Rubric helps Amway give a voice to its global business owners

Since its humble small-town beginnings in 1959, Amway has grown into one of the biggest and most recognizable companies in the world. It has achieved this not only by enriching people’s lives with first-rate consumer products, but also – more distinctively – giving industrious entrepreneurs a chance to start their own business and reach for greatness by selling these products. There are millions of Amway Business Owners (ABOs) around the globe who have exclusive access to hundreds of high-quality nutrition, beauty, and home products they can sell and profit from.

With so many bright minds working towards the same goal, Amway saw an opportunity for communication and collaboration – so it created The Voice, a digital platform for ABOs to connect with one another and with Amway. Through The Voice, ABOs can share ideas, propose new Amway products, and recommend winning strategies to one another. Everyone’s in it together, united by their drive for success and prosperity. 

When Amway first launched The Voice in 2014, their goal was to have ABOs from 50% of regional markets register on the platform. But with an effective multi-channel awareness campaign, they managed to exceed expectations considerably and reach a total of 88%. But registration was only the first piece of the puzzle; it’s one thing to have so many voices in one place, but quite another to ensure they can all understand each other.  

Considering that The Voice unites ambitious ABOs from so many regions speaking over 60 languages, Amway knew that accurate and efficient translation was key to the program’s success. People needed to be able to communicate their ideas and opinions freely, without worrying about being misunderstood. Anything less would significantly undermine the entire project – especially while it is still in its infancy. 

Translation needed to happen quickly whilst retaining the holistic meaning of the message and making sure that the ABO knows that Amway is taking the time to understand what they are saying and respond in their language. 

Due to the sheer scale of these requirements, automatic machine translation (like Google Translate) was an obvious choice for most cases, but not all. For example, Japan had expressed concern over the accuracy of Japanese translation on the platform and was only willing to promote it if Amway could guarantee that all content created by and for Japanese ABOs would be accurate. South Korea posed a similar challenge, as would future markets like China. 

The stakes were too high not to address the languages needs of ABOs in these vital global markets; markets that are essential to the success of The Voice and its growth as a platform. Amway had an existing relationship with Rubric and knew they would be able to help them rise to the challenge. 

The core requirements of the project involved translating comments from Amway Business Owners on The Voice platform, and then translating the response. This was especially important in the context of discussion around comments and ideas not authored in English, to facilitate open communication between non-English speaking ABOs and English-speaking Amway employees. A specific goal of the project was for these “conversations” to be as meaningful as those between two native English speakers.

Rubric was to be on call to provide high-quality translation on an ongoing basis, five days a week. One of Amway’s key targets for the project was to boost engagement on the platform, specifically to have 10% of registered ABOs regularly commenting, voting and submitting ideas.

Rubric’s services on The Voice project have exceeded expectations. In addition to delivering high quality, consistent translation that has boosted engagement in key markets, Rubric has gone above and beyond by offering valuable advice that has improved efficiency and profitability – truly acting as a Global Content Partner. 

The results speak for themselves: a 220% increase in engagement across the platform, with around 37% of ABOs regularly commenting, voting, or submitting ideas. Rubric’s agile translation has helped create trust between Amway and their international ABOs, ensuring communication that is accurate, clean, and facilitates understanding. This increases the legitimacy of the site and shows ABOs that Amway is willing to go the extra mile to make sure their voices are heard.

According to Jami Lundborg, Digital Platform Manager at Amway, “The translation moderation work [provided by Rubric] is what makes The Voice successful on a global level. Without it, we would not see the engagement levels we are seeing, and we would not have the support of some of our kep markets where machine translation is not sufficient.”

Rubric added considerable value to the project as a trusted Global Content advisor, providing clear and practical ongoing advice to improve the platform. For example, they suggested that Amway optimize the number of languages supported according to the actual amount of content coming in. Rubric followed through with the actual data to support this, working together with Amway to determine which adjustments would yield the most value. 

Rubric’s work on the platform has had a further notable impact, as The Voice team has since won an IdeaScale innovation award for their engagement strategy – specifically for their translation support. This goes to show that investing in a comprehensive Global Content strategy has a tangible impact that doesn’t go unnoticed. By fostering discourse across traditional language barriers, Amway has proven itself to be a truly global organization.

Amway has high expectations for The Voice, with plans to expand into the Chinese market in the near future and a goal of reaching 30,000 active registered ABOs by the end of 2018. Entering the world’s largest market will be no small feat, and Amway will need to ensure their platform is in perfect shape to provide a seamless, natural experience for all Chinese-language users.

Based on the success of The Voice project thus far, Rubric is set to play an equally large role in Amway’s Global Content efforts going forward. And because the company has recently implemented Adobe Analytics – offering granular insight into many business activities – Rubric will have the data to provide an even better service as Amway’s trusted Global Content advisor.