How 3 DTC Brands Used Unbabel to Enhance Their Multilingual CX

May 13, 2022

Direct to consumer (DTC) brands that have found success in the hyper-competitive world of ecommerce all have one thing in common: They are able to adapt to provide a five-star customer experience across every interaction and touchpoint. 

These brands focus obsessively on creating deep relationships with their customer communities, which means they know exactly how to delight their buyers before, during, and after the purchase. Top DTC companies have mastered the art of aligning people, process, and technology to design a CX strategy that is custom-tailored to their audience’s needs. 

This is an especially impressive feat when a company is experiencing global growth and is expected to carry over the superb CX for which they are known into other countries. Not only does this mean adapting marketing and customer service communications to new languages, but doing so in a way that fits the cultural nuances and regional preferences of each new market. 

Here are three examples of how we helped celebrated DTC brands solve their unique translation and localization challenges to connect with customers around the world. 

Photobox builds a pipeline of consistently high-quality translations 

Photobox, an online photo printing and gifting company headquartered in London, was in need of a translation solution after completing an extensive content migration to a new digital platform. Their content team wanted a partner capable of executing high-quality translations and educating employees on how to keep operations running smoothly to minimize business disruption. 

To help Photobox build a repeatable system for translating their website content, our team: 

  • Optimized style guides and translation memories to increase quality and efficiency.

  • Collaborated with functional teams to configure workflows and automate processes.

  • Worked with the company’s technical team to prepare content for the translation process.

“Our product managers and tech developers are all so impressed that the Unbabel team can not only talk to our copywriters about translations and to me about process, but also to our tech teams about APIs and pulling content from our website. They’ve taken everything we’ve thrown at them, delivering it all and making my job easy.”

— Rachel Holdsworth, Head of Content at Photobox

Our partnership resulted in a systematized process capable of handling 100% of the company’s translation needs. The streamlined system we built, powered by the Unbabel translation ordering platform, is highly intuitive so new users can learn to place translation orders in minutes. This allows team leaders to oversee content operations at a high level — rather than manage day-to-day needs — and keep customers across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand happy with their digital experience.

Accor Hotels discovers the benefits of a custom translation API  

Accor Hotels, an international hospitality company with a presence in 90+ countries, required a trustworthy partner to assist with translation and localization for their application platform. We began with a successful trial project in collaboration with their technology firm, during which we identified several ways to increase efficiency and productivity moving forward. From there, we:

  • Established dedicated translation teams for each of their language combinations.

  • Set up feedback loops to ensure all revisions and suggestions were taken into account.

  • Built a platform-to-platform integration using a custom ​​application programming interface. 

The company immediately saw value from the custom API, which eliminated the need for manual updates by giving them the ability to push all content directly into translation. The new translation system has allowed them to meet tight deadlines for key translation projects across a wide range of languages. Saving their team’s feedback and suggestions to the brand’s translation memory has not only increased accuracy, it has also helped Accor Hotels save time and money from project to project. 

Eventbrite streamlines workflows while keeping costs down  

Eventbrite, a U.S.-based event management and ticketing company, needed to develop foreign language versions of its website and user interface as the company sought to break into new global markets. 

They also had to translate their smartphone applications and booking confirmation communications, as well as related marketing assets. Like many companies, their applications are in a continual cycle of development, so we had to be quite intentional about how we cooperated with their go-to-market teams. Working together, Unbabel and Eventbrite: 

  • Improved the brand’s reach and user experience with high-quality translations of their website and applications in 10+ languages.

  • Integrated content systems so their teams no longer have to export files for translation. 

  • Created an end-to-end translation process that ensures continuity for their app release schedule. 

Today, Eventbrite is proud to have a unified multilingual CX featuring on-brand translations across a variety of digital mediums. Through careful coordination among technologists, translators, project teams, and account managers, we have built a reliable localization pipeline that will continue to work for new languages as the business grows. This increased translation efficiency has also allowed their company to maintain cost effectiveness as they scale into new languages.  

“Unbabel has been Eventbrite’s partner for over five years, working with us to scale our localization process to handle a range of content types, from apps and help center articles to marketing services and more, across eleven languages. Their partnership has helped us simplify our workflow and move faster while keeping costs down.”

— Patrick McLoughlin, Localization Manager at Eventbrite

See what Unbabel can do for you

Whether your company is looking to break into new markets, adapt to seasonal surges, or streamline multilingual operations to reduce costs, Unbabel can help. Schedule a demo to see how our seamless translation can help improve your global customer experience.

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Content Team

Unbabel’s Content Team is responsible for showcasing Unbabel’s continuous growth and incredible pool of in-house experts. It delivers Unbabel’s unique brand across channels and produces accessible, compelling content on translation, localization, language, tech, CS, marketing, and more.