetings.
Yeah, always on in meetings Forme.
I don't like this when I gettagged on Slack and I like to be
(07:11):
focused and have my own paceand do some deep thinking.
Sarah Caminiti (07:18):
Yeah, no, I definitely understand that.
It is interesting when you haveyour watch that can notify you
about certain things, and you'vegot your, your ticketing system
, and you've got your email, youhave your slack, you have your
regular text message, you havelinkedin now and you've got all
these different things that tellyou that something is urgent.
(07:39):
And nothing is usually urgent.
But you have to then assesswhether or not it's urgent
because it's pushed in front ofyour face, and so you're forced
to triage your life at all times.
Markus Seebauer (07:54):
Yes, I think all these interruptions and
context switches.
I think that's also a reasonwhy people are looking at
different ways to get supportand there are also different
personality types when it comesto software.
B2B software is usually complex.
Many people they like to go toa knowledge base and quickly
(08:18):
look this up.
They feel this is moreefficient than writing an email
where they don't know how longit takes.
And then the quality of theanswer.
Sarah Caminiti (08:29):
Yeah, no, that is one of the most valid points.
I think right there, Markus,that it's something that I talk
about all the time with my teamor with others, and when they're
trying to navigate moving intoa support role, especially a
leadership role, you have to putyourself in the customer's
position of right now they'reunable to do their job, like
(08:49):
there's something happened thatprevented them from being able
to continue successfully ontheir own.
And if they get to the pointwhere they feel like the only
option is to reach out, there'sso much vulnerability in that
and there's so much unknown inthat, because first, you don't
know how long it's going to take, you don't know if you explain
(09:10):
the situation in a way that willactually articulate what's
going on.
You don't know what theirrequirements are.
You don't know what languagethey speak.
This could be an internationalcompany and there could be a
barrier there where you have toexplain things in a different
way.
It's a struggle.
It's a struggle and I agreethat the knowledge bases are
(09:36):
always the spot that I feel youhave to start.
You have to just start building.
Every single time a customerasks you a question, you have to
think is this documentedanywhere, whether it be
internally, externally or both,depending on the situation and
how you want to go about it.
But you have to give folks theoption at least to be
(09:57):
self-sufficient, and then theycan decide if they need more,
rather than you forcing them tonever become self-sufficient.
Markus Seebauer (10:08):
Right Just yesterday on our team call, we
had something come up where wehad a software that was recently
updated, I think, and then thisfeature was not documented in
the technical documentation yet.
(10:29):
So it was quite stressful, Ithink, for our team.
They were already busy with alot of projects despite the
summer and the software usuallyworks quite well.
So I think that also shapes alittle bit how we look at this
as oh like they're a little bitunorganized.
(10:52):
It's just like a microimpression, Like we managed that
in this case Could have beensomething Better.
Sarah Caminiti (11:00):
No, that's a really interesting point and I'd
love to know what you thinkthat the customer takes away in
terms of how a company feelsabout them and their use of the
software when they decide torelease something without
covering all of the bases
Markus Seebauer (11:20):
It's common and for me as someone who's
originally from Germany, thenwhen sometimes potential
customers they approach us, theywant to translate their
knowledge base and then thefirst thing I look at that
German knowledge base, it's it'sa pretty big market with almost
(11:41):
100 million people in theGerman-speaking countries and
the impression is totallydifferent.
So that's like my firstimpression and the customer
journey is always different forpeople, right?
So often it's really outdatedand then there are much less
(12:02):
articles.
And then they tell me, oh yes,like, um, the, the translated
knowledge bases like they arenot up to date.
But that's my first touch point, you know and that and and why
would I check if there's anenglish one?
That is better.
I just assume everything islike that, right?
Sarah Caminiti (12:22):
right, right, no , it's.
It tells the story of how theyfeel about your business.
It's.
We don't care enough to make ita point to find time to make
sure that this information isaccurate.
We we decided to use ourresources elsewhere, and now
(12:42):
those resources are being spenton explaining why you aren't
having this in a Germantranslation up to date, or now
you have to create a maintenanceschedule or do a whole overhaul
of things because of it, and itjust would have been so much
easier if you would have done itthe first time.
Markus Seebauer (12:59):
Yeah, I think it's also a lot of work to keep
this up to date and manycompanies they're not aware of
that or they they use quiteoutdated ways where they export
files manually, send that to atranslation company, or they
they have internal people whoare busy and and things get
(13:20):
delayed, especially when thenthere's a there's a bigger
update, when it's maybe a bigrelease for their product, and
then the knowledge base updateis also pretty big.
Sarah Caminiti (13:33):
Yeah, no, it's a huge undertaking.
Any sort of knowledge basemaintenance is a huge
undertaking, because not only doyou have to maintain things as
different products move andshift and grow and evolve over
time, but then you also have tothink about what are the things
that exist that are connected toit in ways that you didn't
realize that you then also haveto update and make sure that
(13:56):
you're explaining correctly,because people are still going
to be using it in the other waysand they're going to still need
to have accurate informationyeah, and now with the whole ai
hype, um, things got even morechallenging, especially with
knowledge basis.
Markus Seebauer (14:13):
so much is just raw AI where, um, the the
global customer experience isreally not good For any kind of
technical product, anythingspecific.
Usually that is quite adisaster in terms of what comes
(14:36):
out from ChatGPT or from SQL orwhatever, if no proper human
review is there, and even withthe nice prompts and
sophisticated prompts it's justnot getting there.
Sarah Caminiti (14:55):
No, it's.
You have to hire an entire teamto ensure the accuracy of the
information you're extractingfrom AI in forever, like that's
not really ever going to goanywhere.
Because the second you starttrusting something that is a
machine to either createdocumentation or talk to your
(15:16):
customers or break somethingdown, instead of actually having
somebody do it themselves withthe context that is required,
then you start blindly sendinginformation that could be false
and then it's learning that it'scorrect and it's just then
going to take that and morphthat down the road.
(15:37):
A big awakening with that ingeneral, and also with
translations.
Markus Seebauer (15:50):
And now I see many tech companies.
They often approach things in atech way, just looking for tech
solution.
They think, okay, we use fourdifferent AI, maybe like Chachi
and Gemini, and then we runprompts to check for the tone,
(16:13):
for the terminology, and then wecross-check that.
But we tested that Even forlanguages where it's less
challenging, like, let's say,German, when we go to Chinese or
Vietnamese or whatever, thenthat's even much less reliable.
Sarah Caminiti (16:34):
I bet yeah, because it's not like these AI
softwares are going to say we'renot 100% sure.
If this is accurate, can wehave someone please proofread
this?
100% sure, if this is accurate?
Can we have someone pleaseproofread this?
They're going to send theirbest guess of the closest thing
to what it is.
They're trying to translate andit could be totally wrong.
Markus Seebauer (16:51):
Yeah, like there are a lot of false
positives and, yeah, translatorsget really offended when you
use that because it's not goodenough.
So they feel that, yeah, andit's somehow like an amateur
(17:12):
move to use that right.
Sarah Caminiti (17:15):
Very much, very much.
Well, they're not takingownership on the success of it.
They're just putting it into amachine and doing it the easy
way and not making sure that itactually is being respectful of
the culture and the language andthe people that understand the
context of these words and howthey're supposed to be put
(17:36):
together.
You go to school and you becomean expert in this field for a
very specific reason because youunderstand it completely.
Markus Seebauer (17:46):
Yeah, it's good that you mentioned these
cultural aspects.
In many languages that's anissue, for example, in German,
like a really big tech company Idon't want to name them and
also mentioned these culturalaspects in in many languages.
That's an issue, for example,in Germany, like a really big
tech company I don't want toname them and also it's not
matter it.
Um, they have like the word istechnically correct and that's
even it's on the company pageand even I told them and I think
(18:10):
they they didn't get it so theydidn't change it because it's a
little bit challenging tounderstand.
So in German we have words thatare correct, but when anyone in
Germany hears that, youimmediately think about national
socialism and and like these.
These are kind of burned wordslike you.
(18:30):
You just you, just you don'tuse them.
Yeah.
Sarah Caminiti (18:33):
Yeah.
Markus Seebauer (18:33):
But they're technically correct German words
yeah, so in that case it waseven on the company page where
they talked about diversity andinclusion.
So things like that have a verynegative connotation in Germany
(18:53):
and in Spanish.
Many words are insults in thespecific locales, as we call it,
because Spanish is different.
In Mexico, Argentina, peopleunderstand it, but many words
are an insult in anotherSpanish-speaking country.
So with these words in German,yeah, that's really a big deal,
(19:18):
and something like that onTikTok, that could really be a
big PR disaster.
Sarah Caminiti (19:26):
Oh yeah, oh yeah .
That sort of thing spreads.
Once you spot it, it's a redflag and you move on.
But then you probably also sayto your friend or your colleague
did you see that they used thison their website?
Like, what do you think theywere thinking?
Or what do you think they meantby this?
Was there some weird subliminalmessaging that they're trying
(19:49):
to do in there?
Subliminal messaging thatthey're trying to do in there?
And?
And really it was just acareless mistake, which I don't
even know if that's that muchbetter, because they're not
taking the time to put the careinto what they're putting out
into the world.
Markus Seebauer (20:03):
So yes, and to me it's incredible that even
when I told them, then after sixmonths I checked again and
nothing, nothing changed.
Sarah Caminiti (20:14):
That's insane, that's insane.
So, Markus, just so thatlisteners understand why we are
talking about this, and uh andyour experience, can you share
like a little intro about thework that you do and and and who
you are?
Markus Seebauer (20:31):
um, I studied computer science, so I come from
the tech side, and when I wentto the university I went to
India for six months and thesoftware company made a big
project where they migratedsoftware and then they asked for
my help with translations.
(20:53):
So that's how I got into thatindustry
Sarah Caminiti (20:57):
And you loved it when they asked you to do it?
Markus Seebauer (21:02):
It just felt like something that you were
supposed to continue to pursue.
Then, when I graduated, I sawthe need and the demand for that
and started this business.
So now it has been 12 years andwe have worked with really big
(21:24):
clients like GitHub and helpedthem with their knowledge bases.
Sarah Caminiti (21:28):
That whole space has really evolved in over a
decade, knowledge bases now,like the interaction that comes
(21:54):
into play or the different typesof media and it is.
It is like it's its own littlecompany inside all of these
companies to to do it really, todo it well and to do it
completely yes, and sometimes westruggled because we got
content that was not written inproper English so many people
(22:17):
are not aware of.
Markus Seebauer (22:18):
When you use AI , it can only be as good as the
input.
So with machine translation,when it's not proper English
grammar and the same for otherlanguages you translate from,
then the translation is reallybad.
Sarah Caminiti (22:37):
Wow, yeah.
So how do those conversationsgo with companies when you're
looking through their knowledgebases, you're translating their
knowledge bases and you'refinding that this was obviously
not written by a person or thiscontent is not put together in a
way that really reflects thetype of company that you're
(23:00):
trying to to show the world thatyou are.
How do you have thoseconversations?
Markus Seebauer (23:05):
yeah, I think many companies.
They are already aware of itand then they just want to
launch the translation and andthen we have this thing right,
like where this gets into thetranslation memory, and we need
to make sure that we don't useany improper data in the future.
(23:25):
I think usually the challengeis there is this gap between,
let's say, someone who managesthe knowledge base and the
person who is maybe the head ofknowledge base, like the head of
knowledge management, and thenthere are executives higher up
(23:45):
who think everything can be donewith AI and everything needs to
be like super cost, efficientand to explain, to integrate the
(24:12):
workflows.
That is all a challenge and wehelp companies a lot with that.
Sarah Caminiti (24:18):
Wow, yeah, that must have been, especially over
the past few years, really wildto see the quality of the
content that you're having towork with sometimes blossom
because they're given a space toreally just go to town and do
what they know the customerneeds.
But then also those companiesthat choose to go in the other
(24:40):
direction and, uh, and you'rekind of left in the middle to
figure out how to give them andthe customers what they need but
still still acknowledge theissues that are in place.
Markus Seebauer (24:55):
Yeah, I think often it's important to see the
big picture.
What are the most visitedarticles, where do you get the
most traffic?
And then you can start withthese, and then you can start
with these.
In the past, it was often donelike, okay, let's translate
(25:15):
everything to every language wehave.
Sarah Caminiti (25:18):
Yeah.
Markus Seebauer (25:19):
And that feels like quite an outdated way.
Sarah Caminiti (25:25):
Yeah, yeah, no, that does.
I've seen that myself.
Where it's, you have the oneplan.
That is all right.
We're going to spend threeyears and we are going to really
just make this what it needs tobe and maintain it and come up
with a plan.
Or let's pick topic by topicand start chipping away at it.
(25:46):
This is something that'sconnected to a launch of this,
so let's have this be our focusfor right now, and then we'll
have these others kind of happen, as it makes sense for those
things to happen.
Once you start working ontranslations for companies, how
often do you have to go back andconnect with them throughout
the years?
Markus Seebauer (26:07):
Usually, companies which handle that very
well.
They have regular updates or wedo it in a continuous workflow.
These are the two ways to do it.
That's good and otherwise whatI see a lot.
Maybe there's even a goodtranslation at the beginning,
(26:29):
and I see all these publicknowledge bases right and uh, I
don't even know how they weretranslated by whom.
And then that two major thingssometimes, um, companies, they,
um, they find it challenging tomanage these updates because
(26:50):
they continuously, uh, updatethe English content and then
they don't want to send that outall the time, maybe if they
have six, 10, 20 languages ormore.
So then these small updatesthey keep in English time.
Then it looks a little bit likecheese where there are more and
(27:11):
more holes, and there arecompanies where it's almost like
half the text is in English onsome pages, where it's a really
bad global user experience.
Sarah Caminiti (27:25):
Oh man, oh man.
What do you hope to see in thefuture with AI and with
knowledge bases and justeducation for how things have
changed so drastically in justthe last couple of years?
What are you hoping to seehappen in the next two years?
Markus Seebauer (27:46):
That's a good question.
I think, yeah, we need sensibleways how to use AI, and AI can
be great to put out more content, maybe for specific audiences,
because people in differentcountries also use products
differently.
That's a very different way.
(28:18):
And then it's very natural thatthe knowledge base has help
centers.
They will also be adjusted andif there are screenshots, if
there are people involved, thenthat also needs to be localized.
Now I saw a really interestingpost where someone who was
(28:42):
formerly at HubSpot she wrotethat they used some stock photos
of Asian people and then in theoffice in Japan they said, oh,
they're clearly not Japanese.
And in the US headquarter theyjust didn't consider that.
(29:04):
Right, it's like you don't knowwhat you don't know.
Sarah Caminiti (29:07):
No, that's true.
No, that is very true, it's youdon't know what you don't know.
But also, you can always askand for someone like yourself
who sees these situations comeup in text form a lot of the
time, what is your approach toyour team when they spot these
(29:31):
things or when someone feelsdisrespected when they're going
through this content and it'susing language in a way that
isn't culturally appropriate?
How do you help protect thosethat would be impacted from this
?
Markus Seebauer (29:47):
Yeah, usually we try to explain that to the
client, and many people are veryhappy to hear about these
things, and some people don'tunderstand it, or maybe then it
gets lost somehow.
Then there's only so much wecan do.
Sarah Caminiti (30:09):
For sure, for sure, it must be hard.
Sometimes, though, you enterinto these spaces understanding
the context of things, and youtry to share the context to
others, and if they're notreceptive of it, it kind of
makes your work not only moredifficult but more complex,
because now you're trying tonavigate these nuances that
(30:33):
aren't understood by the spacethat you're trying to make
better.
So you're really giving a giftto the people that live in these
countries and are in thisculture without the company that
is presenting now, this gift ofjust standard contextual
conversations with theircommunity within those spaces,
(30:55):
like they don't even realizethat you're doing it.
So you're just like the silentsuperhero.
Markus Seebauer (31:00):
Yes, for example, one company.
They even sell DEI courses, soit's extremely critical for them
to get this right.
And then they had photos.
I think they still have this.
They have photos of women andthen they have the job titles
(31:23):
under the photos as testimonials, which is very common, and in
English it's gender neutral,usually for job titles.
Yeah, but in Spanish, in German, in many European languages, oh
they're gender specific.
Exactly.
So that is something that isreally offensive to like in
(31:48):
general, like it's really odd,and then in that specific
context it's like reallyoffensive.
Sarah Caminiti (31:57):
Very much Did you anticipate, coming into this
space as a technical person whofound this opportunity to help
companies with their educationglobally, to help companies with
their education globally, thatyou would end up working almost
in a almost in like an HR roleof creating this, this
(32:22):
appropriate space for, for theglobal consumers of these brands
?
Markus Seebauer (32:27):
No, I didn't anticipate that at all, but also
many other things.
I didn't anticipate that at all, but also many other things I
didn't expect.
What are some of the otherunexpected things that you've
come across over the years?
Having something like a senddesk and then making sure having
(32:52):
a right process where this issent to translators in a
semi-automated way, and thecomplexity that gets into that
and you also see this withreally big companies, some of
the biggest big companies, likesome some of the biggest.
(33:15):
Then there's like a pagemissing in the, the translated
knowledge base, and then there'sauto forwarding to the, the
main page.
Like that's like extremely baduser experience, like yeah at
least.
Then you need to show theenglish page and, uh, there
needs to be a note that this isnot translated.
Like, that's the least you cando.
Sarah Caminiti (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, and so you're going through all of
these documents.
You're kind of also a UX tester.
Markus Seebauer (33:49):
That is like a whole other role that you're
playing in these companies yes,um, people really don't like
flags because, um, yeah, likeeven like a us flag, and then
it's naturally for companies toget into the british market.
It just looks like it's notlocal and that that conveys a
(34:13):
lot, especially in e-commerce,where that means shipping is
expensive and slow or thisconveys this could be an issue
with the time zone to reachsomeone, yeah, and and then it's
also political like, like, forexample, french Canadians,
(34:36):
they're even with othercountries where it's even more
sensitive when there are certainflags displayed.
Sarah Caminiti (34:46):
Yeah, oh, I didn't even think about that,
because it's true, there's beenmore than one occasion where
I've gone onto a website thatyou know you saw it on social
media or something you click thelink to to check it out, and
then it keeps showing up withthe uk flag instead of the us
flag.
And since you're finding thison social media, you're not sure
(35:07):
if it even is something that'savailable to you in the US.
And so either you decide in themoment do I spend the next like
15 minutes poking around tounderstand if this is even
something that I can buy if Ichoose to or do I just go and
(35:28):
buy it from a place that sellsalmost the exact same thing in
the US market.
That, I know, is a sure win.
Markus Seebauer (35:37):
Yeah, and sometimes it's really easy to
stand out, Like, for example, inthe South African market.
People are used that it's nottailored to them, but then
Google at least for some thingsthey do it, so it looks really
local and people notice that.
Sarah Caminiti (35:56):
Wow, Markus, this brings up something that I
didn't expect with thisconversation, because so often
when I'm talking to otherswithin the CX space, we get into
big conversations about being adifferentiator, and being a
differentiator by providing thelevel of service and care and
(36:17):
thoughtfulness to the customerwhere you know it matters.
And then that sticks with them,and then they want to tell their
friends about this because youdon't know what you're going to
get.
Just like what we were talkingabout earlier with writing into
support.
Just like what we were talkingabout earlier with writing into
support.
But this is a whole.
Other piece of it is thecustomer experience, but it's
also through the user experienceof the actual website, but
(36:42):
being a differentiator just byacknowledging their existence,
that's it.
Markus Seebauer (36:48):
Yes, and sometimes it's like some
companies.
They do it really well.
For example, I have the AuraRing right.
It's like a variable for sleeptracking.
For anyone who doesn't know it,it's a really good product and
(37:09):
they got a bit greedy, like theygrew really fast and then they
introduced memberships, and thisis often a challenge when you
have existing customers.
I got it really early andpeople got really angry, like on
Trustpilot, like you saw, likehundreds of complaints, and then
I think also they understoodsomething in the customer
(37:31):
success.
And then when think also theyunderstood something in customer
success.
And then when I had an issuewith the ring, they just shipped
a new one for free and I didn'trealize how much of an impact
this had, because I was alreadyon the fence, like really angry.
(37:51):
Like I bought a product for aone-time fee.
Like this is like a physicalproduct, it's not like a cess,
yeah and um.
Then I got angry, like now Ihave.
I calculated how, if I use thisfor years, how much extra I
would need to spend.
Yeah, yeah and, of course, likethey invest into the product,
(38:15):
it's getting better and I likethe product, and then I got the
product for free.
So I became really like anadvocate and you might think
this might not matter so much,but then, like in the tech
communities where I am likethese are all like early
adopters and and people, um, whowho spread the message uh, much
(38:41):
faster than, like the, theaverage person.
Yeah, so I think that had ahuge impact.
Otherwise I don't think I wouldhave bought another one for two
or three hundred dollars andthe cost of the product I don't
think is so high in that case.
Sarah Caminiti (39:01):
No, that's so true, it is.
It's funny how those thingsthat seem like such huge deals
to us when they happen are sorare nowadays.
Especially it's even with, likean Apple product.
I pay every month intoAppleCare so that when my phone
(39:25):
starts acting weird, I can takeit to an Apple store and, in
theory, they just replace it foryou because you have Apple care
and they trust you and theyknow that.
You know if, if you're, theylook at your phone and it is
acting weird, then they're notgoing to make a big deal out of
it.
And now that's not even as muchof a case as it used to be.
(39:45):
It's like it's these companiesthat create these loyal brands
or brand ambassadors by, likethe folks in South Africa that
are seeing these companies thatare acknowledging them on their
website, like you receiving thatring for for free when everyone
was struggling with the, thechange in structure of the
(40:08):
company.
And then you build it and youbuild it, and you build it, and
then at some point you have achoice and it's the choices.
Do we continue to just reallylean into this brand
ambassadorship of our customerbase and continue to foster that
(40:30):
, or do we start taking awaylittle things and see if they
notice and raise the price forthe subscription, but actually
take away certain pieces andfunctionalities and see if
anybody picks up on it and howlong that can go until it gets
noisier and noisier and weactually have to address it.
And that just made me thinkabout your job of translating
(40:54):
these documents and theseknowledge bases for companies
and these spaces for companies,even if you're a customer of
theirs, to see things evolveover time like that.
You're like your ring.
It wasn't a subscriptionservice when you purchased it.
Then it became a subscriptionservice.
What stayed?
What remained?
What things are theyarticulating?
(41:16):
What things do they want tohave be translated?
What countries are theytranslating things to?
It's, uh, it's.
You can become a differentiatorand you can lose that just as
quickly as you gain it, andthere's so many different ways
to embrace it.
Markus Seebauer (41:31):
Yeah, I think it's a good point that you
mentioned Apple and yeah, I justgot the new M3 MacBook Air,
which is great.
Book air, which is great, um,um and um when, when I had
(41:53):
issues with my previous one umwith apple that was not very
customer friendly, to to chargea lot, to to change the sound or
something, something small, andthen you lose the verity and
yeah.
So all these things, yeah, theyaffect the customers perception
(42:16):
.
Now I think we will have totranslate a lot of repair
articles because with the newlegislation and the trend
towards sustainability, therewill be more where people they
want to repair things bythemselves to save money and
(42:40):
also because of sustainability.
Like electronics, waste isreally hard to recycle and it's
a big issue.
Sarah Caminiti (42:50):
Yeah, that is an interesting point For some of
these companies that have usedyour services in the past and
you've built a rapport with themand they are recognizing things
that are going on in countrieswhere you have much more of an
understanding and grasp of ofthe people and their needs and
but also how to convey thatinformation to them
(43:12):
appropriately.
Do you have companies come toyou outside of just the
translation piece of how do weapproach this situation now?
Markus Seebauer (43:21):
Yes, Like this, this.
This happens a lot.
Sarah Caminiti (43:24):
Really.
Markus Seebauer (43:25):
Yes, companies they are at different stages,
right, like sometimes they arewondering you know, what
languages do we do?
Or where do we start, whicharticles are more important?
Because they don't have all theresources, and not just
(43:46):
financially but in terms of teamcapacity, because they consider
already the next step, thatthey also need to keep it up to
date.
And also, when it comes tosupport ticket translation, many
companies they start withsomething simple like Google
Translate, which is easy tointegrate Many APIs.
(44:07):
They start with somethingsimple like Google Translate,
which is easy to integrate ManyAPIs, it's cheap, it has almost
every language.
But then they realize there aremany issues and when you have
colloquial language, for example, or you have customers they
type quickly on their phone,they don't use proper
interpunctuation.
(44:27):
Machine translation was notbuilt for that.
It was trained on bilingualtext for the European Union or
stuff like that.
It was not trained oncolloquial language, how people
write.
Sarah Caminiti (44:47):
Yeah, so what do you do in those situations?
Markus Seebauer (44:50):
I think first of all, adjust expectations and
make people aware that thiscould be an issue, because
people often think, yes, peopleunderstand maybe, but they might
get annoyed, they might feelthe company is a little bit
(45:12):
complicated or they're not local.
There might be really majorissues that make it hard to
understand.
And then in the next step, thisalso affects then how do you
communicate, like people, thenthey write the tickets, the
(45:34):
customer support people.
They write the tickets inEnglish, let's say, and then
they use Google Translate orsome other tool like manually or
with integration or some othertool like manually or with
integration.
So then also the slang andcolloquial language.
That could also affect things,but usually it comes mostly from
(45:55):
the other side because, likethe customers, they write
quickly and then maybe thegrammar is not correct.
Sarah Caminiti (46:07):
Yeah, the typos all these things affect and the,
the automated translation no,well, and also it's uh for
technical things and technicalissues that come up.
It must get very convoluted totry and offer tech support in an
(46:28):
efficient way when you'retrying to just do it all through
Google Translate.
Markus Seebauer (46:33):
Yes, and the support challenge is one major
reason why companies stay awayfrom international markets,
because they feel, oh yes, likenow, if we offer our product in
other languages, how do we dothe support?
And then we don't need a fulltime person, right?
How do we manage this?
Sarah Caminiti (46:55):
If a company came to you and asked you this
question, as you were looking toto work on their knowledge
bases, and what would yourecommend that they did?
Markus Seebauer (47:04):
That's a good question.
I think they're different ways,like there are other service
providers where they providecustomer support in other
languages.
That could be a solution forsome companies and at some
stages, for the company, andthen eventually they hire a
full-time person.
(47:24):
And then another solution is tolook at the company and then
eventually they hire a full-timeperson.
And then another solution is tolook at the machine translation
engines, and they also varyacross languages.
Let's say, what works well forBrazilian Portuguese doesn't
work well for Chinese.
Sarah Caminiti (47:44):
Yeah, wow, no's.
That's true, it's.
Uh, there's so many companiesout there, so many startups and
bootstrapped companies that areas scrappy and lean as can be,
but they're global companies.
What do you?
What would be like the onething that you would recommend a
(48:04):
company think about whenthey're starting to realize that
they're standing out becausethey're not acknowledging that
these other countries exist andthey're using their product?
Markus Seebauer (48:21):
When they are aware that people in other
countries use their product.
I think that's already good.
Of course, somewhere they havethe data in the company, but not
always at the right places.
I think it's important tounderstand that this is like a
chicken-egg problem.
People say, yes, we just have afew customers internationally,
(48:43):
so we are not focused on that.
Yes, and then it will also staylike that.
Yeah, it's.
It's important to understandlike this is like a mid to long
term in investment.
Yeah, to have to have goodglobal products and to have a
(49:04):
good customer experience andinvest in localization and the
cultural components.
And you can see that the biggestcompanies, some of the biggest
companies, have issues with that, like, for example, with Airbnb
.
When you write to a host, youbook an apartment and then the
(49:29):
listing is another language.
They translate that, but thenthey also translate the messages
automatically.
And when this is, then let'ssay, this is like from Spanish
to German, and I had this lastyear.
I just couldn't understand itRight and it was challenging to
(49:52):
find.
Where do I switch this off?
Sarah Caminiti (49:56):
Yeah, oh, wow, yeah, because something like
Airbnb you are at the mercy ofthese people for your lodging
while you are in a country, youare in a foreign space and with
with Airbnb, you do have toreach out to the host when you
are at the place to know how toturn on the dishwasher or how to
(50:17):
lock the door the right way, ormaybe you're even locked out
and if they don't have the righttools in place, or even if they
don't even have like alocalized support team that is
then able to say, oh well, thissort of this is a local like
this is a dishwasher orsomething that that's really
(50:40):
common in in our space here, andI can tell you how to walk.
I'll walk you through how to dothat.
Like if you get somebody in SanFrancisco and you're asking
them, like it's making all thesenoises, I'm nervous that I'm
gonna like burn down the houseor something what's happening.
I can't reach out to my host.
They're not going to be able tohelp you.
But if they're actually focusedon oh wait, we're a travel
(51:02):
company we should probably havefolks that understand the goings
on of these surroundings whenthey're talking to customers.
You would actually be able toprobably reduce a lot of travel
stress.
Markus Seebauer (51:15):
Yes, I think definitely, and I had a lot of
travel stress last year inparticular.
So it's interesting, since youmentioned support in the local
language, I would have been gladif there was any support, at
least when I had a serioussafety issue with Airbnb.
(51:36):
When I was in Latin Americalast year, I had a very nice
Airbnb, everything was verymodern and I really enjoyed it.
And then I took a shower andwhen I went out of the shower
and I opened the glass door,then it just splashed into a
(51:56):
thousand pieces and um yeah,like I was, I was bleeding and I
was traveling alone, so likeit's like pretty scary, right.
Sarah Caminiti (52:07):
Terrifying.
Markus Seebauer (52:09):
Yeah.
So then I tried to call Airbnb,yeah, and I couldn't reach
anyone, right?
Sarah Caminiti (52:19):
No, yeah, oh my gosh, that sounds terrible, are
you okay?
Markus Seebauer (52:25):
Yeah, yeah.
I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.
Um, thankfully, uh it, it wasnot such a such a big uh issue,
but that was like stressful,right, like when it's like you
have such an injury, likethere's there's quite some blood
, yeah, and you don't know howbad is this.
And being alone in a foreigncountry, and it's not only like
(52:50):
they're the emergency number,right, airbnb I couldn't reach
it, I don't know.
For example, they might, theymight prioritize, they might
prioritize people in the us, forexample, or in Europe, but,
like, I am a traveler yes, atraveler is a traveler.
And then also, I mean I haveused Airbnb a lot, so it's
(53:16):
pretty shocking to, yeah,someone from Airbnb, like an
executive, told me when I methim at a conference.
He said, yeah, we are just sooverwhelmed and, right, everyone
wants to cut costs and customersupport, yeah, but even there's
(53:37):
something so like safetycritical, where you just want
someone who is there just to bethere.
You just want someone who isthere just to be there With
someone like me, where I've usedAirbnbs for a decade and I use
it a lot.
You travel a lot, yeah, so forme it says a lot about where do
(54:02):
we stand with the customersupport.
Sarah Caminiti (54:06):
Yeah, where do we stand with the customer
support?
Yeah, well, it's so.
You're paying the service feesthat are attached, to use airbnb
, to which is a lot, a lot.
I was just looking the other dayand it almost one of them like
almost doubled the price of ofthe, the rental, um and so, but
it's just like with apple care,I mean, it's like it's you're, I
(54:26):
mean it's like it's you'repaying into these services, for
those, like once in a blue moon,holy cow, I need help and
support and somebody to justlike make sure that I am a
priority in this moment becauseI'm terrified or everything's
malfunctioning, and for theresponse to be you're paying
(54:47):
into all of these things.
We've told you that this iswhat it goes towards and this is
what it does and everything,but actually we're not going to
invest in making sure the peoplethat are using our products or
our rental properties and theexperience of travel, which is
what it area is all about areactually safe and have what they
(55:11):
need, and then talk about adifferentiator making a wrong
move and changing that kind ofopportunity for themselves.
Markus Seebauer (55:24):
Yeah, and I think these things they add up
right.
Sarah Caminiti (55:28):
Yeah, they do.
Markus Seebauer (55:31):
Airbnb is just an example, one of many.
Everyone has had a badexperience with them, probably
especially in the last few yearsWith software companies.
It's similar.
Some companies they might be amarket leader, they might not
fear the competition, they mightbe so busy because they are
(55:51):
growing.
But then the tide is turningslowly, like where people maybe
they have challenges with thequality of the product, with the
quality of the support, withthe pricing, yeah, and then
these things accumulate well,it's a cockiness, isn't it?
Sarah Caminiti (56:09):
it's uh, it's well, we're, we're at the top.
It doesn't matter like.
This isn't that big of a deal Idon't need to invest in.
I don't need to acknowledge thefact that I've got competitors
that have things that are at alower cost and people are really
talking about them.
We're at the top.
We're always going to be at thetop, but then nowadays there's
so many things that do the exactsame thing, like.
(56:31):
Airbnb is not the only servicethat's like this.
There's like seven other onesnow and you have a bad
experience with Airbnb.
Next time you just go and bookover with the other place and
see how it goes.
Markus Seebauer (56:43):
Right.
I often get the exact sameapartment for cheaper, mostly
because of the lower fees atanother major website.
Yeah, so yeah, I think for techcompanies now in these
challenging times, like wherecompanies grew so fast many
(57:06):
during COVID, right and now wehave this kind of correction,
like some companies have so manylayoffs in terms of the numbers
of people and also thepercentage of the whole
workforce, and I think to keepthe people in mind, that that
(57:27):
goes also a long way, not notjust yeah, because you want to
be treated like that as well,but also from from a, from a
business, business side is isthat, I think, crucial for for
companies is.
Sarah Caminiti (57:46):
It is because we are a global market now and
word travels fast and certainthings stick, and if you don't
acknowledge the mistakes thatyou made, or the choices that
you made, or actually have youractions match the words that
you're saying, yes, that's agood one.
(58:07):
Then, then it'll.
It'll hurt you in the long run.
I could talk to you for hours,Markus.
I'm so glad that we finally gotto have this conversation.
Markus Seebauer (58:16):
Likewise, Sarah .
Sarah Caminiti (58:18):
We do in every podcast, by asking the guests
that gift me with their timewhat era do you find yourself in
right now, or what era do yousee yourself moving into?
And so, Markus, as we close outthis conversation, what era are
you in right now?
Markus Seebauer (58:37):
I see myself really growing into this era of
AI and where we deliver actualvalue with AI like an added
value that just goes beyondcutting costs.
I love that.
There are so many ways to useAI.
(58:59):
Also, many things we touchedupon today.
When you ask the right questions, you can get good answers right
.
Sarah Caminiti (59:08):
Yeah, you can, you really can.
Yeah, I hope that this is anera that many find themselves
moving into because AI isn'tgoing anywhere.
I think we can all admit that,but, at the same time, doing it
the right way and beingthoughtful about it is what's
going to pave what the futurelooks like for how we approach
(59:30):
this new space that we findourselves in.
Markus Seebauer (59:33):
Right, I think it's an exciting space.
We all have to adjust and weall have our challenges with
that.
Yeah, just for that.
Sarah Caminiti (59:45):
Yeah, thank you so much for tuning into Epochal
Growth.
A special thanks to MarkusSeebauer for his incredible
insights on differentiating inthe global market.
If you found value in today'sconversation, don't forget to
hit subscribe or follow thispodcast and leave us a review.
We'd love to hear from you.
(01:00:06):
Connect with me here or connectwith me by finding me on
LinkedIn or texting me using theawesome feature from Buzzsprout
.
Remember, listeners, that wecan't wait around to see change
happen.
When you feel it in yourselfthat a better way exists, you
owe it to yourself and thosearound you to try, because great
things happen when you do.
Don't forget to get yourtickets to the Elevate CX events
(01:00:28):
in Denver and in London.
Until next time, I'm SarahCaminiti.
Have a great day.
Happy Epochal Growth Tuesday listeners.
I'm Sarah Caminiti and we'regoing to unlock the secrets to
transformative businessstrategies and leadership, and I
am so happy that you're here.
Today's episode is all aboutstanding out in an increasingly
global marketplace.
We have Markus Seebauer with us.
He is the founder of GatewayTranslations.
(00:24):
He's a leading expert inlocalization and translations.
Markus has a wealth ofexperience helping companies
navigate the challenges ofexpanding into new markets while
maintaining their identity.
Here at Epochal Growth, we talka lot about being a
differentiator being adifferentiator in the CX space
or how we lead.
What I was really excited totake away from my conversation
(00:47):
with Markus was looking at beinga differentiator by being
respectful of who it is thatyou're talking to and where they
are in the world.
Markus sheds light on thecritical role of localization
and how businesses can avoidcommon pitfalls when translating
their products and theirservices, and what it means to
continuously upkeep thisinformation, and what happens if
(01:09):
you don't.
We discuss real world examplesof companies that have either
succeeded or struggled withtheir global strategies,
including insights on how theycan improve their customer
support and adapt to diversemarkets.
It's not just abouttranslations.
It's not just about customersupport.
It's also about how we usethese advancements in AI and how
they're reshaping the landscape.
(01:30):
Markus shares his thoughts onleveraging AI not just for cost
saving, but for creating genuinevalue and enhancing customer
experiences.
Whether you're a startuplooking to break into
international markets or you'rea seasoned business aiming to
refine your global strategy,this episode is going to teach
you how to approach thisthoughtfully.
(01:51):
All right, listeners.
Grab your headphones, turn upthe volume if you're in your car
, get ready to discover howyou're going to position
yourself in your business as atrue leader in the global arena.
Before I actually hit the playbutton for the episode with
Markus to begin, I do have toask how many of you still need
to purchase tickets to Denverfor the Elevate CX event.
That is, September 26th and27th in Denver.
(02:15):
Elevate CX is having aconference with industry experts
Craig Stoss, Andrew Rios, SarahHatter, Kat Gaines I mean, I
could just keep going and goingand going.
This is not an event you wantto miss.
Another event you don't want tomiss London, November 8th.
Please get your tickets.
If you plan on getting on aplane and going across the ocean
(02:36):
to get there awesome, so pumpedto meet you, really love your
dedication and bring that energy.
But if you're in London, ifyou're in England the UK if
you're in Europe, make sureyou're getting your tickets.
Make sure you're gettingtickets for your team too.
If you're in a leadershipposition, show them that you
really do want them to be assuccessful as possible and
empower them to be change makersin the CX space by getting them
(03:00):
to this event.
They are all going to sell out.
I can assure you of that.
Now I'm done, I promise let'sget going.
I'm Sarah Caminiti.
You're listening to EpochalGrowth.
This is episode 15.
And we have a very specialguest, Markus Seebauer.
You're always somewhere justenjoying the world.
Markus Seebauer (03:24):
Well, you're always somewhere just enjoying
the world.
Yes, I think it's amazing thatwe have the opportunity to work
from where it works best for us.
Not everyone has that.
I mean, you've heard in thenews and from our peers, right,
how people have to come back tothe office.
(03:44):
Yeah, I just feel that.
Yeah, it's a big opportunity tobe in a place you're happy,
where you're productive, andthere are always ways to get a
new perspective, to meet people.
But the downside is that nowpeople listen to less podcasts.
Sarah Caminiti (04:08):
Well, yes, yes, they do, or they listen to more
because they're able to listento them while they're working.
I bet, I bet it's just youcan't when you're able to make
your day so efficient, when youwork in your own space and have
control over what you're doingwith your time aside from people
like you know asking you formeetings and that sort of thing.
(04:29):
But all that aside, to thenhave to sit in a car and not be
able to be productive, reallylike immerse yourself in
anything that you're listeningto, because you have to pay
attention to the road, bemindful of every single thing
that is around you, becausedrivers are nuts and you never
(04:49):
know what's going to happen.
It takes so much brain, spaceand energy and I'm always a
little bit drained when I getout of the car.
Markus Seebauer (04:58):
Yes, I'm really not into driving.
I got my driving license when Iwas 18 and, uh, now I haven't
driven the car for for 15 years.
And then, um, when I was in ingermany, I tried to get into my
mom's car and, um, then I I toldher oh wow, this is really
(05:19):
complicated.
Just to get out of the drive,they like on the on the left and
right like their cars, and thenthere's like a bus coming and a
rather narrow road like, andthen she said, yeah, usually
people park even closer.
Sarah Caminiti (05:37):
Oh, yeah, yeah, no, it's crazy, it's and it's
and it's just non-stop it's.
Uh, my husband got his driver'slicense right before my son was
born.
He was in his 30s and had neverneeded to drive.
And then it kind of got to thatpoint where it was like, okay,
no, you, really you do need todrive, because what if I go into
labor?
We don't want to have to takelike an Uber or something like
(05:57):
that.
And then it was interesting tosee from me, who had been doing
it for years, to someone who wasvery capable but it was
completely foreign to them howthey adapted and learned and
found different ways to getcomfortable with certain things.
(06:19):
I notice, you know, takesdifferent routes than I would
take, because he feels morecomfortable going in these
different directions and which,oddly, is a nice segue into a
lot of the work that you'redoing of understanding how
people learn and how they learnbest, because, especially as you
get older, you do learndifferently than when you're
(06:40):
younger and you have to becognizant of that when you're
younger and you have to becognizant of that.
Markus Seebauer (06:47):
Yes, I have definitely noticed that for
myself and I think also incustomer success, customer
support I think there are manypeople who like to help, but
also they don't like to bealways on in meetings.
Yeah, always on in meetings Forme.
I don't like this when I gettagged on Slack and I like to be
(07:11):
focused and have my own paceand do some deep thinking.
Sarah Caminiti (07:18):
Yeah, no, I definitely understand that.
It is interesting when you haveyour watch that can notify you
about certain things, and you'vegot your, your ticketing system
, and you've got your email, youhave your slack, you have your
regular text message, you havelinkedin now and you've got all
these different things that tellyou that something is urgent.
(07:39):
And nothing is usually urgent.
But you have to then assesswhether or not it's urgent
because it's pushed in front ofyour face, and so you're forced
to triage your life at all times.
Markus Seebauer (07:54):
Yes, I think all these interruptions and
context switches.
I think that's also a reasonwhy people are looking at
different ways to get supportand there are also different
personality types when it comesto software.
B2B software is usually complex.
Many people they like to go toa knowledge base and quickly
(08:18):
look this up.
They feel this is moreefficient than writing an email
where they don't know how longit takes.
And then the quality of theanswer.
Sarah Caminiti (08:29):
Yeah, no, that is one of the most valid points.
I think right there, Markus,that it's something that I talk
about all the time with my teamor with others, and when they're
trying to navigate moving intoa support role, especially a
leadership role, you have to putyourself in the customer's
position of right now they'reunable to do their job, like
(08:49):
there's something happened thatprevented them from being able
to continue successfully ontheir own.
And if they get to the pointwhere they feel like the only
option is to reach out, there'sso much vulnerability in that
and there's so much unknown inthat, because first, you don't
know how long it's going to take, you don't know if you explain
(09:10):
the situation in a way that willactually articulate what's
going on.
You don't know what theirrequirements are.
You don't know what languagethey speak.
This could be an internationalcompany and there could be a
barrier there where you have toexplain things in a different
way.
It's a struggle.
It's a struggle and I agreethat the knowledge bases are
(09:36):
always the spot that I feel youhave to start.
You have to just start building.
Every single time a customerasks you a question, you have to
think is this documentedanywhere, whether it be
internally, externally or both,depending on the situation and
how you want to go about it.
But you have to give folks theoption at least to be
(09:57):
self-sufficient, and then theycan decide if they need more,
rather than you forcing them tonever become self-sufficient.
Markus Seebauer (10:08):
Right Just yesterday on our team call, we
had something come up where wehad a software that was recently
updated, I think, and then thisfeature was not documented in
the technical documentation yet.
(10:29):
So it was quite stressful, Ithink, for our team.
They were already busy with alot of projects despite the
summer and the software usuallyworks quite well.
So I think that also shapes alittle bit how we look at this
as oh like they're a little bitunorganized.
(10:52):
It's just like a microimpression, Like we managed that
in this case Could have beensomething Better.
Sarah Caminiti (11:00):
No, that's a really interesting point and I'd
love to know what you thinkthat the customer takes away in
terms of how a company feelsabout them and their use of the
software when they decide torelease something without
covering all of the bases
Markus Seebauer (11:20):
It's common and for me as someone who's
originally from Germany, thenwhen sometimes potential
customers they approach us, theywant to translate their
knowledge base and then thefirst thing I look at that
German knowledge base, it's it'sa pretty big market with almost
(11:41):
100 million people in theGerman-speaking countries and
the impression is totallydifferent.
So that's like my firstimpression and the customer
journey is always different forpeople, right?
So often it's really outdatedand then there are much less
(12:02):
articles.
And then they tell me, oh yes,like, um, the, the translated
knowledge bases like they arenot up to date.
But that's my first touch point, you know and that and and why
would I check if there's anenglish one?
That is better.
I just assume everything islike that, right?
Sarah Caminiti (12:22):
right, right, no , it's.
It tells the story of how theyfeel about your business.
It's.
We don't care enough to make ita point to find time to make
sure that this information isaccurate.
We we decided to use ourresources elsewhere, and now
(12:42):
those resources are being spenton explaining why you aren't
having this in a Germantranslation up to date, or now
you have to create a maintenanceschedule or do a whole overhaul
of things because of it, and itjust would have been so much
easier if you would have done itthe first time.
Markus Seebauer (12:59):
Yeah, I think it's also a lot of work to keep
this up to date and manycompanies they're not aware of
that or they they use quiteoutdated ways where they export
files manually, send that to atranslation company, or they
they have internal people whoare busy and and things get
(13:20):
delayed, especially when thenthere's a there's a bigger
update, when it's maybe a bigrelease for their product, and
then the knowledge base updateis also pretty big.
Sarah Caminiti (13:33):
Yeah, no, it's a huge undertaking.
Any sort of knowledge basemaintenance is a huge
undertaking, because not only doyou have to maintain things as
different products move andshift and grow and evolve over
time, but then you also have tothink about what are the things
that exist that are connected toit in ways that you didn't
realize that you then also haveto update and make sure that
(13:56):
you're explaining correctly,because people are still going
to be using it in the other waysand they're going to still need
to have accurate informationyeah, and now with the whole ai
hype, um, things got even morechallenging, especially with
knowledge basis.
Markus Seebauer (14:13):
so much is just raw AI where, um, the the
global customer experience isreally not good For any kind of
technical product, anythingspecific.
Usually that is quite adisaster in terms of what comes
(14:36):
out from ChatGPT or from SQL orwhatever, if no proper human
review is there, and even withthe nice prompts and
sophisticated prompts it's justnot getting there.
Sarah Caminiti (14:55):
No, it's.
You have to hire an entire teamto ensure the accuracy of the
information you're extractingfrom AI in forever, like that's
not really ever going to goanywhere.
Because the second you starttrusting something that is a
machine to either createdocumentation or talk to your
(15:16):
customers or break somethingdown, instead of actually having
somebody do it themselves withthe context that is required,
then you start blindly sendinginformation that could be false
and then it's learning that it'scorrect and it's just then
going to take that and morphthat down the road.
(15:37):
A big awakening with that ingeneral, and also with
translations.
Markus Seebauer (15:50):
And now I see many tech companies.
They often approach things in atech way, just looking for tech
solution.
They think, okay, we use fourdifferent AI, maybe like Chachi
and Gemini, and then we runprompts to check for the tone,
(16:13):
for the terminology, and then wecross-check that.
But we tested that Even forlanguages where it's less
challenging, like, let's say,German, when we go to Chinese or
Vietnamese or whatever, thenthat's even much less reliable.
Sarah Caminiti (16:34):
I bet yeah, because it's not like these AI
softwares are going to say we'renot 100% sure.
If this is accurate, can wehave someone please proofread
this?
100% sure, if this is accurate?
Can we have someone pleaseproofread this?
They're going to send theirbest guess of the closest thing
to what it is.
They're trying to translate andit could be totally wrong.
Markus Seebauer (16:51):
Yeah, like there are a lot of false
positives and, yeah, translatorsget really offended when you
use that because it's not goodenough.
So they feel that, yeah, andit's somehow like an amateur
(17:12):
move to use that right.
Sarah Caminiti (17:15):
Very much, very much.
Well, they're not takingownership on the success of it.
They're just putting it into amachine and doing it the easy
way and not making sure that itactually is being respectful of
the culture and the language andthe people that understand the
context of these words and howthey're supposed to be put
(17:36):
together.
You go to school and you becomean expert in this field for a
very specific reason because youunderstand it completely.
Markus Seebauer (17:46):
Yeah, it's good that you mentioned these
cultural aspects.
In many languages that's anissue, for example, in German,
like a really big tech company Idon't want to name them and
also mentioned these culturalaspects in in many languages.
That's an issue, for example,in Germany, like a really big
tech company I don't want toname them and also it's not
matter it.
Um, they have like the word istechnically correct and that's
even it's on the company pageand even I told them and I think
(18:10):
they they didn't get it so theydidn't change it because it's a
little bit challenging tounderstand.
So in German we have words thatare correct, but when anyone in
Germany hears that, youimmediately think about national
socialism and and like these.
These are kind of burned wordslike you.
(18:30):
You just you, just you don'tuse them.
Yeah.
Sarah Caminiti (18:33):
Yeah.
Markus Seebauer (18:33):
But they're technically correct German words
yeah, so in that case it waseven on the company page where
they talked about diversity andinclusion.
So things like that have a verynegative connotation in Germany
(18:53):
and in Spanish.
Many words are insults in thespecific locales, as we call it,
because Spanish is different.
In Mexico, Argentina, peopleunderstand it, but many words
are an insult in anotherSpanish-speaking country.
So with these words in German,yeah, that's really a big deal,
(19:18):
and something like that onTikTok, that could really be a
big PR disaster.
Sarah Caminiti (19:26):
Oh yeah, oh yeah .
That sort of thing spreads.
Once you spot it, it's a redflag and you move on.
But then you probably also sayto your friend or your colleague
did you see that they used thison their website?
Like, what do you think theywere thinking?
Or what do you think they meantby this?
Was there some weird subliminalmessaging that they're trying
(19:49):
to do in there?
Subliminal messaging thatthey're trying to do in there?
And?
And really it was just acareless mistake, which I don't
even know if that's that muchbetter, because they're not
taking the time to put the careinto what they're putting out
into the world.
Markus Seebauer (20:03):
So yes, and to me it's incredible that even
when I told them, then after sixmonths I checked again and
nothing, nothing changed.
Sarah Caminiti (20:14):
That's insane, that's insane.
So, Markus, just so thatlisteners understand why we are
talking about this, and uh andyour experience, can you share
like a little intro about thework that you do and and and who
you are?
Markus Seebauer (20:31):
um, I studied computer science, so I come from
the tech side, and when I wentto the university I went to
India for six months and thesoftware company made a big
project where they migratedsoftware and then they asked for
my help with translations.
(20:53):
So that's how I got into thatindustry
Sarah Caminiti (20:57):
And you loved it when they asked you to do it?
Markus Seebauer (21:02):
It just felt like something that you were
supposed to continue to pursue.
Then, when I graduated, I sawthe need and the demand for that
and started this business.
So now it has been 12 years andwe have worked with really big
(21:24):
clients like GitHub and helpedthem with their knowledge bases.
Sarah Caminiti (21:28):
That whole space has really evolved in over a
decade, knowledge bases now,like the interaction that comes
(21:54):
into play or the different typesof media and it is.
It is like it's its own littlecompany inside all of these
companies to to do it really, todo it well and to do it
completely yes, and sometimes westruggled because we got
content that was not written inproper English so many people
(22:17):
are not aware of.
Markus Seebauer (22:18):
When you use AI , it can only be as good as the
input.
So with machine translation,when it's not proper English
grammar and the same for otherlanguages you translate from,
then the translation is reallybad.
Sarah Caminiti (22:37):
Wow, yeah.
So how do those conversationsgo with companies when you're
looking through their knowledgebases, you're translating their
knowledge bases and you'refinding that this was obviously
not written by a person or thiscontent is not put together in a
way that really reflects thetype of company that you're
(23:00):
trying to to show the world thatyou are.
How do you have thoseconversations?
Markus Seebauer (23:05):
yeah, I think many companies.
They are already aware of itand then they just want to
launch the translation and andthen we have this thing right,
like where this gets into thetranslation memory, and we need
to make sure that we don't useany improper data in the future.
(23:25):
I think usually the challengeis there is this gap between,
let's say, someone who managesthe knowledge base and the
person who is maybe the head ofknowledge base, like the head of
knowledge management, and thenthere are executives higher up
(23:45):
who think everything can be donewith AI and everything needs to
be like super cost, efficientand to explain, to integrate the
(24:12):
workflows.
That is all a challenge and wehelp companies a lot with that.
Sarah Caminiti (24:18):
Wow, yeah, that must have been, especially over
the past few years, really wildto see the quality of the
content that you're having towork with sometimes blossom
because they're given a space toreally just go to town and do
what they know the customerneeds.
But then also those companiesthat choose to go in the other
(24:40):
direction and, uh, and you'rekind of left in the middle to
figure out how to give them andthe customers what they need but
still still acknowledge theissues that are in place.
Markus Seebauer (24:55):
Yeah, I think often it's important to see the
big picture.
What are the most visitedarticles, where do you get the
most traffic?
And then you can start withthese, and then you can start
with these.
In the past, it was often donelike, okay, let's translate
(25:15):
everything to every language wehave.
Sarah Caminiti (25:18):
Yeah.
Markus Seebauer (25:19):
And that feels like quite an outdated way.
Sarah Caminiti (25:25):
Yeah, yeah, no, that does.
I've seen that myself.
Where it's, you have the oneplan.
That is all right.
We're going to spend threeyears and we are going to really
just make this what it needs tobe and maintain it and come up
with a plan.
Or let's pick topic by topicand start chipping away at it.
(25:46):
This is something that'sconnected to a launch of this,
so let's have this be our focusfor right now, and then we'll
have these others kind of happen, as it makes sense for those
things to happen.
Once you start working ontranslations for companies, how
often do you have to go back andconnect with them throughout
the years?
Markus Seebauer (26:07):
Usually, companies which handle that very
well.
They have regular updates or wedo it in a continuous workflow.
These are the two ways to do it.
That's good and otherwise whatI see a lot.
Maybe there's even a goodtranslation at the beginning,
(26:29):
and I see all these publicknowledge bases right and uh, I
don't even know how they weretranslated by whom.
And then that two major thingssometimes, um, companies, they,
um, they find it challenging tomanage these updates because
(26:50):
they continuously, uh, updatethe English content and then
they don't want to send that outall the time, maybe if they
have six, 10, 20 languages ormore.
So then these small updatesthey keep in English time.
Then it looks a little bit likecheese where there are more and
(27:11):
more holes, and there arecompanies where it's almost like
half the text is in English onsome pages, where it's a really
bad global user experience.
Sarah Caminiti (27:25):
Oh man, oh man.
What do you hope to see in thefuture with AI and with
knowledge bases and justeducation for how things have
changed so drastically in justthe last couple of years?
What are you hoping to seehappen in the next two years?
Markus Seebauer (27:46):
That's a good question.
I think, yeah, we need sensibleways how to use AI, and AI can
be great to put out more content, maybe for specific audiences,
because people in differentcountries also use products
differently.
That's a very different way.
(28:18):
And then it's very natural thatthe knowledge base has help
centers.
They will also be adjusted andif there are screenshots, if
there are people involved, thenthat also needs to be localized.
Now I saw a really interestingpost where someone who was
(28:42):
formerly at HubSpot she wrotethat they used some stock photos
of Asian people and then in theoffice in Japan they said, oh,
they're clearly not Japanese.
And in the US headquarter theyjust didn't consider that.
(29:04):
Right, it's like you don't knowwhat you don't know.
Sarah Caminiti (29:07):
No, that's true.
No, that is very true, it's youdon't know what you don't know.
But also, you can always askand for someone like yourself
who sees these situations comeup in text form a lot of the
time, what is your approach toyour team when they spot these
(29:31):
things or when someone feelsdisrespected when they're going
through this content and it'susing language in a way that
isn't culturally appropriate?
How do you help protect thosethat would be impacted from this
?
Markus Seebauer (29:47):
Yeah, usually we try to explain that to the
client, and many people are veryhappy to hear about these
things, and some people don'tunderstand it, or maybe then it
gets lost somehow.
Then there's only so much wecan do.
Sarah Caminiti (30:09):
For sure, for sure, it must be hard.
Sometimes, though, you enterinto these spaces understanding
the context of things, and youtry to share the context to
others, and if they're notreceptive of it, it kind of
makes your work not only moredifficult but more complex,
because now you're trying tonavigate these nuances that
(30:33):
aren't understood by the spacethat you're trying to make
better.
So you're really giving a giftto the people that live in these
countries and are in thisculture without the company that
is presenting now, this gift ofjust standard contextual
conversations with theircommunity within those spaces,
(30:55):
like they don't even realizethat you're doing it.
So you're just like the silentsuperhero.
Markus Seebauer (31:00):
Yes, for example, one company.
They even sell DEI courses, soit's extremely critical for them
to get this right.
And then they had photos.
I think they still have this.
They have photos of women andthen they have the job titles
(31:23):
under the photos as testimonials, which is very common, and in
English it's gender neutral,usually for job titles.
Yeah, but in Spanish, in German, in many European languages, oh
they're gender specific.
Exactly.
So that is something that isreally offensive to like in
(31:48):
general, like it's really odd,and then in that specific
context it's like reallyoffensive.
Sarah Caminiti (31:57):
Very much Did you anticipate, coming into this
space as a technical person whofound this opportunity to help
companies with their educationglobally, to help companies with
their education globally, thatyou would end up working almost
in a almost in like an HR roleof creating this, this
(32:22):
appropriate space for, for theglobal consumers of these brands
?
Markus Seebauer (32:27):
No, I didn't anticipate that at all, but also
many other things.
I didn't anticipate that at all, but also many other things I
didn't expect.
What are some of the otherunexpected things that you've
come across over the years?
Having something like a senddesk and then making sure having
(32:52):
a right process where this issent to translators in a
semi-automated way, and thecomplexity that gets into that
and you also see this withreally big companies, some of
the biggest big companies, likesome some of the biggest.
(33:15):
Then there's like a pagemissing in the, the translated
knowledge base, and then there'sauto forwarding to the, the
main page.
Like that's like extremely baduser experience, like yeah at
least.
Then you need to show theenglish page and, uh, there
needs to be a note that this isnot translated.
Like, that's the least you cando.
Sarah Caminiti (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, and so you're going through all of
these documents.
You're kind of also a UX tester.
Markus Seebauer (33:49):
That is like a whole other role that you're
playing in these companies yes,um, people really don't like
flags because, um, yeah, likeeven like a us flag, and then
it's naturally for companies toget into the british market.
It just looks like it's notlocal and that that conveys a
(34:13):
lot, especially in e-commerce,where that means shipping is
expensive and slow or thisconveys this could be an issue
with the time zone to reachsomeone, yeah, and and then it's
also political like, like, forexample, french Canadians,
(34:36):
they're even with othercountries where it's even more
sensitive when there are certainflags displayed.
Sarah Caminiti (34:46):
Yeah, oh, I didn't even think about that,
because it's true, there's beenmore than one occasion where
I've gone onto a website thatyou know you saw it on social
media or something you click thelink to to check it out, and
then it keeps showing up withthe uk flag instead of the us
flag.
And since you're finding thison social media, you're not sure
(35:07):
if it even is something that'savailable to you in the US.
And so either you decide in themoment do I spend the next like
15 minutes poking around tounderstand if this is even
something that I can buy if Ichoose to or do I just go and
(35:28):
buy it from a place that sellsalmost the exact same thing in
the US market.
That, I know, is a sure win.
Markus Seebauer (35:37):
Yeah, and sometimes it's really easy to
stand out, Like, for example, inthe South African market.
People are used that it's nottailored to them, but then
Google at least for some thingsthey do it, so it looks really
local and people notice that.
Sarah Caminiti (35:56):
Wow, Markus, this brings up something that I
didn't expect with thisconversation, because so often
when I'm talking to otherswithin the CX space, we get into
big conversations about being adifferentiator, and being a
differentiator by providing thelevel of service and care and
(36:17):
thoughtfulness to the customerwhere you know it matters.
And then that sticks with them,and then they want to tell their
friends about this because youdon't know what you're going to
get.
Just like what we were talkingabout earlier with writing into
support.
Just like what we were talkingabout earlier with writing into
support.
But this is a whole.
Other piece of it is thecustomer experience, but it's
also through the user experienceof the actual website, but
(36:42):
being a differentiator just byacknowledging their existence,
that's it.
Markus Seebauer (36:48):
Yes, and sometimes it's like some
companies.
They do it really well.
For example, I have the AuraRing right.
It's like a variable for sleeptracking.
For anyone who doesn't know it,it's a really good product and
(37:09):
they got a bit greedy, like theygrew really fast and then they
introduced memberships, and thisis often a challenge when you
have existing customers.
I got it really early andpeople got really angry, like on
Trustpilot, like you saw, likehundreds of complaints, and then
I think also they understoodsomething in the customer
(37:31):
success.
And then when think also theyunderstood something in customer
success.
And then when I had an issuewith the ring, they just shipped
a new one for free and I didn'trealize how much of an impact
this had, because I was alreadyon the fence, like really angry.
(37:51):
Like I bought a product for aone-time fee.
Like this is like a physicalproduct, it's not like a cess,
yeah and um.
Then I got angry, like now Ihave.
I calculated how, if I use thisfor years, how much extra I
would need to spend.
Yeah, yeah and, of course, likethey invest into the product,
(38:15):
it's getting better and I likethe product, and then I got the
product for free.
So I became really like anadvocate and you might think
this might not matter so much,but then, like in the tech
communities where I am likethese are all like early
adopters and and people, um, whowho spread the message uh, much
(38:41):
faster than, like the, theaverage person.
Yeah, so I think that had ahuge impact.
Otherwise I don't think I wouldhave bought another one for two
or three hundred dollars andthe cost of the product I don't
think is so high in that case.
Sarah Caminiti (39:01):
No, that's so true, it is.
It's funny how those thingsthat seem like such huge deals
to us when they happen are sorare nowadays.
Especially it's even with, likean Apple product.
I pay every month intoAppleCare so that when my phone
(39:25):
starts acting weird, I can takeit to an Apple store and, in
theory, they just replace it foryou because you have Apple care
and they trust you and theyknow that.
You know if, if you're, theylook at your phone and it is
acting weird, then they're notgoing to make a big deal out of
it.
And now that's not even as muchof a case as it used to be.
(39:45):
It's like it's these companiesthat create these loyal brands
or brand ambassadors by, likethe folks in South Africa that
are seeing these companies thatare acknowledging them on their
website, like you receiving thatring for for free when everyone
was struggling with the, thechange in structure of the
(40:08):
company.
And then you build it and youbuild it, and you build it, and
then at some point you have achoice and it's the choices.
Do we continue to just reallylean into this brand
ambassadorship of our customerbase and continue to foster that
(40:30):
, or do we start taking awaylittle things and see if they
notice and raise the price forthe subscription, but actually
take away certain pieces andfunctionalities and see if
anybody picks up on it and howlong that can go until it gets
noisier and noisier and weactually have to address it.
And that just made me thinkabout your job of translating
(40:54):
these documents and theseknowledge bases for companies
and these spaces for companies,even if you're a customer of
theirs, to see things evolveover time like that.
You're like your ring.
It wasn't a subscriptionservice when you purchased it.
Then it became a subscriptionservice.
What stayed?
What remained?
What things are theyarticulating?
(41:16):
What things do they want tohave be translated?
What countries are theytranslating things to?
It's, uh, it's.
You can become a differentiatorand you can lose that just as
quickly as you gain it, andthere's so many different ways
to embrace it.
Markus Seebauer (41:31):
Yeah, I think it's a good point that you
mentioned Apple and yeah, I justgot the new M3 MacBook Air,
which is great.
Book air, which is great, um,um and um when, when I had
(41:53):
issues with my previous one umwith apple that was not very
customer friendly, to to chargea lot, to to change the sound or
something, something small, andthen you lose the verity and
yeah.
So all these things, yeah, theyaffect the customers perception
(42:16):
.
Now I think we will have totranslate a lot of repair
articles because with the newlegislation and the trend
towards sustainability, therewill be more where people they
want to repair things bythemselves to save money and
(42:40):
also because of sustainability.
Like electronics, waste isreally hard to recycle and it's
a big issue.
Sarah Caminiti (42:50):
Yeah, that is an interesting point For some of
these companies that have usedyour services in the past and
you've built a rapport with themand they are recognizing things
that are going on in countrieswhere you have much more of an
understanding and grasp of ofthe people and their needs and
but also how to convey thatinformation to them
(43:12):
appropriately.
Do you have companies come toyou outside of just the
translation piece of how do weapproach this situation now?
Markus Seebauer (43:21):
Yes, Like this, this.
This happens a lot.
Sarah Caminiti (43:24):
Really.
Markus Seebauer (43:25):
Yes, companies they are at different stages,
right, like sometimes they arewondering you know, what
languages do we do?
Or where do we start, whicharticles are more important?
Because they don't have all theresources, and not just
(43:46):
financially but in terms of teamcapacity, because they consider
already the next step, thatthey also need to keep it up to
date.
And also, when it comes tosupport ticket translation, many
companies they start withsomething simple like Google
Translate, which is easy tointegrate Many APIs.
(44:07):
They start with somethingsimple like Google Translate,
which is easy to integrate ManyAPIs, it's cheap, it has almost
every language.
But then they realize there aremany issues and when you have
colloquial language, for example, or you have customers they
type quickly on their phone,they don't use proper
interpunctuation.
(44:27):
Machine translation was notbuilt for that.
It was trained on bilingualtext for the European Union or
stuff like that.
It was not trained oncolloquial language, how people
write.
Sarah Caminiti (44:47):
Yeah, so what do you do in those situations?
Markus Seebauer (44:50):
I think first of all, adjust expectations and
make people aware that thiscould be an issue, because
people often think, yes, peopleunderstand maybe, but they might
get annoyed, they might feelthe company is a little bit
(45:12):
complicated or they're not local.
There might be really majorissues that make it hard to
understand.
And then in the next step, thisalso affects then how do you
communicate, like people, thenthey write the tickets, the
(45:34):
customer support people.
They write the tickets inEnglish, let's say, and then
they use Google Translate orsome other tool like manually or
with integration or some othertool like manually or with
integration.
So then also the slang andcolloquial language.
That could also affect things,but usually it comes mostly from
(45:55):
the other side because, likethe customers, they write
quickly and then maybe thegrammar is not correct.
Sarah Caminiti (46:07):
Yeah, the typos all these things affect and the,
the automated translation no,well, and also it's uh for
technical things and technicalissues that come up.
It must get very convoluted totry and offer tech support in an
(46:28):
efficient way when you'retrying to just do it all through
Google Translate.
Markus Seebauer (46:33):
Yes, and the support challenge is one major
reason why companies stay awayfrom international markets,
because they feel, oh yes, likenow, if we offer our product in
other languages, how do we dothe support?
And then we don't need a fulltime person, right?
How do we manage this?
Sarah Caminiti (46:55):
If a company came to you and asked you this
question, as you were looking toto work on their knowledge
bases, and what would yourecommend that they did?
Markus Seebauer (47:04):
That's a good question.
I think they're different ways,like there are other service
providers where they providecustomer support in other
languages.
That could be a solution forsome companies and at some
stages, for the company, andthen eventually they hire a
full-time person.
(47:24):
And then another solution is tolook at the company and then
eventually they hire a full-timeperson.
And then another solution is tolook at the machine translation
engines, and they also varyacross languages.
Let's say, what works well forBrazilian Portuguese doesn't
work well for Chinese.
Sarah Caminiti (47:44):
Yeah, wow, no's.
That's true, it's.
Uh, there's so many companiesout there, so many startups and
bootstrapped companies that areas scrappy and lean as can be,
but they're global companies.
What do you?
What would be like the onething that you would recommend a
(48:04):
company think about whenthey're starting to realize that
they're standing out becausethey're not acknowledging that
these other countries exist andthey're using their product?
Markus Seebauer (48:21):
When they are aware that people in other
countries use their product.
I think that's already good.
Of course, somewhere they havethe data in the company, but not
always at the right places.
I think it's important tounderstand that this is like a
chicken-egg problem.
People say, yes, we just have afew customers internationally,
(48:43):
so we are not focused on that.
Yes, and then it will also staylike that.
Yeah, it's.
It's important to understandlike this is like a mid to long
term in investment.
Yeah, to have to have goodglobal products and to have a
(49:04):
good customer experience andinvest in localization and the
cultural components.
And you can see that the biggestcompanies, some of the biggest
companies, have issues with that, like, for example, with Airbnb
.
When you write to a host, youbook an apartment and then the
(49:29):
listing is another language.
They translate that, but thenthey also translate the messages
automatically.
And when this is, then let'ssay, this is like from Spanish
to German, and I had this lastyear.
I just couldn't understand itRight and it was challenging to
(49:52):
find.
Where do I switch this off?
Sarah Caminiti (49:56):
Yeah, oh, wow, yeah, because something like
Airbnb you are at the mercy ofthese people for your lodging
while you are in a country, youare in a foreign space and with
with Airbnb, you do have toreach out to the host when you
are at the place to know how toturn on the dishwasher or how to
(50:17):
lock the door the right way, ormaybe you're even locked out
and if they don't have the righttools in place, or even if they
don't even have like alocalized support team that is
then able to say, oh well, thissort of this is a local like
this is a dishwasher orsomething that that's really
(50:40):
common in in our space here, andI can tell you how to walk.
I'll walk you through how to dothat.
Like if you get somebody in SanFrancisco and you're asking
them, like it's making all thesenoises, I'm nervous that I'm
gonna like burn down the houseor something what's happening.
I can't reach out to my host.
They're not going to be able tohelp you.
But if they're actually focusedon oh wait, we're a travel
(51:02):
company we should probably havefolks that understand the goings
on of these surroundings whenthey're talking to customers.
You would actually be able toprobably reduce a lot of travel
stress.
Markus Seebauer (51:15):
Yes, I think definitely, and I had a lot of
travel stress last year inparticular.
So it's interesting, since youmentioned support in the local
language, I would have been gladif there was any support, at
least when I had a serioussafety issue with Airbnb.
(51:36):
When I was in Latin Americalast year, I had a very nice
Airbnb, everything was verymodern and I really enjoyed it.
And then I took a shower andwhen I went out of the shower
and I opened the glass door,then it just splashed into a
(51:56):
thousand pieces and um yeah,like I was, I was bleeding and I
was traveling alone, so likeit's like pretty scary, right.
Sarah Caminiti (52:07):
Terrifying.
Markus Seebauer (52:09):
Yeah.
So then I tried to call Airbnb,yeah, and I couldn't reach
anyone, right?
Sarah Caminiti (52:19):
No, yeah, oh my gosh, that sounds terrible, are
you okay?
Markus Seebauer (52:25):
Yeah, yeah.
I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.
Um, thankfully, uh it, it wasnot such a such a big uh issue,
but that was like stressful,right, like when it's like you
have such an injury, likethere's there's quite some blood
, yeah, and you don't know howbad is this.
And being alone in a foreigncountry, and it's not only like
(52:50):
they're the emergency number,right, airbnb I couldn't reach
it, I don't know.
For example, they might, theymight prioritize, they might
prioritize people in the us, forexample, or in Europe, but,
like, I am a traveler yes, atraveler is a traveler.
And then also, I mean I haveused Airbnb a lot, so it's
(53:16):
pretty shocking to, yeah,someone from Airbnb, like an
executive, told me when I methim at a conference.
He said, yeah, we are just sooverwhelmed and, right, everyone
wants to cut costs and customersupport, yeah, but even there's
(53:37):
something so like safetycritical, where you just want
someone who is there just to bethere.
You just want someone who isthere just to be there With
someone like me, where I've usedAirbnbs for a decade and I use
it a lot.
You travel a lot, yeah, so forme it says a lot about where do
(54:02):
we stand with the customersupport.
Sarah Caminiti (54:06):
Yeah, where do we stand with the customer
support?
Yeah, well, it's so.
You're paying the service feesthat are attached, to use airbnb
, to which is a lot, a lot.
I was just looking the other dayand it almost one of them like
almost doubled the price of ofthe, the rental, um and so, but
it's just like with apple care,I mean, it's like it's you're, I
(54:26):
mean it's like it's you'repaying into these services, for
those, like once in a blue moon,holy cow, I need help and
support and somebody to justlike make sure that I am a
priority in this moment becauseI'm terrified or everything's
malfunctioning, and for theresponse to be you're paying
(54:47):
into all of these things.
We've told you that this iswhat it goes towards and this is
what it does and everything,but actually we're not going to
invest in making sure the peoplethat are using our products or
our rental properties and theexperience of travel, which is
what it area is all about areactually safe and have what they
(55:11):
need, and then talk about adifferentiator making a wrong
move and changing that kind ofopportunity for themselves.
Markus Seebauer (55:24):
Yeah, and I think these things they add up
right.
Sarah Caminiti (55:28):
Yeah, they do.
Markus Seebauer (55:31):
Airbnb is just an example, one of many.
Everyone has had a badexperience with them, probably
especially in the last few yearsWith software companies.
It's similar.
Some companies they might be amarket leader, they might not
fear the competition, they mightbe so busy because they are
(55:51):
growing.
But then the tide is turningslowly, like where people maybe
they have challenges with thequality of the product, with the
quality of the support, withthe pricing, yeah, and then
these things accumulate well,it's a cockiness, isn't it?
Sarah Caminiti (56:09):
it's uh, it's well, we're, we're at the top.
It doesn't matter like.
This isn't that big of a deal Idon't need to invest in.
I don't need to acknowledge thefact that I've got competitors
that have things that are at alower cost and people are really
talking about them.
We're at the top.
We're always going to be at thetop, but then nowadays there's
so many things that do the exactsame thing, like.
(56:31):
Airbnb is not the only servicethat's like this.
There's like seven other onesnow and you have a bad
experience with Airbnb.
Next time you just go and bookover with the other place and
see how it goes.
Markus Seebauer (56:43):
Right.
I often get the exact sameapartment for cheaper, mostly
because of the lower fees atanother major website.
Yeah, so yeah, I think for techcompanies now in these
challenging times, like wherecompanies grew so fast many
(57:06):
during COVID, right and now wehave this kind of correction,
like some companies have so manylayoffs in terms of the numbers
of people and also thepercentage of the whole
workforce, and I think to keepthe people in mind, that that
(57:27):
goes also a long way, not notjust yeah, because you want to
be treated like that as well,but also from from a, from a
business, business side is isthat, I think, crucial for for
companies is.
Sarah Caminiti (57:46):
It is because we are a global market now and
word travels fast and certainthings stick, and if you don't
acknowledge the mistakes thatyou made, or the choices that
you made, or actually have youractions match the words that
you're saying, yes, that's agood one.
(58:07):
Then, then it'll.
It'll hurt you in the long run.
I could talk to you for hours,Markus.
I'm so glad that we finally gotto have this conversation.
Markus Seebauer (58:16):
Likewise, Sarah .
Sarah Caminiti (58:18):
We do in every podcast, by asking the guests
that gift me with their timewhat era do you find yourself in
right now, or what era do yousee yourself moving into?
And so, Markus, as we close outthis conversation, what era are
you in right now?
Markus Seebauer (58:37):
I see myself really growing into this era of
AI and where we deliver actualvalue with AI like an added
value that just goes beyondcutting costs.
I love that.
There are so many ways to useAI.
(58:59):
Also, many things we touchedupon today.
When you ask the right questions, you can get good answers right
.
Sarah Caminiti (59:08):
Yeah, you can, you really can.
Yeah, I hope that this is anera that many find themselves
moving into because AI isn'tgoing anywhere.
I think we can all admit that,but, at the same time, doing it
the right way and beingthoughtful about it is what's
going to pave what the futurelooks like for how we approach
(59:30):
this new space that we findourselves in.
Markus Seebauer (59:33):
Right, I think it's an exciting space.
We all have to adjust and weall have our challenges with
that.
Yeah, just for that.
Sarah Caminiti (59:45):
Yeah, thank you so much for tuning into Epochal
Growth.
A special thanks to MarkusSeebauer for his incredible
insights on differentiating inthe global market.
If you found value in today'sconversation, don't forget to
hit subscribe or follow thispodcast and leave us a review.
We'd love to hear from you.
(01:00:06):
Connect with me here or connectwith me by finding me on
LinkedIn or texting me using theawesome feature from Buzzsprout
.
Remember, listeners, that wecan't wait around to see change
happen.
When you feel it in yourselfthat a better way exists, you
owe it to yourself and thosearound you to try, because great
things happen when you do.
Don't forget to get yourtickets to the Elevate CX events
(01:00:28):
in Denver and in London.
Until next time, I'm SarahCaminiti.
Have a great day.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.