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Fin Multilanguage - Informal German

Related products:Fin & AI
  • September 12, 2023
  • 12 replies
  • 299 views

Philipp Hofmann

We are using the Fin Multilanguage Beta and I would like to provide some important feedback on the support of German language. The problem is German has two ways to address people, a formal version and an informal version. The formal version is used in B2B and more traditional interactions for example.

Thats why in most language selectors for SaaS tools you can select between German (formal) and German (Informal) to control how to address a customer. Fin Multilingual does not do this differentiation at the moment and is using the formal version only. This though is nearly inappropriate or at least "super weird" form of address for our customer group and makes Fin nearly not useable.

 

So I would like to provide this as Beta Feedback to the Product team to fix it. What would be needed is a setting to decide if Fin should answer in formal or informal German.

 

Another work around would be the possibility to provide a custom base prompt as part of the Fin profile as other AI chatbots allow to do. This would allow me to type in something like: Always remember your customers are students and you should always use informal German to address them. You can use a relaxed communication style and also do some jokes.

 

This is what really works in ChatGPT or other bots based on chatgpt to set a tone of the AI profile and also to deliver important communication info as the use of informal German. As chatGPT is a language model it can easily handle the communication correctly after this input.

 

 

12 replies

Jennifer K
Intercom Team
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  • Intercom Team
  • September 12, 2023
NewUnder review

Jennifer K
Intercom Team
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  • Intercom Team
  • September 12, 2023

Hi @Philipp Hofmann 

Jennifer here from Intercom.

Thanks so much for this feedback. I see you’ve written to us too and our product team is looking at this and said they find it extremely valuable. 🚀

Whenever we do release new features, we announce them on the Product Changes page, so I would recommend keeping an eye there. 👀


Philipp Hofmann
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • November 19, 2023

Great to see you can select now between  “German” and  “German (Formal)” @Jennifer K 

However as a feedback to your product team, switching between these options has 0 effects, Fin sticks to formal version as in the first iteration.

When I specifically ask Fin in the chat to that I would like to be addressed in informal german, it sticks for it for a few messages before switching back. I think it needs to get involved in the base prompt of the Fin that if informal is selected it is only allowed to answer in informal german.

Cheers
Philipp


  • New Participant
  • November 20, 2023

We have also specifically requested to have a setting to configure Fin to always use  “German (Formal)”. We assume that it might work if someone would set up their help centre in  “German (Formal)”, but I wonder if any of your customers have done that. Also automatic redirections based on the browser language will not work because  “German (Formal)” is a language only in the Intercom settings but not in browser settings. At the help centre level  “German (Formal)” makes little sense. As a setting at the bot level it makes more sense.


Philipp Hofmann
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • January 8, 2024

Update: No process on this issue, Fin stays not useable in most german-speaking use cases.


Dianah Tripac
Intercom Team
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  • Leading the Community @ Fin
  • January 11, 2024

Hi @Philipp Hofmann , thank you for your feedback and update 🙌  This idea is labelled as “discussion ongoing” which indicates that the idea has got comments and feedback- hence there is ongoing community discussion on that. 

The idea has already gathered 6 upvotes which is great as the top 20 most-voted ideas are shared with the internal team for review and consideration once in a few months on an ongoing basis. So the more upvotes, the higher the chances of the ideas getting in top 20 most voted 👍

I hope that helps!


Philipp Hofmann
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • February 19, 2024

Next update: Fin Multilanguage is now out of beta, but still cannot manage to differentiate between formal and informal German, although it offers it as two different language variations. It just ignores informal, and always answers in highly formal German.


Philipp Hofmann
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • April 12, 2024

Is there already an update on this one? No Informal German language is really a blocker for a big part of the German market  :/ 


Dianah Tripac
Intercom Team
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  • Leading the Community @ Fin
  • April 15, 2024

Looping @Jennifer K for un update on that 🙌


Jennifer K
Intercom Team
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  • Intercom Team
  • April 16, 2024

Hi @Philipp Hofmann 

There is no further update on this but I know our product team are working hard on tone and language with Fin so the more this is upvoted, the more likely It is to be implemented 🙌


Time for some necromancy - hope this is seen :D

 

FIN now talks to all German customers informally. Since our customers are usually 60+ years old, they would like to be adressed formally, though. (“Sehr geehrter Herr / Sehr geehrte Frau x” instead of “Hallo Marina” / “Hey Gerhard”). This, in turn, makes it almost unusable for us^^

Could you implement a choice in formal tone (with “informal” or “formal” greeting formulas)? That’d be supreme :D

 

Best wishes

Jannis


Time for some necromancy - hope this is seen :D

 

FIN now talks to all German customers informally. Since our customers are usually 60+ years old, they would like to be adressed formally, though. (“Sehr geehrter Herr / Sehr geehrte Frau x” instead of “Hallo Marina” / “Hey Gerhard”). This, in turn, makes it almost unusable for us^^

 

(Time for even more necromancy!)

Super interesting, as for us it is directly the opposite.
(We are generally using informal language with our German customers.)

Fin is switching super randomly even within conversation between formal and informal German.

Sometimes funny to read afterwards, but also confusing for customers.

Regards
Christian