Not everyone speaks English.

March 11, 2015
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Britain is the most racially diverse country in Europe with almost 1.7m people that don’t speak English as their first language, including 168,000 people that don’t speak English at all.

So how do you cater for this massive market? If you are English speaking and they aren’t then it can become a huge barrier that could result in you losing tenants to someone who speaks their language.

Now, we don’t expect you to learn every language in the world just on the off chance you get a non-speaking tenant.

 Statistically, non-English speaking people are still less than 10% of the population.

LettingFix however is prepared for any possibility. It allows tenants to report issues in any of 40 languages (and more on request) and for their issue report to be sent in English to your inbox.

Goodbye language barriers.

However this isn’t a sales blog, we know LettingFix can’t solve all of life’s problems, we understand that at some point face-to-face contact is needed.

So when it comes to the dreaded face-to-face moment, we suggest:

  • Hiring a translator

This can be pricey yes, however it may be necessary, especially when initially signing the tenancy agreement and agreeing on rent, can you really afford any mistakes? We recommend posting your job on here

  • Family member

After speaking to our customers, we found out that most non-English speaking tenants bring along a family member that can speak English to translate. One customer we spoke with told us how the translator was the tenant’s 10-year-old son, this is where you decide whether the best option is to spend money or not. Obviously a 10 year old cannot be held responsible for mistranslating something and especially when it comes to vital details do you want to try and hold someone responsible for it?

  •  Google translate

Google translate is the final option, it isn’t always reliable, it can be translated incorrectly and can be a bit time consuming which will be slightly awkward while having a conversation if you have to keep referring to Google to try and understand what they said.

So you have a number of choices for face-to-face interactions. But remember you won’t have to worry about any of that kind of problem for repair reporting if you sign up to LettingFix.

(Ok, we lied; it might have been a bit sales-y)

 

 

Alex Evans

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