Oh yeah, we have this problem a lot. Communicating with tickets and live chat rather than on the phone helps. I find it's a lot easier to decipher text than audio.

One thing is certain and that is the folks who may not be that competent speaking English would mostly use the written forms of communications, mainly the email and ticketing systems, and so the important part to be done by you as the hosting account provider is patiently and clearly respond to the queries and questions received and happily have contact with your customers even if they send several emails.

Just use google translate. Make your life easier

I know both Spanish and Russian, so those two languages are not issues for us. With regard to other languages, we either try to make the best of the situation and reduce the number of advanced vocab words, or make use of a translation service if its really bad.

Well there are a lot of online translators that can be found in the WWW. There may be some problems with grammars or sentence structures, but the main thought is still there so it's all cool. And thank God, I have not yet experienced that kind of problem.

All I can say is do your best and use Google language tools if need be. It can be a frustrating experience at times.

We have a person who its first language is Spanish, (that is me) so language hasn't be a problem so far as the majority of our clients are able to communicate in English or in Spanish

I would recommend using translators ONLY for just some small help like finding the meaning of a word.

Hello,

I think it is not a big issue. Just use online language translators and make your support available in all languages with best support service

We haven't really had an issue with this but I can see why it could be a problem. I think livechat/ phone support would cause more problems because there is no time to think. Sometimes reading a support ticket a couple of times will give you the right idea.

Well, unfortunately, we tend to turn away customers that can't speak English at least well enough to communicate. This is for no other reason than without good communication, we can't adequately get the details about their job, and then communicate what we've done to them.

I'm not saying they have to be English professors, but they need to be able to communicate to us what they want done, otherwise we run the risk of misunderstanding their request, and then making ourselves look bad in the process.

The language is not a problem. We do support Spanish clients in Spanish but none of us know Spanish. Thanks to Google Translator.
I agree with kashirakaze but still it can be managed (by changing the sentence).

I have used Google translator few times when I had to. (Client was not able to communicate in English)

Google translator worked just fine for me. But I agree with others here that you need to make sure it hasn't messed up with your message.

The trick is, try to use as simple sentences as you can. (avoid idioms, jargon etc)

I can muddle my way through stuff for the most part, as Conor said. (spanish and portuguese) then there is Google Translator, which, out of all of them, seems to work the best. Hell, I even use it with my wife from time to time (brazilian).

One other point, is that when you are trying to communicate in with a non native English speaker, or for that matter a non native American speaker, use the KISS theory and don't use slang in anything, or if you are going to use an expression, make sure you say it's an expression.

I used a translator like google translate and from that I try my best to understand what he is saying.

English is really necessary for the people who are giving customer services.Without this you can give good customer services.You have maintain this thing.