Who needs multilingual phone answering
Not just big hotels. A small business gets calls in another language as soon as it has passing or international customers:
- hotels, B&Bs, campsites and holiday lets, for a booking, a practical question or a late arrival;
- restaurants and pizzerias in tourist areas, for a table or a takeaway order;
- shops and services in ski resorts, seaside towns or border towns ;
- healthcare practices, garages and tradespeople who see a holidaymaker whose car has broken down or a patient passing through;
- estate and letting agencies working with foreign buyers or tenants.
These calls often come at the worst moment: in high season, when the line is already busy. Our guide to seasonal call peaks deals with the question of volume.
What changes when the call isn't in your language
At the counter, you manage: you show the menu, point at a map, write down a price. On the phone, all that's left is the voice, and several things get harder.
- Numbers and dates. Formats change from one country to another: day and month the other way round, the twelve-hour clock, numbers with a foreign country code. That's where booking errors creep in.
- Proper names. Spelling out a foreign name, an address, a hotel name, with nothing in writing.
- The caller's stress. A traveller who is late, broken down or lost in an unfamiliar town needs a clear answer, fast.
- Effort poorly rewarded. The caller who tries your language, or the receptionist who tries theirs, often ends up with a polite misunderstanding that nobody dares point out.
So the risk isn't only losing the call. It's also taking down the wrong request: the wrong date, the wrong number of people, a number noted down incorrectly.
The solutions within reach of a small business
| Solution | Languages | Availability | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| You or your team | The ones you speak | Your opening hours | Depends on who is in, frequent approximations |
| Bilingual voicemail | One or two | Always | Takes nothing down, the caller has to leave a message |
| Call answering service | Depends on the provider | Its operating hours | Languages and cost vary with the contract |
| AI voice agent | Nearly 100 with Sayelo | 24/7 | Only knows what you have written for it |
Call answering services and voice agents are compared in detail in our comparison of an AI voice agent and a call answering service.
How the language switch works
With Sayelo, multilingual answering rests on five principles.
- An option to switch on. Multilingual answering is included in every plan, but switched off by default: you turn on the “Multilingual agent” option agent by agent, with a simple switch. Without it, the agent stays in its usual language and offers to take a message.
- Automatic switching. The agent answers in its usual language (by default, your country's). As soon as the caller says their first few words in another language, it switches and holds the conversation in that language. If the caller switches back, the agent goes back with them.
- The same work, whatever the language. A booking or appointment in your calendar, a request noted, a practical question answered, a transfer according to your rules.
- A summary of every call. Every call reaches you by email as a clear summary, whatever language was spoken.
- A transcript you can translate. It stays true to what was said, in the language spoken, and can be translated in one click, to check a name or a detail.
The list of languages covered is on our supported languages page.
Preparing your information for every language
The agent answers from the information you give it, in your own language. The clearer it is, the better it carries over from one language to another.
- Write simply. Short sentences, with no abbreviations or in-house expressions. “Bkfst incl. exc. Sun.” comes out badly; “Breakfast is included, except on Sundays” works in every language.
- Remove any ambiguity about dates and times. “From midday to two o'clock”, “closed all day on Mondays”, prices with their currency.
- Describe your products. The name of a pizza or a room means nothing to a foreigner: add a line of description that the agent can explain.
- Answer visitors' questions. How to get there from the station or airport, parking, payment methods accepted on site, pets, accessibility, languages spoken by the team.
- Write down your terms. Cancellation, deposit, latest arrival time: the agent gives them exactly as you have written them.
- Set the limits. What the agent doesn't confirm itself (a room or a table outside your rules) and what it passes on without committing, such as a question about an allergen.
- Set the pronunciation of your business's name, and the variants callers are likely to use.
Then test it as a customer would: call, or have a friend or relative call, in your customers' languages, then read the summary and the translated transcript.
Two examples
Hotel: a late arrival in English
Late in the evening, a traveller calls in English: their train is delayed. The agent switches to English, reassures them, gives them the night-time instructions you have planned and notes the estimated arrival time. Reception reads the summary in their own language the next morning, or receives the transfer if your rules provide for it. Our hotels page walks through a full call.
Pizzeria: an order in Spanish during the rush
In the middle of service, a family of tourists calls in Spanish to order a takeaway. The agent takes the pizzas, the extras, the name and the collection time, and passes the order on to the counter. Nobody has left the oven. See the pizzerias page, and our guide to restaurant phone bookings for tables.
What multilingual answering doesn't replace
The agent backs up your team and never replaces it, and that holds true in every language. It only gives the prices and availability you have provided. Anything binding, such as a quote or the terms of a stay, is confirmed in writing. And when you call a foreign customer back, the translated transcript lets you prepare the call; the follow-up can also be done by email.
To build the conversation itself, from the greeting to the wrap-up, our greeting scripts by trade apply whatever the language. In high season, also think about simultaneous calls: 1, 2, 5 or 10 depending on the plan. Details are on the pricing page, with a 14-day free trial.
