FEATURES
26 The Linguist Vol/63 No/3
thelinguist.uberflip.com
WHY SPEAKING
SEVERAL LANGUAGES
IS ESSENTIAL TO
EMILY BOALER'S ROLE
AS A TECHNICAL
SUPPORT ENGINEER
W
ith more and more tech companies expanding
their client base abroad, they are increasingly
finding that customers don't speak the
organisation's main language, or at least not enough to
discuss complex computing problems. When clients seek
support with technical queries, they tend to feel a sense
of relief when they can communicate with somebody in
their own language. That's where I step in.
I work as a Multilingual Technical Support Engineer for
Oracle, a major provider of cloud storage. As I support
clients from the UK, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the
US, Canada and Latin America, I am required to use
French, Spanish and Italian daily. Clients call me when
they want to know how to use a certain area of Oracle's
Aconex system, or when they are facing an issue with it.
This is a cloud-based project management system that
enables construction operations to run smoothly by
allowing users to access information easily, connect with
other users, streamline time-consuming tasks and
manage documents.
Projects vary from rail infrastructure to sports stadiums
to wind farms, so the client base is broad. To support
them, I remote into their computers and directly resolve
the issues or offer advice. If I am unable to find a fix, I
raise the problem with our internal support teams,
flagging any issues that I believe to be of high priority so
they can be resolved as quickly as possible.
MEETING MULTINATIONAL CLIENT NEEDS
I find that many clients, especially those from Latin
America, do not speak English. Even when they do, it is
vital to speak to them in their own language as people
set their system to their preferred language, so I need to
know the technical terms in English, French, Spanish and
Italian. Some clients contact us by email, so it's important
to have a high level of written language too.
Typical terms include 'single sign on' (inicio de sesión
único) and '2-step verification' (verificación en 2 pasos).
In tech, if you don't know a word you can't really find an
alternative, so knowing the equivalent terms in all my
languages is key. In some cases, it may be possible to
explain the process – for example, if I didn't know the
Spanish term for '2-step verification', I could ask the
client to generate the code from the app (generar el
SYSTEM
SUPPORT
TECH TERMS
It is vital that support
staff know the relevant
technical terms in all
of their languages so
they can support
international clients
IMAGES
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