Shipping bilingual call handling for Spanish-speaking customers
Mid-call language switching, accent handling, and why we stopped using a Spanish-only flow.
About 30% of inbound calls to plumbing and HVAC shops in Texas, California, Arizona, and Florida start in Spanish. Another 15% switch languages mid-sentence. Our v1 flow asked "press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish" and we hated it from the day it shipped.
What we changed
The new model listens to the first three to five seconds of the caller, picks a primary language, and is free to switch any time the caller does. No menus. No hold music. If grandma starts in Spanish and her grandson takes the phone in English halfway through describing the leak, the call just keeps going.
Where it still struggles
Heavy regional slang and very fast code-switching between three or more sentences. We're collecting examples - if you have a recording you'd let us use, we'd love it.