Our Analysts' Insights

One of the most heartbreaking results of COVID-19 pandemic has been hearing about people falling ill, suffering, and too-often dying, without their family and loved ones around them. Imagine how much more terrible this must be if the patient – or family members – cannot easily communicate with caregivers, nor fully understand what they are told. Combine these challenges with statistics showing COVID-19 disproportionately affecting racial and ethnic minorities and the picture is grim.

Marketers strive to create the ultimate customer experience (CX), but we find that few spare more than a moment’s thought for how their home-market customer journey will work in other languages or countries. As a result, many businesses miss the vital requirement of engaging their global audience with content that resonates with them – not just with translated content, but with a full language experience that conveys their brand, reputation, and trustworthiness. CSA Research updated our long-r...

Most people frown upon the idea of talking to machines, yet they are already encountering them in everyday conversations. For example, when you call a bank or utility company, you probably start the conversation with a bot that triages the request and escalates the conversation to a human call agent when it reaches the limits of its capabilities. There is no longer a need for a human to tell you your credit card balance. Likewise, there is no need for a human interpreter if a nurse checks on the...

No one can predict when the ripple effects of COVID-19 will end. However, the results of our survey of 63 global enterprises in 19 countries indicate strongly that now is the time for organizations to plan for the scenarios that they will have to handle, whether under conditions of a prolonged recession or a cautious rebound. The effects on regional and local economies are already playing out in different ways at different speeds. Teams should prepare for the competitive landscape to look substa...

In late April and early May, CSA Research partnered with the Institute of Language Services, Hebei Normal University for Nationalities to survey 135 language service providers in China about their experience during the period when COVID-19-related restrictions were in force and what has happened since they were relaxed. As the first country to have experienced stringent limitations on movement, social activity, and work – as well as the first to emerge from them – the experience of Chinese LSP...

Have you dreamed about leading the charge to globalize business processes across your entire organization? Or maybe you already have a plan to help Marketing or Customer Support get their international act together? Based on our recent COVID-19 Enterprise Survey, the stars may finally be aligning to allow you to raise visibility for globalization in ways that enable other teams to be comfortable about where they’re investing internationally.

CSA Research surveyed freelance linguists worldwide in mid- to late April to see how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them as providers of language services. These are the overall results from the 1,228 responses received from 100 countries.

We have frequently and long been asked who owns translation memories (TMs)?” In today’s COVID-19 environment, the better question might be “Where are my TMs?” If you rely on one or more LSPs to manage and maintain your translation memories, terminology, and other linguistic assets, now is a good time to revisit your disaster and recovery plan (DRP) for technology, and business continuity plan (BCP) for the entire organization’s processes. Even if you host and manage your TMs centrally withi...

The language services industry is in disarray. Engrained ways of providing interpreting services became obsolete in a matter of days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations that use interpreting services, language service providers, technology vendors, and interpreters are struggling to comprehend the new reality and adapt to it.

How companies respond to COVID-19 is showing just how seriously they treat the customer experience. Those that had good systems and processes in place before the pandemic have fared well, while others are finding that their costs are higher and their customers angry. The pandemic has revealed what companies should have been doing all along but had neglected. Although the current situation will challenge even the best run companies, those that have shown that they are there with their customers w...