Through digital marketing, small businesses can easily build a global marketing presence. But some customers will be less willing to do business with a company overseas. The fact is, most customers place more trust and confidence in local businesses.

An answering service is a valuable tool in a localization strategy. The following are three strategies for localizing through a business answering service. 

Hire an Answering Service With Multilingual Support 

If your customers have a question or problem and a language barrier stands between them and the solution, they're more likely to take their business elsewhere. Customers want a quick answer to their questions. If they have problems communicating, the sale will be lost.

Multilingual answering service support provides customer service in their native language. Seventy-five percent of customers buy products in their native language, while 60 percent avoid English-only sites. Put simply, they will have higher loyalty and trust toward someone from the same culture speaking their native language. 

Choose a Batch of International Numbers

A long-distance call is often a lost customer. In many cases, the customer dials an incorrect number owing to confusing prefixes or country codes. Frustrated after several attempts, they abandon their sales query or support call. 

International phone numbers make it possible to set up a virtual presence anywhere in the world. If your answering service provides multilingual support, the customer may never know that you're not actually physically present in the local market. 

Use a Toll-free Number 

The cost of long-distance calls, however, is a huge barrier to making an inquiry about a product or service. Toll-free numbers are free to call. And importantly, they're easy to dial. Everyone knows how to dial a toll-free number. Toll-free numbers are mistakenly considered marketing tools of the pre-web area in the age of live chat. On the contrary, many shoppers recall vanity numbers more than web addresses. 

The practice some companies of charging for calls to their support lines, however, has more consumers associating toll-free numbers with charges. When advertising your toll-free number, you can avoid any confusion by clearly indicating that the call is free of charge. 

If you were considering replacing the telephone with a virtual web assistant, you will be missing an opportunity to create a connection with customers. Customer support using an answering service still has a lot more marketing pull. 

To get the answering service you need, contact a service provider near you.