Ciao a tutti Buon giorno /Ciao Senthil In attesa della sessione 

The first words my client spoke to me :-) 

To set the stage for the story:

I am Senthil Kumar a Product consultant helping a client in the Challenging Post Covid Online world.My team is building an ecommerce site for the client .An additional challenge is we didn't have a common language .The Client is fluent in Spanish and Italian While my Indian team is English and Tamil speaking. Naturally the client was a little apprehensive to begin with . 

How did we overcome this language barrier and deliver a successful product ? 

Preparation was the Key .We got the team prepared well for the language surprise .It does not hurt to know basic words in the clients language and much better it turned into a client delight when they realised our team was putting efforts to learn their language .

Believe me or not my client asked for my mother tongue and next day there was a surprise ! The first words were Vanakkam from my client team(A respectful way of saying hello in my mother tongue). Speaking or Trying to speak a persons native language is a easy way to win their hearts .

Collaboration Tool :An online collaboration tool plays a vital role in gathering the requirements and our choice was Mural .Mural helped us in a visual and diagrammatic way to engage and gather requirements.The team used Product in the box , User Journey diagrams,Storyboarding to gather requirements . Methodologies that transcend the language barrier 

A sample product In the box format we used for the client.

The next key person is the interpreter who acts as a gatekeeper between your team and the client .The team was very attentive even when the interpreter is translating to the client . A warm smile, being inquisitive and positive body language from the team boosts the confidence of the client as well as the interpreter 

We made sure all the cameras were on for the entire online session .A indirect way to show your commitment to the client. 

You are bound to go wrong with the language issues and believe me humour and a smile can save us from a lot of trouble . Also doesn’t hurt to have common interests with the client In our case Football,Godfather and Marlon Brando saved us a lot of trouble :-)

Tools /Techniques that helped our team :

•  Be deliberately slow in your language and summarise all the key points
•  Make sure to send a clear summary of the session to all stake holders 
• Google lens -A clever way to see real time translation of client document /images (in our case from Italian to English ) 
• Google Translate-( Use this judiciously to translate all client documents /legacy code /real time questions to your own language ) 
• Being Visual and using pictures when possible 
• Show empathy to the team members and Clients . It’s bound to be frustrating at times and being empathetic helps you win the client’s trust .

Curious to know what the customer said in Italian at the beginning of the post  ?

Ciao a tutti Buon giorno /Ciao Senthil In attesa della sessione 

Hello Every one Good Day /Hello Senthil Waiting for the session :-) 

Gracie Tutti /Thank you All :-)