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Support customers in several languages

A multilingual bot is for businesses with customers in more than one country or language, and a support team that can't cover every language at every hour. The same bot can answer a question asked in Spanish, German or Japanese, usually from the same knowledge, so you don't have to translate your whole help centre before you start.

Two things are set separately: the language of the widget's interface (buttons, placeholders and labels), and the language the bot answers in. This page shows how to get both right, and when one bot per language is the better choice.

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Plans

Everything on this page works on every plan. The widget interface is available in 10 languages. Running one bot per language uses one of your plan's bots each (Free 1, Basic 3, Standard 6, Pro 20, Enterprise 50). See Compare plans.

Who can do this: team owners and admins set this up.

One bot or one per language?

One bot for all languagesOne bot per language
SetupOne set of knowledge and instructionsSeparate knowledge, instructions and power-ups for each
Best whenYour content is mostly in one language and products are the same everywhereEach market has its own products, prices, policies or support team
HandoffsOne team inbox receives all languagesEach bot can hand off to the local team

Most businesses start with one bot and split only when a market's content or team is genuinely different.

What you'll set up

  1. Knowledge sources. Add your main content as usual. The bot can often answer a question in one language from content in another, but answers are more reliable when your key pages (pricing, returns, top FAQs) exist in each language your customers use. Add translated pages as extra website URLs or manual content. YouTube sources only use English captions.
  2. Instructions. Add a language rule to the Prompt, as in the example below. Without one, most models reply in the language the customer writes in, but a Prompt written in one language can pull answers towards it. See Write your bot's instructions.
  3. Channel: the widget. Set the interface language in the web channel's Language menu (English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Polish or Dutch), then copy the embed code again, because the language is part of it. On a site with several language versions, set locale, firstMessageOverride and exampleQuestionsOverride in window.chatThingConfig on each version instead. See Set the widget language.
  4. Other channels. WhatsApp, email and the other channels (Standard and above) follow the same Prompt rule, so customers get replies in the language they wrote in.
  5. Handoff. With Talk to a human, your team receives the conversation in the customer's language. Tell the bot to add a one-line English summary before handing off, or hand off to a team that speaks the language.
  6. Analytics. Review Conversations in each language you support, ideally with a native speaker, at least in the first few weeks.

Example instructions

You are the support assistant for Acme, which sells coffee equipment across Europe.

Language:
- Always reply in the language the customer writes in. If they switch language, switch with them.
- If you can't tell which language they're using, reply in English.
- Our help content is mostly in English. Translate answers naturally, but keep product names, menu labels and order numbers exactly as written.
- Prices differ by country. Only quote the price for the customer's country if it's in the information provided; otherwise link to the product page.

Handoff:
- Before passing a conversation to the team, write a one-line summary in English of what the customer needs.

More starting points: multilingual support prompts in the prompt library.

Example conversations

Customer: Hola, ¿cuánto tarda el envío a Valencia?

Bot: ¡Hola! Los envíos a España peninsular tardan de 2 a 4 días laborables, y son gratuitos a partir de 50 €. ¿Quieres que te explique cómo seguir tu pedido?

Customer: Meine Maschine zeigt den Fehler E04 an.

Bot: Fehler E04 bedeutet, dass der Wassertank nicht richtig sitzt. Nimm den Tank heraus, prüfe, ob der Dichtungsring sauber ist, und setze ihn fest wieder ein. Wenn der Fehler bleibt, verbinde ich dich gern mit unserem Support-Team.

Pitfalls

  • Expecting the Language menu to translate answers. It only translates the widget's interface. It doesn't change the reply language or translate your welcome message and example questions.
  • Forgetting to update the embed code. After changing Language, copy the code from Embed again. An unsupported locale code falls back to English.
  • Translated menu labels. If your product's UI is only in English, tell the bot to keep menu labels in English, or customers won't find the buttons it describes.
  • Region-specific facts from the wrong region. Prices, delivery times and legal terms often differ by country. Label them clearly in your content, or use one bot per market.
  • No native-speaker review. A fluent-sounding answer can still be wrong or oddly formal. Have someone who speaks the language check a sample of conversations.

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