Supporting global audiences in web chat

You can build an assistant that understands customer messages in any of the languages that are supported by the service. The responses from your assistant are defined by you and can be written in any language you want.

However, some of the phrases that are displayed in the web chat widget are part of the web chat itself and do not come from the assistant. By default, these hardcoded phrases are specified in English, but you can apply a different language by adding lines to the embedded web chat script.

The hardcoded phrases used by the web chat widget are specified in language pack files. The web chat provides language packs that contain translations of each English-language phrase that is used by the web chat. You can instruct the web chat to use one of these other languages files by using the instance.updateLanguagePack() method.

Likewise, the web chat applies an American English locale to content that is added by the web chat unless you specify something else. The locale setting affects how values such as dates and times are formatted.

To configure the web chat for customers outside the US, follow these steps:

1. To apply the appropriate syntax to dates and times and to use a translation of the English-language phrases, set the locale. Use the instance.updateLocale() method.

   For example, if you apply the Spanish locale (es), the web chat uses Spanish-language phrases that are listed in the es.json file, and uses the DD-MM-YYYY format for dates instead of MM-DD-YYYY.

   The locale you specify for the web chat does not impact the syntax of dates and times that are returned by the underlying skill.

2. To change only the language of the hardcoded English phrases, use the instance.updateLanguagePack() method.

   For more information, see Instance methods.

3. By default, the text direction of the page is left to right. However, if you change the direction to "right to left", the webchat maintains your configuration.