Would you trust your money with a bank that didn’t serve you in your language
Language accessibility is always important to the customer experience, but it matters more in financial institutions. While your customers may be comfortable buying a bottle of water at a store where clerks don’t speak their language, it’s another matter to trust their mortgage or retirement savings with a company they can’t communicate with effectively.
Providing language accessibility to customers builds trust and confidence in your services, but the impacts also quietly spread to multiple aspects of your operations. A well-executed accessibility strategy can address high-priority concerns across multiple areas of your organization:
- Compliance: risk reduction
- CX: improved customer experience
- HR: expanded workplace inclusion
- IT: secure enterprise solutions
Language accessibility and compliance in financial services
If communication accessibility mandates are what got the ball rolling for your institution, there’s no shame in that. Regulatory requirements, including those in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), are a standard starting point for many accessibility plans. ADA requirements to provide equal access to services for individuals with disabilities apply to many financial institutions. Failure to comply can result in costly legal and financial penalties and reputational damage that the internet will never forget. While no one accessibility solution is a silver bullet for full compliance with those regulations, every step to increase accessibility for protected groups can reduce your risk of noncompliance and its consequences. In the case of Deaf and hard-of-hearing customers, effectively providing equal access depends on how they communicate:- Hard-of-hearing individuals who speak but don’t hear well may prefer real-time captioning and written communication.
- On-demand ASL interpreting can provide equal communication access to Deaf customers who primarily use sign language.
- It’s slow. Writing notes back and forth takes 10 times as long as using an ASL interpreter to communicate with Deaf customers. How many other customers are waiting for service while you’re writing notes with a Deaf client?
- It’s limiting. Between how long it takes and the Deaf Americans being around a fourth-grade level, employees and customers can’t effectively communicate about complex topics by passing notes.
- It’s invisible. Not only is it difficult to prove you’ve offered note-writing as a reasonable accommodation to Deaf and hard-of-hearing customers, but it’s also not a solution you would proactively market to attract them as customers.
CX: Improving financial services customer experience with language access
Customer experience is an often-overlooked aspect of accessibility. For decades, businesses doing the bare minimum to comply with accessibility mandates have missed out on the benefit of providing service that leaves their customers feeling valued. Great service is part of building trust. Trust breeds loyalty. Loyal customers stay with you, and they recommend you to people they know (and strangers on the internet; Reddit, Quora, even LinkedIn are full of people asking for recommendations and people serving up their tried-and-true suggestions). When consumers have as many options as they do for financial services, optimizing customer service is not merely a nice-to-have:- 88% of consumers say experience is as important as products/services.
- 97% of customers say customer service accessibility is an important factor in brand loyalty.
While customer experience is important to all customers, it’s especially influential for commonly underserved groups — like Deaf and linguistic minorities. The majority ofcustomers who use languages other than English say they heavily weigh recommendations from friends and family in choosing who they bank with.And customers aren’t shy about sharing those recommendations if they feel your service warrants it; nearly3 out of 4will tell others about a positive experience.
What makes for a positive customer experience
All the little things add up to create a great customer experience, but Americans overwhelmingly agree about which elements matter most: speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service. These key aspects of the customer experience scream language accessibility. They also all boil down to demonstrating to customers that you value them and prioritize giving them excellent service. Now that personalization is standard practice for top-tier customer service, the public expects that businesses will use all that data they’re collecting to tailor marketing and maintenance to customers’ individual needs and preferences including language. In fact, that’s a dealbreaker for many consumers; two out of five say they don’t give their money to companies that won’t accommodate their primary language.Improving customer experience with inclusive language solutions
Language accessibility has exploded with the expansion of broadband internet and, more recently, artificial intelligence. While providing access in the past typically required scheduling and specialized equipment, now you can access inclusive language solutions for everyday use — no need to plan ahead or manage clunky tech.
For example, AI-powered speech translation and captioning, like Sorenson Forum, combines the real-time captioning functionality of Communication Access Realtime Translation CART for hard-of-hearing accessibility with instant translation into dozens of languages simultaneously.
For communicating with Deaf customers who primarily use American Sign Language (ASL), captioning isn’t an ideal solution — but on- demand ASL interpreting can be. Sorenson Express is an app- and browser-based solution you can use to get an ASL interpreter on-the-fly to serve customers quickly and effectively — welcome them warmly, ask and answer questions, educate them about services — in their language and yours.
Customer experience as a business development driver
While financial services are essential for most people and can provide value to the public, it’s still a business with a need to attract and retain customers. It’s no stretch to make the connection between inclusive customer service and retention. However, institutions may overlook the power of accessibility as a magnet for new business. It’s common knowledge that referrals are one of the most valuable ways any business acquires new customers, and statistics make it abundantly clear why:- 9 out of 10 consumers trust recommendations from friends or family more than any type of marketing. And in fact, half of consumers rely on those recommendations when choosing a business.
- Referrals are 5x more likely to become customers than other lead sources.
- Customers from referrals average 16% higher lifetime value than other customers.
HR: Language accessibility and workplace inclusion in financial services
HR teams play a critical role in building diverse, inclusive workplaces. That work goes beyond hiring. It includes ensuring employees with disabilities can succeed and that company values show up in customer-facing experiences. By actively promoting accessibility, you’re not only enhancing the customer experience but also fostering a more inclusive workplace. When your institution commits to meeting the language and culture needs of your customers, it sends a clear message that everyone is valued and supported. This can offer substantial operational benefits such as increased employee morale and reduced turnover. This commitment also encourages employees from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to feel seen and respected, which expands workplace inclusion. Training front-line staff on best practices for interacting with Deaf or multilingual customers, and on when and how to use ASL interpreting or translation services, equips employees to respond confidently and efficiently. The result: less uncertainty, faster service, and a more inclusive experience for all.IT: Secure, scalable language accessibility solutions for enterprise IT
Security and privacy are elements of customer experience. That may not be obvious when your IT operations are running like a well-oiled machine, but it becomes apparent the moment you have an outage or a breach. Secure and Seamless Communication Solutions For IT departments, the challenge lies in implementing robust, secure, and user-friendly technology that supports accessibility initiatives without compromising data integrity or system performance.- The Impact: Integrating ASL interpreting services, especially remote video interpreting (VRI), requires careful consideration of bandwidth needs, platform compatibility, and data security. However, the right technology solution can provide a flexible and efficient way to offer interpreting services across multiple branches or even for virtual meetings.
- Your Solution: We partner with financial institutions to implement secure, reliable VRI platforms that integrate seamlessly with your existing infrastructure, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations while providing high-quality video and audio for interpreting sessions.
The bottom line: language accessibility as a strategic growth driver
Investing in language accessibility, particularly ASL interpreting, is more than just fulfilling a social responsibility. It's a strategic investment that:- Expands your customer base: Taps into the significant market of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.
- Enhances your brand reputation: Positions your institution as inclusive, forward-thinking, and customer-centric.
- Reduces legal risks: Ensures compliance with federal accessibility mandates.
- Boosts employee confidence and satisfaction: Empowers your team to serve all customers effectively.
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