Upstream Works Rob McDougall Featured in Destination CRM

Rob McDougall is the CEO of Upstream Works, an enterprise-ready, agent-first omnichannel contact center desktop solution and Escalate PR client. His insights on the challenges of integrating real-time machine translation into contact centers were recently featured in Destination CRM, sharing his insights.

The article makes the case that as businesses strive to support multilingual customers, machine translation technologies are said to transform customer service by enabling seamless chatbot conversations, knowledge base translations, and even voice-based interactions. However, McDougall points out that real-time translation for voice channels still has limitations, requiring complex third-party integrations and significant resources.

You can have a third voice doing the translation in near real time, but it’s not as seamless as chatting in different languages,” he explains. “Although the capability exists, audio translations still rely heavily on human interpreters for accuracy and fluency.

While machine translation is rapidly evolving, experts like Rob McDougall advise businesses to prioritize automating translations for languages they already support before expanding to additional markets.

Further insights from McDougall in this piece by Destination CRM can be read here.