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Case Study: Reaching multilingual virtual audiences using spf.io

Dec 15, 2020 | Blog, Stories

Two men look at a laptop together while talking and smilingOrganizations which provide essential services are holding more multilingual virtual events than ever. It’s crucial their target audiences can understand them clearly. However, language and ability barriers create a serious challenge. Digital translation is no longer a convenience but a core element of caring for socially and economically diverse communities. Multilingual resources are time-consuming and complicated to create from scratch; that’s where spf.io comes in.

Our client Sustainable Connections was looking for solutions. They’re an organization that partners with others to build up and sustain healthy communities; obviously, communication is vital to their success!

 

Reaching socially and economically diverse audiences

Sustainable Connections recently partnered with Whatcom Housing Alliance to host a series of multilingual virtual events called Housing Week.  With eight virtual events over four days, it provided life-changing information on affordable housing solutions in their area. However, they had a choke point; the target households were multilingual, and on-site interpreters weren’t a practical option in a virtual space.

“Now that all our events are virtual, we used spf.io to help make the information more accessible to our attendees.” – Abbie Lindeberg, Event & Volunteer Coordinator for Sustainable Connections

spf.io bridged the gap to help Housing Week succeed. “spf.io provided both English and Spanish closed captions and transcripts for a multi-day event and it worked seamlessly,” Abbie shared. She also commented on a long-term benefit: “It felt good to know that we had transcripts and closed captions in both English and Spanish available to us.”

 

Personalizing customer support to strengthen events

Additionally, spf.io makes customer service a top priority.  We know that whether the audience is a small group or an entire city, events demand a lot of their hosts’ energy.  We work hard to remove barriers by helping implement spf.io smoothly.  As companies navigate increasingly complex software systems, our staff is on deck with answers.

“spf.io provides quick and helpful customer service with real people emailing you, not just a plug in bot on their website. And they sent a bunch of tutorial videos so myself [sic] and my team could all become familiar with spf.io on our own schedules.” – Abbie Lindeberg

 

Future-proofing culturally relevant communication

Multilingual resources will always be essential. Any organization looking to revitalize and strengthen communities needs a proactive long-term game plan. Starting now allows them to make full use of spf.io for live captioning and translation. Later, these materials can be incorporated into resources for other mediums.

“If you are hosting virtual events, hoping to improve your event accessibility, and have an audience of people who speak different languages, I would absolutely recommend spf.io. Not only do you have access to closed captions in many different languages, but also you can get your materials translated! The pricing is very reasonable and the customer service is excellent.” – Abbie Lindeberg

We can’t afford to wait on taking assertive, proactive actions to caption and translate digital communications. The process of rebuilding and revitalizing communities in the wake of COVID-19 depends on it, as well as any serious long-term efforts to effectively reach diverse populations. Start equipping your organization now by contacting us about spf.io.

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