How to create adequate product support in a large number of foreign languages?

Question

Internationalization and localization

A SAAS solution is being developed with the main sales market in Europe and America.
The question arose with the implementation and support - how to form adequate product support in a large number of foreign languages?
If there are no problems with English, then in Europe everything is more difficult - at least 4 main languages, but they may not be enough, given that the specifics of the product are such that a non-native speaker may not understand the nuances of the issue.
Yes, we are writing a WIKI and we will translate it into all the necessary languages, but what if a correspondence is required?
Perhaps someone had experience in solving a problem within a small team?
I fully admit that there will be enough English-language support, but I would like to hear the opinion of experienced people.

Answer 1

First English support. When it makes sense from a business point of view (it is already economically feasible), the most popular language is determined from the list and a support specialist, a native speaker, is hired. He gets trained and goes to work. When (if) the whole thing grows further, additional people are hired, departments are formed, and so on. The client can contact support in his own language (if the language is supported by your support team), if specialists in his language are not available at the moment, there may be a fallback to English. It is useless for a ticketing system, but for online chat and telephone support it is a useful and convenient thing.
For example, from the latest experience - I called some support service (I don’t remember where), to the Russian department. After a minute of waiting on the phone, I was prompted to continue waiting or press 1 to switch to international (English support). And so every minute is repeated, for 5 minutes. If the Russian department did not pick up the phone, after the time limit has elapsed, you are transferred to the English-speaking one. Some Indian from the British office was waiting for me there, with quite decent English, the waiting time was 5 seconds. Convenient.

Answer 2

Yes, we are writing a WIKI and we will translate it into all the necessary languages, but what if a correspondence is required?

It happens like this (let's say that the TP is Russian-speaking):
1. The client writes the problem in the TP in his own language.
2. The text for the TP specialist is automatically translated into Russian for understanding.
3. Next to the answer in another language in the knowledge base (FAQ) - there is always a literary translation in Russian.
4. The National Assembly determines the most relevant answer to the question (in the language of the sender!) Through an internal knowledge base (FAQ) search, the maximum relevant matches. If there are no matches in the sender's language, the auto-translation search in Russian is used. If found, then the response is supplemented with information from the system, which would be nice to translate the response into the sender's language, because. the answer in the database in this language is missing!
5. The TP specialist gets the most appropriate answer in Russian (according to the National Assembly), based on the information that is already included in the knowledge base (FAQ) and the same answer in the client's language.
6. The TP specialist evaluates the correctness and accuracy of this answer and then decides whether to send it (the answer will be given in the language sent by the client) or transfer it for further development. department (or do it yourself) with automatic generation of the application.
7. After solving the problem, the FAQ database is updated with questions and answers in two languages ​​(Russian and the language of the client).

Yes, we write WIKI and translate it into all required languages

Translate and FAQ base gradually when filling in the same languages. Use text analysis and synonym dictionaries (for a more accurate search for answers to questions).

Answer 3

there are not as many languages ​​as it seems: from three to seven
the big problem is sales, not support
for support and marketing, freelancers are suitable, better than middle age