Speaking your customers' language matters. In multilingual countries such as Switzerland, Belgium or Canada, an automated message in the wrong language can hurt your brand image. This guide explains how to target your customers' language in these markets.
Filter on customer locale: the language Shopify saved for the customer. Kanal reads the language of the order or cart, otherwise the one on the Shopify customer record. This condition is available on the Post Purchase (shown as "Order created" on the node), Abandoned Cart and Shipment Update triggers.
Phone number country: the country of the number's country code. It is a country, not a language: a Swiss number (+41) can belong to a French, German or Italian speaker.
For Switzerland, Belgium or Canada, route your messages with the Filter on customer locale condition. If you also want to handle one country separately (for example for different delivery terms), add a node on the phone number country first. The language can be missing: always plan a default language.
See also Managing Multiple Languages in Automations.
After the trigger (for example Post Purchase), click Add an Action and select Conditions.
Condition: Phone number country, operator Is, value Switzerland.
No, conditions are not met output: connect it to your usual chain or to your default template.
If you do not need to tell countries apart, go straight to step 2, right after the trigger.
On the Yes, conditions are met output (or after the trigger), add a Conditions node: Filter on customer locale, operator Is, value German.
Yes output: connect your German template.
No output: add a Conditions node Filter on customer locale Is Italian. On its Yes output, connect your Italian template. On its No output, connect your French template, which serves as the default language for your Swiss customers.
Always plan a way out for customers whose language matches none of your conditions, or whose language is missing. On the last node of each chain, connect the No output to a template in the default language. This way, no customer misses their order or delivery information.
Trigger: Post Purchase (Order created).
Condition 1 (optional): Phone number country Is Switzerland?
No: usual chain or default template.
Yes: go to condition 2.
Condition 2: Filter on customer locale Is German?
Yes: German message.
No: go to condition 3.
Condition 3: Filter on customer locale Is Italian?
Yes: Italian message.
No: French message (default language for Switzerland).
The same method works for Belgium (French, Dutch) and Canada (English, French).
Once your French template is ready, select its nodes in the editor and use Duplicate and translate: Kanal copies the nodes and translates their content with AI. The new nodes are created as drafts: review the translations before turning the flow on.
