However, many companies like cross-border e-commerce and foreign trade companies, face a significant challenge: WhatsApp lacks a native real-time translation feature or a convenient one-click translation function like WeChat. When dealing with customers who speak less common languages, customer service teams often resort to external translation tools, manually copying messages back and forth. This cumbersome process slows response times and risks losing potential customers.
This article will explore how to enable real-time translation on WhatsApp, empowering customer service teams to communicate seamlessly with clients in any language, breaking down language barriers for smoother interactions.
What are the benefits of WhatsApp real-time translation?
1. Instant and seamless conversation
Unlike traditional methods requiring text to be copied and pasted into a translation tool, real-time translation allows instant interpretation of messages directly in the WhatsApp chat window. This makes conversations more fluid and efficient.
2. Expand multilingual markets
Real-time translation allows businesses to venture into new markets by letting their customer service teams communicate with clients worldwide in their native languages. This ability significantly improves the customer experience and helps companies gain a foothold in diverse linguistic regions.
3. Reduce the need to hire multilingual customer service staff
For many companies, the customer demand in some minority language markets may be small and not stable enough, so there is no need to hire minority language customers for a long time. However, companies still occasionally receive inquiries from customers in these markets. At this time, real-time communication can be achieved through the WhatsApp real-time translation function, without the need to recruit additional minority language customer service staff, thus reducing the company's labor costs.
For smaller or unstable markets where hiring dedicated multilingual staff isn’t feasible, real-time translation offers a cost-effective alternative. Businesses can respond to occasional inquiries in minority languages without the overhead of recruiting additional staff.
How to implement real-time translation on WhatsApp?
1. SaleSmartly: A Comprehensive Real-Time Translation Tool
SaleSmartly supports real-time translation in 134 languages and the following two translation modes:
- WhatsApp real-time online translation: SaleSmartly can automatically identify the customer's language. As long as the online translation function is turned on, when the customer sends a message on WhatsApp, you can receive the real-time translation message in the SaleSmartly.
At the same time, SaleSmartly has a powerful function. After turning on SaleSmartly 's real-time translation, the information you reply to the customer will be automatically translated into the customer's language, allowing you to communicate with the customer as if you were speaking their native language.
How to do it:
①Integrate WhatsApp account into SaleSmartly.
②Open any WhatsApp conversation and click [ Start Live Translation ] at the top of the chat page to turn on WhatsApp real-time online translation.
- WhatsApp local free translation (desktop only): After downloading the SaleSmartly desktop version, you can use SaleSmartly's free translation function for free. This function does not deduct the translation character quota, but it can only translate the messages sent by customers, and cannot automatically translate your language into the customer's language.
How to do it:
For detailed steps on free local translation on WhatsApp, please refer to this article: To help conversational commerce, SaleSmartly real-time translation is now free to use!
2. Other common WhatsApp translation methods
There are not many products that can truly realize the real-time translation function of WhatsApp. The following will introduce several common WhatsApp translation methods that cannot meet the real-time translation function.
(1) Use translation tools to translate WhatsApp
This is the simplest and most traditional way. You can use tools such as Google or Deepl Translation to copy and paste the customer's message into the translation software to complete the translation. However, this method requires translating WhatsApp messages one by one, which is a cumbersome process and inefficient.
(2) Using ChatGPT for WhatsApp translation
ChatGPT has a relatively good colloquial effect when translating, and is particularly suitable for conversation scenarios that require natural expression. It can not only translate customers' WhatsApp messages, but users can also let ChatGPT automatically generate a translated reply based on the content. However, for complex answers involving detailed product information, users still need to organize their own language and translate before sending.
(3) Use the Android's screen recognition translation (mobile phones only)
Most Android phones support the screen recognition and translation function. The screen recognition and translation functions of different Android phones are called differently. Such as Huawei's “Smart Screen Recognition” and Xiaomi's “MIUI Full Translation” or OPPO's “Smart Identification”.
Operation steps: Taking Huawei mobile phones as an example, users only need to press and hold the screen with two fingers and click [Translate] at the bottom of the screen to translate the page content. The operation methods of other brands of mobile phones are similar, and you can try according to your own device settings.
(4) Use Google Translate's tap-to-translate (only available on mobile devices)
After downloading Google Translate, go to [Settings] - [Tap to Translate] - turn on all page permission switches. At this time, a floating Google Translate window will appear on the WhatsApp page.
Operation steps: Enter any WhatsApp chat box, long press the WhatsApp message - click [︙] in the upper right corner - [Copy] - click the Google Translate floating window, and you can see that Google Translate will automatically translate the copied WhatsApp message.
These common WhatsApp translation methods can only translate messages sent by customers, but cannot automatically translate replies into the customer's language. If you need to achieve two-way translation and keep the conversation smooth, it is recommended to use a professional real-time translation tool.
Benefits of SaleSmartly's real-time translation feature
1. Real-time two-way translation
Among the tools mentioned above, SaleSmartly is the only platform that can realize the real-time translation function of WhatsApp. It can not only automatically translate the WhatsApp messages sent by customers, but also translate the reply messages into the language used by customers in real time, truly realizing the high efficiency of two-way real-time translation.
2. Support translation of information from multiple WhatsApp accounts
Other tools can only translate messages received by one WhatsApp account in a short period of time, but SaleSmartly supports the integration of multiple WhatsApp accounts. This means that you can view and translate customer messages received by multiple WhatsApp accounts on one platform. You can process messages from each account efficiently.
3. Automatically recommend answers for translation
Compared with the traditional method of manually inputting content before translating WhatsApp messages, SaleSmartly supports you to configure your own AI corpus related to your company's products. You can click [Recommended Answer] after the customer sends a WhatsApp message, and then directly select [Translate and Send] after confirmation, so that you can quickly complete the reply and ensure the professionalism of the reply content.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free real-time translation tool for WhatsApp?
SaleSmartly provides 10,000 characters of free WhatsApp real-time translation quota per month. You can use WhatsApp real-time translation for free within 10,000 characters. If you need more characters, you can purchase a paid package to get a higher real-time translation quota.
Is it possible to implement real-time translation directly on WhatsApp?
Currently, WhatsApp itself does not have a built-in translation function. To achieve translation, you can only use translation software or third-party platforms.
Further reading
How to operate private domain through WhatsApp? (salesmartly.com)
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