| Esterlam International
is an SME based in the South West of England, who manufacture and supply print
machine parts which are used in all areas of the printing, coating and laminating
industries. They export over 80% of the goods manufactured, and supply every continent,
dealing with companies and customers speaking many different languages. Neil Hailey
from Esterlam talks to the Regional Language Network South West about how languages
have given his company an advantage. "Initially
we found that not being able to speak the native language was sometimes a major
barrier to sales. There are many overseas companies today who do not want to deal
with a company which cannot speak the native tongue. This translates to some major
potential sales which are lost purely through not being able to speak the language. "Esterlam
has a standard set of questions, terms and phrases used in the various industries
we supply which help to identify the correct products for the different customer.
We incorporated these into a glossary of terms and also included various greetings
and introductions. We have had these translated into various languages including
Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish and Italian. "Whenever
we send an introductory e-mail or fax to foreign companies, we always use their
native language to introduce our company, our products, the benefits they offer
and the technical services we offer. Prior to translating the glossary and introductions,
if we sent twenty to thirty e-mails or faxes introducing our company and products
in English, if we had 15% reply in a month, I would be pleased. Now, because we
e-mail or fax introductions in the native language, I would expect to get at least
80% of them reply within a few days and normally 50% reply by return. "We
attend trade shows worldwide and always take our laminated, translated introduction
and question sheets. On many occasions, people have visited the stand who cannot
speak English but as a result of showing them the relevant translation sheets,
we have managed to get the information we need to generate the sale. It often
results in a bit of a laugh at the time as we sort through the relevant questions,
but we get the information we need which in turn gets the business.
"Esterlam
has generated a lot of business that would have been lost years ago purely by
conversing initially in the native language. Learning to deal in one, two or three
languages really isn't that difficult but it is definitely something we would
recommend to any exporter who wants to increase sales overseas."
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Source:
RLN South West |
