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 in Support 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, visit Admin (
) > Settings > Account. 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
This is only applicable to users who were not yet created in your Support account.
- Email detection: 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 don't overwrite the end-user's language, even if another language is consistently used. Manually set their language to resolve this.
- Help Center: When an unregistered end user selects a language in the Help Center menu bar and submits a request from that language, their user is created and their language is identified with the language of the Help Center they were viewing upon ticket submission. However, you can manually set their language if this is their preferred language.
- 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 upon user creation and sets the language accordingly (as long as you have the language added to your Support account). You can opt to override their browser preference by customizing your Web Widget. For more information, see Advanced customization of your Web Widget.
- 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 like Facebook Messenger, it's the default Zendesk account language that will be associated with the end-user profile.
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 following 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.
18 Comments
Hello Danielle,
This is very useful content to understand the languages in Support.
I have a question regarding User's language and Additional Languages could you please help me to understand that.
As we can see that there are 60+ languages in Setting->Account->Localization BUT those all language are not listed while editing a user's language.
Is there any reason for that or some steps we need to follow to show all languages in user edit section.
Example: Suppose we have to set Arabic language(not listed) for a user/agent, how could we achieve that in support?
Thanks in advance
Hi Danielle, I got my answer here
Language codes for Zendesk-supported languages
List Locales for Agent
Thanks anyways
Is it possible to set the users language when submitting a ticket via API?
Hi Ed!
I'm by no means an API expert, so I'm not sure whether you'd be able to actually do it at the exact time that a ticket is created via API, but there's a User endpoint, locale_id, that sets the User's language. So if you can incorporate that into the API call, that should get you taken care of!
Hi, can't an end-user change his/her user language via Zendesk Guide?
I would imagine that they would be able to change it via "Edit my setting"
Can it be that only agents can change an end-users language via the Zendesk Support interface or am I missing something?
Our Zendesk Support and Guide is currently setup to support Danish and English
End-users can change their language in Zendesk Guide.
You can try/verify it in this community.
Just change your Zendesk Guide language > logout > log back in, it's the new language that's your default.
We do not use community. it isn't enabled, only guide/helpcenter
I can change i which language I want guide/helpcenter displayed in but that doesn't seem to change the language of the end-user in support. This means that my auto-reply triggers and automations answer the customer in the wrong language and my agents have to wast time change it instead of the end-user being able to
Hey Alex,
You shouldn't need the Community feature to be active to see this language option. If the user navigates to your Guide page they should see the option to change the language either at the top of the page or in the footer. This would depend on how you've customized your Guide theme if you've made any changes. If you have dynamic content set up and you alter the language in the user's profile within Support, the appropriate language should show up for the end-user.
Hope this helps!
Hi Brett and others. My problems is this. Once an end-users language has been set to e.g. danish in Zendesk Support. then the end-user can't change that language setting them-self via their login to guide.
Switching the language in the header/footer only changes the display language i guide/community. It doesn't change the language setting on the user in support.
It's fin that i can reset all users but that shouldn't be necessary. I just want to enable the end-user to change his or his language them-self.
Hey Alex,
To the best of my knowledge, it's simply not possible for the end-user to change the profile language from the frontend of the HelpCenter.
I'd advise you to create a post about it in the Guide Product Feedback topic - I'l will for sure upvote it as it seems weird that's not possible. :-)
#helpsome regards,
Simon Blouner
Zendesk Consultant @ helphouse.io
Hi there,
It seems like it's possible to have your Help Center support more or different languages than your Zendesk Ticketing instance. I'm wondering if a customer were to select a language setting on the Help Center that is not available in the Support instance, what would happen when creating a new ticket?
Example: Customer views Help Center in English (GB), and submits a support request, but Zendesk Support does not have English (GB) as a supported language.
Hey Crawford,
Every Support account will have a default language. If the user with an unsupported language submits a request, the default language you've set up under Admin>Settings>Account>Localization will be used instead.
Let me know if the above doesn't make sense :)
Hello Zendesk,
I am looking for a way to reset the customers language in order to be detected again. How can this be done.
>Opt to reset all end-users' languages. is offering a dead link ... :-(
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002724767
Thanks
Hello Klaus Klinsmann,
As our base product stands, this isn't possible since when auto-detect identifies a user's language and sets, it will stop trying to auto-detect it. I would recommend posting in our product feedback forums so our developers can consider this change for future updates.
Also, thank you for letting us know about the broken link in our Community. I'll be taking care of it right away.
Best regards.
Hey, I am trying to use the link at the bottom of the article to find out how to reset all end-users' languages, but it doesn't allow me access. This is exactly what we need, as we recently set our System language, but all users in the system before this still have their language set incorrectly.
I don't want to have to go to each user & change the setting individually!
Hello Peter Williams
Unfortunately, that link leads you to an archived article. The article explained that you could reset end users' language by bulk uploading those users. However, the information described in that article wasn't accurate because bulk importing users doesn't update languages.
What you can do is having the right team of your company creating a script using the Create or Update Many Users call via API and change the language of your users.
I am going to update the article now. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Hi Ricardo,
You are saying that you can change the language if are using the API "Create or Update Many Users call". My concern is if it is possible to reset the language? With that I mean there is no language set until the customer emails us the next time and the language is then recognized by automatic email detection?
Thanks!
Jesper
Hello Jesper Sperrle. Apologies for the delay. Your reply got lost in my email notifications. To answer your question, I just tried to reset the language of an end user in the interface and then send an email in a different language than English and the UI automatically recognized that language. Having this said, you can do the same through the API.
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