How to read a language list
A vendor’s list of supported languages means that a speech recognition model, a language model and a synthetic voice exist for each entry.
On a real line, callers have regional accents, read out numbers, spell their names and change language halfway through a sentence. The agent must also quote the same price in every language.
Benerra publishes no fixed list of languages. It builds and trains each neuro-agent for the languages of its deployment. Adding a language means writing your instructions, your rules and your escalation policy in it, and that is scoping work.
The way to check a language is a phone call placed by a native speaker. Score every call on the same scorecard. Seven calls test where a multilingual AI voice agent fails.
Seven calls to place in every language
Use native speakers for every language and accent you test, and give each one a real task from your own line. Keep the calls short, and record them or ask the vendor for the recording and the transcript.
Pick three facts the agent must get right, such as a price, an opening time and a cancellation rule. Ask all three in each language and compare the answers side by side. Different answers mean the languages run on different versions of your facts, and that gap is the first one to close.
A list entry says “French” or “Spanish” and names no region. Recognition quality varies with the line, the background noise and the accent. Repeat call one with callers from different places: Spanish speakers from Mexico and from Spain, French speakers from France, Belgium, Switzerland and Québec. Choose the accents your own callers have. Score whether the agent understood on the first pass, asked for a repeat or answered a different question.
French phone numbers are read in pairs, so 92 is said “quatre-vingt-douze”. In France 70 is “soixante-dix” and 90 is “quatre-vingt-dix”; Belgium and Switzerland say “septante” and “nonante”. A phone number has nine digits in Spain and ten in Mexico, and callers group them differently. The date 03/04 means 3 April in France, Spain and Mexico and March 4 in the United States. Dictate a phone number, a date and an amount in each language and make the agent read each one back. A wrong callback number is a lost lead.
French callers spell letters with first names, and the lists differ: “A comme Anatole” in one, “A comme Alice” in a list published in Québec. Spanish callers use first names, as in “C de Carmen”, or place names, as in “B de Burgos”. The @ sign is “arobase” in French and “arroba” in Spanish. Give the agent a surname from another language, such as Nguyen or Fernández Gómez, and an address with a hyphen and a digit. Compare what the CRM recorded with what you said, character by character.
French has “vous” and “tu”, Spanish has “usted” and “tú”, and Argentina, Uruguay and much of Central America add “vos”. The form the agent uses is a business decision, so write it down before the call. Call the line once politely and once casually. Check whether the agent holds the form you chose and follows a caller who switches to the informal one.
Start in one language, move to the other and come back. Add one sentence that switches languages midway, like this invented example: “Quiero cambiar mi cita, but only if Thursday is free.” Decide beforehand what the line should do: follow the caller or ask which language to continue in. An agent that keeps answering in the first language and misses the question fails the test.
The handoff must reach a person who speaks that language, with what the caller already said. An agent that handles Spanish well and then transfers the call to an English-only team fails at the last step. Follow the call until a person picks up. Our article on the exit path covers when a voice agent should hand over.
The seven calls fit an AI receptionist that answers inbound calls. On AI outbound calling, the native speakers receive the calls and run the same checks.
Score every call on one scorecard
Use the same six criteria in every language and skip any that a call does not test. Score each one from zero to two points right after the call.
- The agent understood the request on the first pass or asked one short question that moved the call forward.
- The answer matched what the business says in the other languages.
- Every number, date, name and address reached the record exactly as spoken.
- The agent kept the form of address the business chose.
- After a misunderstanding, the agent asked for clarification and tried again.
- When the caller asked for a person, the call reached someone who speaks that language, with the context.
Compare the languages with each other. Flag any language that scores below the others on the same scorecard. A line that works in English and stumbles in Spanish has a weak spot in Spanish, and an average hides it. Repeat a failed call with a second speaker before you blame the language, because one call tests one accent on one line.
Questions to put to the vendor in writing
Ask these six questions in writing and keep the answers with the contract.
- Which languages, and which regional variants of each, will my line run in? Name them in the order form.
- Does a native speaker review the knowledge base, greeting and AI disclosure line in each language?
- How does the agent choose a language, and what does it do when the caller switches?
- Do I receive every call as a recording and a transcript in the language it was spoken in?
- When a caller asks for a person, which team answers in each language, and what travels with the call?
- Can I hear recordings of calls in each language I need, and learn which are real customer calls?
How Benerra handles languages
By default, speech recognition, the language model and speech synthesis all run on servers Benerra operates. The agent therefore holds the conversation in the languages we configure for each deployment.
The demo recordings on our examples page include French and Spanish calls. On your own line, every call gets a transcript by speaker and timestamp, with the audio recording, so you can audit each language yourself.
Put the six questions to Benerra
Ask Benerra for the languages of your line in writing before you sign. All six questions apply to Benerra as to any vendor.
Run the test this week
- From the country and area codes in your call log, list your callers’ regions and ask which languages each speaks.
- Find native speakers for each language and each accent, inside or outside the company.
- Write down your three facts, your form of address and your rule for mid-call switches.
- Place the seven calls, record them and score them the same day.
- Send the scores and recordings to the vendor and ask for a written plan to close each gap.
Keep the scorecard. It becomes the acceptance test for every language you add later.