Determining the language of a customer in SF Chat

This document describes the different ways in which you can configure the Language I/O Chat plugin to determine the language of a customer. You can find the settings mentioned in this document in the Language I/O Chat Public Settings.

You can find a detailed description of the language detection flow here.

The settings are: 

• Browser Locale,
• Pre-Chat Page Content,
• Chat Button Language, and
• Locale Detection

Browser locale

By default, a customer’s browser locale determines their language for translation. This is automatic and does not require any particular action on your part.

Pre-Chat Page Content

Subject and Description Detection

It is possible to use the text that a customer inputs in the pre-chat form to detect their language.

To enable this, go to the Language I/O Chat Public Settings and add the Label of a text field from the Case object to the Subject Field (255 characters or less) or Description Field (Long Text Area). In addition, enable Attempt Locale Detection (See the screenshot at the bottom of the page).

This setting overrides “Browser Locale” and “Chat Button Language”.

Picklist Language Selection

If available, the customer can select the language from a dropdown menu (also known as “picklist”) from the pre-chat form. There are two requirements for this:

1. First, this field must belong to the Case object.
2. Second, the API names of the locales in the picklist must match the ones configured in your Language I/O account.

To enable this functionality, add the Label of the picklist field to the Custom Detail Locale setting.

“Picklist Language Selection” overrides the “Subject and Description Detection”. To use it, you must disable Attempt Locale Detection in the Language I/O Chat Public Settings.

Chat Button Language

When you enable Use Chat Button Language, the plugin uses the language of the Chat Button (that shows on the customer facing website) to define the language of the customer for translation.

To check the language of the chat button:

1. Go to Setup > Chat Buttons & Invitations
2. Find the Chat Button and click edit
3. Review the Language field (You can find it under Basic Information)

This setting overrides the “Browser Locale” and “Pre-Chat Picklist Language Selection”. To use it, you must disable Attempt Locale Detection in the Language I/O Chat Public Settings.

Locale Detection

When you enable Attempt Locale Detection, the plugin uses the first message that the customer sends to detect what language they use.

Language I/O Chat Public Settings (click to enlarge):