Question
How does Zendesk detect a language for a user in Support?
Answer
Zendesk detects the end-user's language in multiple ways. If you support multiple languages this article covers all potential situations in how the end-user's language is detected.
- How user languages are detected if the users are created by an agent
- How user languages are set if auto-detection is utilized
- What can I do if a user's language is incorrectly set?
How user languages are detected if the users are created by an agent
If an admin or agent creates a user, their language is automatically set to match the default language of your Support account. To change your default language, open Admin Center and navigate to the Localization page. Under the Localization tab, select your default language. For more information, see the article: Adding multiple languages to Zendesk Support.
How user languages are set if auto-detection is utilized
Auto language detection is only applicable to users who were not yet created in your Support account.
- Email: If an end user is not created in your Support account before submitting a ticket, then their language is automatically detected by the text contained in the body of their first email sent to your Support account. Subsequent emails or tickets won't overwrite this, even if another language is consistently used.
- Help center: An unregistered end user can select a language in the help center menu bar and submit a request from that locale. When their user is created, their language is identified with the language of the help center they were viewing upon ticket submission.
- Web widget: Zendesk can detect a user's preferred language from their web browser preference setting. The accept-language header, which is passed via HTTP, contains information about the user's language preference. If that is present, the language can be detected in the widget and set within Support. You can opt to override their browser preference by customizing your Web Widget. For more information, see the article: Advanced customization of Web Widget (Classic).
- Support SDK: If you are using the latest version of the Support SDKs, the language for new unregistered end users matches their device locale. If you don't support the device's locale, then the user's language is set to your account's default language.
- API: If the user is created through the API, the user's language is the default language of your Support instance. To select a specific language for the user, pass a locale in your API call.
- Social media: Language recognition doesn't work for social media tickets. When an end user sends a ticket from a social media platform such as Facebook Messenger, it's the default Zendesk account language that is associated with the end-user profile.
- Triggers: Triggers can also update a user's language within their profile when using the trigger action Requester: Language.
- Messaging: The user's language is detected from their web browser setting only if the browser language is enabled in Support. Variant languages will default back to the main language and main languages will not map with variant languages.
What can I do if a user's language is incorrectly set
Since the above information only sets the user language upon user creation, users' languages may be set incorrectly. Use any of the below options to resolve these errors.
- Manually change the user's language. This is done one at a time.
- Create a script using the Create or Update Many Users call in the Zendesk API.
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