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Zendesk has introduced Real-Time Voice Translation for Zendesk Contact Centre, bringing two-way translation to live customer service calls.
The tool lets customers and agents speak their preferred languages on the same call without switching channels or using a separate interpreter.
Voice remains a major part of customer service operations, accounting for 40% of contact centre volume. Language differences can make those calls harder to staff and route.
The translation feature is built into Zendesk Contact Centre rather than offered as a separate product. Agents and administrators can manage translation within existing workflows, while businesses use one workforce and one operating system across multiple languages.
For contact centres supporting several markets, recruiting multilingual staff can be difficult and costly, especially when demand for a particular language is limited or uneven across regions and time zones. That can lead to longer waiting times, extra transfers and gaps in coverage.
The product is intended to reduce reliance on language-specific queues, specialist staffing and interpreters. It also lets teams route calls by issue and agent expertise, rather than sending customers first to a dedicated language queue.
Under the setup described by Zendesk, a customer language can be assigned to a call queue or selected by an agent during the call. Agents can switch two-way translation on or off without leaving the conversation, while administrators can decide where translation is enabled and whether to retain the original audio, translated audio or both.
Operational pressure
The launch comes as contact centre operators look for ways to serve more customers without duplicating teams across languages and geographies. Businesses expanding into new markets often face a trade-off between offering voice support in local languages and maintaining efficient staffing levels when call volumes vary.
Zendesk presents the tool as a way to expand language coverage while keeping support within a single operational structure. That could lower the cost of serving multilingual customers and reduce waiting times linked to transfers or interpreter availability.
"Customers should not have to choose between speaking the language that feels most natural to them and getting the support they need," said Shashi Upadhyay, President of Product, Engineering and AI at Zendesk.
He added that voice support is especially important when an issue is urgent or sensitive. "When an issue is complex, sensitive, or urgent, people want to be understood, not routed somewhere else. Real-Time Voice Translation helps businesses make that kind of voice support available to more customers, while agents stay focused on solving the problem," Upadhyay said.
Broader context
The addition reflects a wider push across the customer service software market to use artificial intelligence in live service interactions, not only in chat and email but also in voice. While automated translation has been widely used in text-based channels, applying it to live calls raises operational questions around call flow, staffing and record retention.
Administrators will be able to control language preferences and decide how translated and original audio are stored. Those choices may matter for organisations balancing customer access with internal quality control and record-keeping requirements.
The product will first be offered to eligible users of Zendesk Contact Centre Native through a closed early access programme. The initial launch suggests Zendesk is testing adoption within its existing contact centre customer base before any broader rollout.
The move also signals the importance Zendesk places on voice within its customer service portfolio at a time when many software providers have focused heavily on AI agents and self-service tools. By targeting live multilingual calls, it is addressing one of the more labour-intensive parts of support operations.
In practical terms, the feature is designed to let a single pool of agents handle a wider range of customer conversations rather than requiring dedicated teams for each language. For companies with fluctuating demand across markets, that model could offer greater flexibility in scheduling and routing.
Zendesk said one workforce could serve more customers in more languages through a single system and set of workflows.