Answering the phone in Punjabi, Mandarin, Tagalog and more: why language matters
In the 2021 Census, 4.6 million people in Canada (12.7%) said they mostly speak a language other than English or French at home. Mandarin (about 531,000) and Punjabi (about 520,000) lead, followed by Cantonese and Spanish, with strong growth in Arabic and Tagalog (Statistics Canada).
Why it matters on the phone more than anywhere
Reading a menu or a website in a second language is manageable. A phone call isn't: there's no time to look up a word, background noise is high, and people who feel misunderstood hang up. For a grandmother ordering dinner, a homeowner with a leak, or a patient booking a visit, being answered in their own language is the difference between a customer and a hang-up.
What good multilingual answering looks like
- It follows the caller. The greeting is in your main language; after that, it answers in whatever language the caller speaks, and switches when they do.
- It handles mixed speech. Many callers mix languages, like Punjabi with English food words. That shouldn't flip the conversation into English.
- It says names the local way. Dishes, streets and names pronounced the way a local would.
- Everything written stays clear for your staff. Orders, jobs and appointments land on your screen in English, whatever language the call was in.
Where it pays off most
Restaurants in Brampton, Surrey, Scarborough or Markham; trades serving multilingual neighbourhoods; family practices whose patients are more comfortable in their first language. It also helps with French-speaking callers across the country.
Try it yourself
The best test is a real call: our demo lines answer in more than 30 languages. Leave your number on our home page, and we will call you back and put the AI on the line, then speak to it in your own language.