Multilingual AI receptionists: answering callers in their own language

When a caller doesn’t speak your language well, the call is slow for both sides, and some of those callers hang up. A multilingual AI phone assistant answers them in the language they speak, so they can book or ask what they need without help from someone on your team who happens to speak it.

How it knows which language to speak

It answers in your main language. When the caller speaks, it identifies the language word by word and replies in the language of that first sentence. The caller doesn’t choose from a menu or press a key.

Here a caller rings a hotel in the UK and speaks Spanish:

0:23

ASSISTANTHarbour View Hotel, how can I help?

CALLERHola, buenas. ¿Hablan español? Quería una habitación doble para este fin de semana.Hi there. Do you speak Spanish? I'd like a double room for this weekend.

Heard Spanish, so it answers in Spanish from here on

Checked availability: a sea-view double is free Friday and Saturday

ASSISTANTSí, claro. Tengo una doble con vistas al mar libre el viernes y el sábado, a 120 libras la noche con desayuno. ¿Se la reservo?Of course. I have a sea-view double free on Friday and Saturday, £120 a night with breakfast. Shall I book it for you?

CALLERSí, perfecto. A nombre de Javier Ortega.Yes, perfect. Under the name Javier Ortega.

Booked a sea-view double for Friday and Saturday under Javier Ortega

ASSISTANTHecho, Javier. Queda reservada del viernes al domingo. ¡Hasta el viernes!Done, Javier. It's booked from Friday to Sunday. See you on Friday!

The assistant switched to Spanish after the caller’s first sentence, checked which rooms were free, quoted the price and booked the room. The booking went into the hotel’s system the same way an English booking would.

When the caller switches language

Callers don’t always stay in one language. Replystate’s assistant handles three cases:

• The caller moves to another language for a full sentence, or for two turns in a row. It follows.
• The caller asks for a language (“Can we speak English?”). It switches and stays in that language until the caller asks again.
• The caller says a word or two in another language, a name, a number or “OK”. It stays where it is.

Names, street names and numbers are often in another language. An assistant that switched on each of them would change language mid-call for no reason.

What stays the same in every language

You write your information and rules once, in your own language: opening hours, prices, policies, which calls go to which person. The assistant answers from them in the language of the call. You don’t keep a copy of everything in each language.

Bookings, changes and messages go into your systems the same way whatever language the call was in.

By default the assistant uses the same voice in every language. It can also use a voice with a local accent, such as Mexican Spanish or Canadian French.

The 23 languages

Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

You can hear the greeting in each of them on the languages page.

What to check before you rely on it

Call it in each language your callers use, and if you can, ask a native speaker to listen. Check how it says your prices, dates and times, and the names of your services.

Some words have a usual translation that’s wrong for your business, such as the name of a treatment, a room type or a dish. You can add the right word to its instructions, for example “in Spanish, call the deep tissue massage masaje descontracturante”, and it will use it.

Decide what happens with calls it can’t help with. A caller who wants a person can be transferred, but the person who answers may not speak their language. You can send those calls to someone who does, or have the assistant take a message.

Ask any provider how it decides which language to speak, whether it switches back when a caller says a single English word, and whether you have to translate your information yourself.

About Replystate

Replystate makes an AI phone assistant that answers and makes calls for businesses, in 23 languages. Our team sets it up with you and connects it to your systems. After that you can change it yourself in the dashboard, where you can read every call and see what the assistant did. To hear it with your own business, get in touch.