Multilingual Customer Service for Restaurants

A family from Germany comments on your Instagram. A tourist from Japan messages to ask if you take walk-ins. A couple from Spain leaves a Google review. Each of them reads your reply best in their own language. Here is how to give multilingual customer service as a restaurant without speaking every language, and how it works in our app.

Why reply in the guest’s language

• They understand it. A reply in your language is either skipped or pasted into a translator.
• The next visitor sees it. Travellers read reviews before they choose. A reply in their language says you welcome people like them.
• It is good manners. Two lines in their language say more than a paragraph in yours.

Doing it by hand

1. Paste the guest’s text into a translator so you know what it says.
2. Write your reply in your own language, short and specific.
3. Translate the reply into the guest’s language.
4. Translate it back and check the meaning held. Dish names and ingredients are where it usually goes wrong.

It works, but it is slow, and slow means the reply waits until tomorrow. For reviews specifically, see how to reply to reviews in another language.

How it works in SOMESimplify Pro

Guest language is part of the Pro plan, and the free trial includes it. It covers comments, direct messages and reviews:

• You read it in your language. When a guest writes in a different language from your place, the app shows you what they wrote, translated into the language your place uses.
• The draft is in their language. The suggested reply is written in the language the guest used, dish names included.
• You see what you approve. Tap under the draft to see what it means in your own language before you send.
• Nothing goes out without you. Read, edit if you like, then send.

The same rules apply as to every reply: no discount or refund unless your place has asked for it, and never a promise that a dish is free from an allergen unless your menu says so. On the Start plan, the app does not translate the guest’s text for you.

Three habits that help

• Keep it short. Less text, less to get lost in translation.
• One language per reply. Do not mix two in the same message.
• Leave names alone. Your restaurant’s name and street names stay as they are.

See everything on the features page, or read how to attract tourists to your restaurant.