The objective of any voice experience should be to connect with as many consumers as possible and making it easier for consumers to connect with you. Whether you’re launching an Amazon Alexa Skill or an Action for Google Assistant, making your voice experience accessible is key. Traditionally, this has meant managing multiple language models, building multiple conversation models, and deploying expertise in multiple languages. All in all, not an easy task. Unless you’re using True Reply, that is.
The Basics
Currently, True Reply is an English-language platform. That means for most of your setup, you are always entering your content in English. The platform will automatically translate your content to your target language and, this is the best part, translate your participant responses back to English for analysis and data storage.
All the original responses, in their native language, is also stored but you are able to manage and work with their engagements having already been translated to English.
When you want to launch a voice experience in an alternative language with True Reply, it’s as easy as selecting your language. The platform takes care of the rest.
First, create your new voice application. Once you have the initial setup completed, click on Manage to edit your voice application.
Setting Your Default Language
There are two ways to work with languages in your voice application which create some interesting opportunities.
First, you can set the default language of your voice application by going to Basic Setup and clicking the Change Automated Voice Settings link to expose the voice management of your voice app.
You’ll notice that by default, the voice application is setup to use Device Voice. So that means, for voice applications on Amazon Alexa, you will hear the default Alexa voice and for voice applications on Google Assistant, you’ll hear the default Assistant voice.
Changing your language is as easy as selecting your language and tuning the voice by selecting a voice profile and voice speed.
Quick side note, these settings don’t only apply to translating your voice experience for a different language. If you don’t like the “Default Voice” of your Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant OR you want your voice experience to sound the same regardless whether it’s accessed via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, you can modify your voice settings in this area too.
Once you set and save your new voice settings, updating your basic messaging or your engagement steps will automatically translate your content and present your content in your selected voice for the language.
Setup your basic messaging
With your default language set, your basic messaging can be edited and saved as usual. After you have saved text in your basic messaging that is being translated, you can hit the play button to the left of the text to hear your translated text. Don't see the play button, try refreshing your browser.
A translation creates an audio file to be used with voice assistants. When you want to change your copy for basic messaging, you will click the alphabet icon (i.e. "A") to confirm you want to change your set audio. Confirm you want to change things then update your basic messaging as usual.
Setting a language for engagement steps
If you want to support multiple languages within a single voice experience, set your default language as noted above, then update your language for specific Engagement Steps. To change the language of an engagement step, go to Engagement Step while managing your voice application and click on the engagement step you’d like to change the language for.
From there, click “Advance Setup” from the right side setup panel and select your language setup.
This functionality makes it possible to support multiple languages within the same voice experience and allows users to select their own language on the fly.
Final Notes
Working with translations within True Reply is easy and straight forward but the key is to not over think things. True Reply handles the automated translation of all your Engagement so just setup your content in English and let the platform take care of the rest.
If you’re leveraging Response Handling for Dynamic Scoring, logic branching, or SMS alerts, be sure to use English during all that setup. Use logic branching to direct participants to the proper engagement step for a specific language.
The only aspect of your application setup where you need to provide your own translated content for a target language is in your applications meta data setup.
This setup includes:
- Application Name
- Application Summary
- Application Description
- Application Keywords
- Application invocation phrase/name
Because of the nuances of language, you may choose to call your voice application one thing in Spanish but call it something different in French. This type of nuance applies to how users may start your voice application (the invocation name) or how you describe your voice application to users.
Enabling automated multi-lingual support for voice assistants greatly simplifies who you’re able to bring your experience to and expands the accessibility of your voice application to over 120 languages and 110 countries.